artificial intelligence

Bridging Science, Engineering, and Policy: Lessons from the AMS Climate Policy Colloquium

Group photo of Climate Policy Colloquium alumni

By Dr. Michael Akinwumi, Chief AI Officer, National Fair Housing Alliance and 2024 Rita Allen Civic Science Fellow, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University

Note: This is a guest blog post; it represents the views of the author alone and not the American Meteorological Society or the AMS Policy Program. The AMS Policy Colloquia are non-partisan and non-prescriptive, and promote understanding of the U.S. federal policy process, not any particular viewpoint(s).

It’s not every day that a scientist or engineer finds themselves negotiating amendments to a bill in a mock Senate committee markup. Yet there I was — role-playing a U.S. Senator — debating, bargaining, and defending amendments in the name of my constituents.1 My participation in the 2024 Climate Policy Colloquium was more than just a dive into legislative mechanics; it was a front-row seat to how policy is made, influenced, and transformed through interdisciplinary collaboration.

Science, Policy, and the Power of Influence

Coming from a STEM background, I had always viewed policy as an abstract force that shaped society. But experiencing the policy-making process firsthand changed my perspective. I walked away with a new appreciation for the intricate mix of negotiation, strategic compromise, and power dynamics that make legislation possible.

For one week, I lived the life of a policymaker — participating in discussions about federal budgeting, the role of congressional staff, and the legislative process. I learned that policy isn’t just about data and logic; it’s about influence, coalition-building, and understanding the human factors that drive decision-making.

Take, for example, our mock legislative exercise on the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2023 (H.R. 5744). Working with my dedicated team as a U.S. Senator, we crafted first- and second-degree amendments that required balancing the interests of our assigned state (West Virginia) with broader policy goals.

As our team navigated the committee markup process, I found myself drawing unexpected parallels between climate policy negotiations and the current discourse surrounding AI infrastructure development. Just as West Virginia grapples with transitioning from traditional energy sources while protecting local interests, communities today face similar challenges with the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure — particularly with projects like Stargate and the proliferation of data centers.2

This experience underscored a critical lesson: science and engineering expertise are invaluable in shaping effective policy, but technical knowledge alone won’t move legislation. It takes communication skills and interdisciplinary collaboration.

The moment during the legislative exercise when many other “Senators” came together to negotiate. Photo: Isabella Herrera, AMS staff.

AI Infrastructure, Housing, and the Environment

I couldn’t help but connect these policy lessons to one of today’s most pressing issues: the intersection of AI infrastructure, housing affordability, and environmental justice. AI-driven economic shifts are reshaping real estate markets, and increasing housing opportunity costs.

Massive investments in AI infrastructure — particularly data centers — are leading to skyrocketing electricity demand, land acquisition for server farms, and water usage concerns. This has direct implications for housing and the environment. In cities where these data centers are being developed, the influx of high-tech investments could exacerbate existing crises unless our elected representatives rally behind legislative efforts addressing displacement and environmental impact.

We need policies that effectively balance technological advancement with equity and sustainability. This requires voices from both the STEM and policy communities.

Why Interdisciplinary Training Matters

The biggest takeaway from my experience at the Climate Policy Colloquium is that interdisciplinary training is essential for scientists, engineers, and policymakers alike. Scientists and engineers must understand the policy-making process to effectively advocate for evidence-based policies. At the same time, policymakers need a foundational understanding of science and engineering to craft legislation that is both technically sound and socially equitable.

Institutions like the AMS Climate Policy Colloquium provide a crucial bridge, equipping STEM professionals with the tools to engage in policy and governance. If we want to build an AI-powered future that is just, sustainable, and equitable, we need more STEM professionals stepping into policy spaces — and more policymakers willing to collaborate with scientists and engineers.

Board the Flight

If you are a scientist or engineer curious about policy-making, or a policymaker eager to better understand the technical dimensions of emerging challenges, I encourage you to seek out interdisciplinary training opportunities. Attend policy workshops, engage with legislators, and contribute your expertise to policy discussions.

For my fellow scientists considering involvement in policy: the path from quantitative analysis to legislative negotiation may seem daunting, but it’s essential. Policymaking isn’t just for career politicians. It’s for anyone who wants to shape the future — and that includes us, the scientists and engineers.

