The Way I See
It
Summer intern
in D.C. hopes to effect change outside the lab

BY RAHUL REKHI
Special to
Rice News

There’s
something intrinsically blasphemous about discussing the seminal musical
compositions of Rebecca Black in the Roosevelt Room. But then again, before meeting Ben
Rhodes, Rice Owl-turned-deputy national security adviser for President Barack Obama,
we had a few minutes. And it was there, a mere five feet from the Oval Office,
that quiet, nervous small talk took hold of the room — an anxious buzz of
anticipation in the wake of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

	Baker Institute for Public Policy Summer in D.C. Policy Research interns met Rice alum Ben Rhodes ’00, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, at the White House. Back row, from left: Sailesh Prabhu, Matt Carey, Neeraj Salhotra, Joe Pullano, Chajin Wu and Mark Seryadarian. Front row, from left: Tawfik Jarjour, Ellory Matzner, Becca Jaffee, Ben Rhodes, Rahul Rekhi and Benjamin Chou. Not pictured: Benjamin Brookstone.

Of course, for the 12 of us —
this year’s Baker Institute for Public Policy Summer in D.C. Policy Research
interns — such esteemed encounters have hardly been unique endeavors. For
instance, just the week before, an event at the Brookings Institute featured
former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, National Institutes
of Health Director Francis Collins, White House Chief Technology Officer Aneesh
Chopra and Human Genome Project founder Eric Lander, among others. Several of
the interns — including myself — met, shook hands and chatted with each and
every one of the aforementioned, gleaning both policy insight and life advice.
For us, this was tantamount to running into Lady Gaga backstage at a concert or
getting a chance to shoot some hoops with LeBron James. Star-struck doesn’t
begin to describe it.

Along with our political
celebrity run-ins came an appreciation for just how much of a presence Rice has
in the District of Columbia. Our university may not churn out many alums —
oversized football stadium notwithstanding — but it is clear that countless
members of the Owl family, Rhodes included, have come to spread their wings in
Washington. And it’s not just previous students who have great influence inside
the Beltway. Indeed, former Dean of Engineering Sallie Keller, who is now the
director of the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI), personally
offered the engineers of the group an opportunity to come up to STPI and get a
feel for the kind of important work in which it engages — namely, to support
and guide the nation’s intricate science research-and-development directives on
the federal level.

On a more personal level, the
summer has given me (a bioengineer) a chance to do what so few in the field
can: that is, make an impact outside of the lab and effect change in the public
sphere. Given the increasing complexity of policy dilemmas, it is becoming ever
more crucial for scientists and engineers to lend their voices to this nation’s
political debates. After all, many decisions are now predicated on “