Many thanks to the Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rita Allen Foundation, and National Fair Housing Alliance for supporting my participation in the training. I also want to acknowledge the amazing colleagues that worked with me as congressional staff during the colloquium.

1 During the in-person week of the AMS Policy Colloquia, participants conduct a mock Senate committee markup and vote on the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act of 2023 (H.R. 5744). The goal of this legislative exercise is to put attendees in the shoes of a U.S. senator to gain first hand experience with the integration of politics, policy, and procedure.

2 OpenAI, “Announcing the Stargate Project,” OpenAI Blog, January 21, 2025.

Photo at top: Alumni of the first ever AMS Climate Policy Colloquium. Photo: Isabella Herrera, AMS staff.

About the AMS Science Policy Colloquium

The AMS Climate Policy Colloquium is an intensive and non-partisan introduction to the United States federal policy process for scientists and practitioners; participants meet with congressional staff, officials from the executive office, and leaders from executive branch agencies. Attendees gain insight into the United States policy-making process and the climate policy landscape, explore emerging challenges and opportunities in climate science and policy, and examine the inner workings of government agencies working at the interface of science and policy.

Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month Spotlight: Dr. Maria J. Molina

In recognition of National Hispanic Heritage Month (15 September-15 October), the American Meteorological Society is spotlighting the amazing careers and contributions of a few of our Latinx/Hispanic community members. 

This week, we hear from Dr. Maria J. Molina!

What is your current work? Can you tell us a bit about it?

I am currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland in College Park. One of my favorite parts of my job includes conducting research with graduate and undergraduate students, where we use machine learning to answer questions we have about weather and climate. I also get to teach courses like Physical Meteorology and Neural Networks for the Physical Sciences, both of which are really fun!

What was an important moment in your early career?

My years spent at the National Center for Atmospheric Research as an Advanced Study Program (ASP) postdoc and a project scientist were critically important for my career. During my time there, I gained confidence in myself as a scientist through the realization that it’s totally fine to not know things, and that we can always learn and grow at any age. I was able to see world-class scientists say, “I don’t know how to do that,” and then ask others for help, building professional collaborations and learning along the way. This is such a rewarding part of being a scientist; plus, it makes for a much more inclusive work environment.

What is something you’re proud of professionally?

By far, the professional experience I am most proud of is seeing students grow as researchers and critical thinkers. It is immensely rewarding when students start resolving their own software and methodology hurdles, and start coming up with research questions and ways to answer them on their own.

Are there ways in which your Hispanic/Latinx heritage has influenced or enriched your career?

Most definitely. As a Hispanic/Latinx immigrant that experienced extreme weather events growing up in South Florida, I empathize with vulnerable communities that experience extreme weather, oftentimes having to navigate complex decisions with language and cultural barriers. It has helped me appreciate the work done by social scientists and keep the human component of the Earth systems in mind as I conduct my research.

Learn more about Dr. Molina here.

How is Weather Research Changing?

A 2024 AMS Summer Community Meeting highlight

The AMS Summer Community Meeting (SCM) drew exceptional attendance and engagement this year as people across sectors helped inform a major upcoming report on the Weather Enterprise. The AMS Weather Enterprise Study will provide a comprehensive picture of the shifting landscape of weather-related fields to inform our joint future. At the 2024 SCM, working groups discussed what they’d found about key issues facing the enterprise, and asked for feedback from the community. 

Here are a few takeaways from the Research Enterprise working group, as reported by Daniel Rothenberg of Brightband.

Photo courtesy of Daniel Rothenberg.

How has the weather research landscape shifted in the last decade or so?

Two of the most important shifts have been a movement of exploratory and applied research from the public to the private sector, and the rise in importance of “data science” and other hybrid roles blending a mixture of domain expertise and broader engineering and technical skills. 

Possibly the biggest example of these shifts coming together has been the advent of AI-based weather forecasting tools, although it also shows in trends such as the rise of private companies operating earth observation platforms.

What were the principal themes that came out of your working group’s discussions?

One major theme we discussed was the balance of responsibilities across the traditional weather enterprise. Initiatives such as building and launching satellite constellations or developing new weather models were at one point solely within the remit of the public sector (due to complexity and cost), but are now commonly undertaken by the private sector – sometimes even at start-up companies.

This re-balancing opens as many opportunities as it does challenges, and leads to another major theme: how we can best prepare for the workforce needs of today and tomorrow. Meteorologists will increasingly need to apply technical skills such as software development and data science alongside ones from the social sciences; preparing our current and future workforce for these demands will be a challenge in its own right.

A third major theme is that the weather enterprise is getting bigger. We’re not just a community of meteorologists anymore. Increasingly, critical work related to weather, water, climate, and their impacts on society is being undertaken beyond the traditional boundaries of our enterprise. There is a significant opportunity to improve society’s resilience if we as a community are able to build relationships with the new institutions working on these issues in a collaborative, interdisciplinary manner.

What are the main challenges you have identified?

Better accounting for how we ought to invest limited – and declining – federal resources will be a significant and contentious challenge, only complicated by the shifts in priorities and capabilities across the enterprise.

Those shifts motivate a second key challenge, which is clarifying who in the enterprise is accountable for, or has ownership over, certain areas. For example, NOAA makes available nearly all of the observations used in its operational forecast models, with some exceptions for proprietary data from commercial entities. But as more private companies try to sell data to NOAA, how will this balance hold? What if those private companies move towards selling actual weather modeling capabilities or services – perhaps a proprietary AI-based weather model – to the government? In the case of expanding commercial data purchases, who is responsible for maintaining and improving our data assimilation capabilities? 

Coordinating many actors across the enterprise, in a manner that most effectively serves our mission to society, will be a key challenge we must navigate in the coming years.

What preliminary recommendations or future directions have you discussed?

Our tentative recommendations revolve around building robustness. We encourage academic organizations who train our future meteorologists to consider how to prepare these students to work in a multidisciplinary capacity, and to embrace data science skills. Not everyone needs to be an interdisciplinary scientist, but it’s vital that our students learn how to apply their deep domain knowledge as part of a team of such individuals.

We also acknowledge that the rise of AI/ML techniques is changing the demands of our computing and data infrastructure. Not only must our workforce learn to adapt to these technologies, but we must consider how the enterprise will support enabling them: for example, by ensuring that in addition to large, traditional high-performance computing resources, we provide access to GPUs and similar tools. As part of this re-evaluation, we must evolve the ways in which we as a community define our priorities for federal research funding

What did you hear from the community at the SCM?

We thank the community for the warm reception to our assessments at the Summer Community Meeting. Many of the themes we touched on – the re-balancing of capabilities across the enterprise, the emergence of AI/ML and its implications, as well as core workforce development concerns – were echoed across many other working groups, underscoring their importance.

Within our group, we also discussed the growing importance of convergence science, which was echoed several times throughout the meeting. Convergence science, which involves coordinating diverse, interdisciplinary research teams with real stakeholders to solve societally relevant problems, is likely to be an important mechanism of translational research in the future, but we (and others at the meeting) identified a need for federal agencies to devote more resources earmarked for this sort of work in order to complement traditional, siloed funding programs.

Want to join a Weather Enterprise Study working group? Email [email protected].

About the Weather Enterprise Study

The AMS Policy Program, working closely with the volunteer leadership of the Commission on the Weather, Water, and Climate Enterprise, is conducting a two-year effort (2023-2025) to assess how well the weather enterprise is performing, and to potentially develop new recommendations for how it might serve the public even better. Learn more here, give us your input via Google Forms, or get involved by contacting [email protected].  

About the AMS Summer Community Meeting

The AMS Summer Community Meeting (SCM) is a special time for professionals from academia, industry, government, and NGOs to come together to discuss broader strategic priorities, identify challenges to be addressed and opportunities to collaborate, and share points of view on pressing topics. The SCM provides a unique, informal setting for constructive deliberation of current issues and development of a shared vision for the future. The 2024 Summer Community Meeting took place August 5-6 in Washington, DC, and focused special attention on the Weather Enterprise, with opportunities for the entire community to learn about, discuss, debate, and extend some of the preliminary findings coming from the AMS Weather Enterprise Study.