 We'll be discussing a whole range of topics going from policy all the way to science and her experience of working in the Senate. So without further ado, here's Christina. Hey, Christina, how are you doing today? Very well, thanks considering the circumstances. I am a recent transplant to Boulder from Washington, DC. So I've been adapting to my new home and I'm very fortunate to be healthy and have my family be healthy. And I'm really excited to be here today to chat with you. Thank you for having me and how are you doing? I'm doing great. It's too bad that we couldn't do this in person, considering we're only like 20 minutes away from each other. But you know, due to current situation, I think we're doing the right thing and the responsible thing for doing this virtually. But maybe in the near future, when things calm down, we can do a follow-up together. Absolutely, that would be lovely. I'm really excited for this interview because one of my passions beyond entrepreneurship is policy and governance. And when I had our first introductory call, I was really eager to have this conversation with our audience so they can benefit from your vast experience with policy. So without further ado, let's jump into it and find out who Christina is. So you're a policy fellow, but you're also an expert in optics and lasers, which I find fascinating. So let's unpack this all and start off with your academic background and your research background. Sure thing. So I started out studying physics as an undergrad at Wellesley College. And then for about a year, I went to Japan to work at a national laboratory. And so here in Boulder, we have NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technologies. I was at the Japanese equivalent to that type of laboratory, working on a laser system and a metrology project, which metrology is the study of measurements and using lasers to measure very precise things. From there, I went on to graduate school to study optics, which is the science of light. And at graduate school at College of Optics at the University of Central Florida, I worked on high power laser development. And then from there, I worked in industry for several years after graduating, working on aerospace applications of lasers. So out of the declassified stuff, what can you share with us about your research? Sure thing. So for my dissertation project, I worked on a laser system that was temporarily tailorable, meaning that the pulses coming out of the lasers, you could tailor them to different shapes and then amplify them to a high level of energy. So if you wanted to, say, make a plasma or machine and material or weld something, you could optimize the pulse shape for that specific application. So it was a tailorable laser system per application. So Christina, how was that transition between academics and going into industry? It was really interesting. So I actually worked in industry for about four years after graduating at two different government contractors. The first one, Vision Engineering Solutions, which is located in Florida, focused on laser tracking and imaging of rocket launches, mostly from Merit Island. So shooting lasers at the item being launched to take measurements and get images of it. And then my second job, FiberTech in Herndon, Virginia, they focused more on laser systems to put on the thing that flies. So put it on an airplane to take a topological map of something or put it on a satellite and you can measure aspects of seawater or the heights of the polarized caps, those sorts of things. So not like the Star Wars project where they have space lasers or anything, right? Well, I mean, FiberTech does build space lasers. They have lasers in space, but they're all for scientific measurements, not trying to shoot those out of the sky. So not Dr. Evil's sharks with laser beams on their foreheads? From there though, after about four years in industry, my career takes a little bit of a twist. And that is when in 2017, my spouse and I decided to leave our jobs and go on extended travel. And so we packed up big backpacks and we left the country for about 18 months and visited 30 countries on six continents. So I have not been to Antarctica yet, but that's, you know, coronavirus allowing eventually. But your lasers were used to measure the ice cap, so kind of you were there. Sort of, yes. We'll count it. And so while we were traveling is when I decided to apply for a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship, which is administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. And that is a program that takes scientists such as myself and puts them into government offices to learn about how policy is made and how government works, but then also to use our technical skills to help create data driven policy. So sort of benefiting in both directions. It's a really wonderful program. And I was incredibly honored to be selected. I was sponsored by two optical professional societies. And optics, I should say, is the science of light, if I didn't mention that already. And so OSA and SPI, those two societies for my sponsors, and I got to spend a year working on a Senate subcommittee. So it's really amazing experience. So Christina, how did you get into optics and lasers? Well, that is a really funny question because the answer is actually kind of embarrassing. So there is a 1980s classic, montages, and everything called real genius, which actually follows the adventure of a teenage boy who goes to college early. And it's a spoof of Caltech, and he gets pulled into a high power laser development project. And it was my favorite movie starting about the age of 12. And I've easily seen it over 100 times. But irony is, is that I didn't realize that it had so powerfully influenced my career aspirations until I got to graduate school and was doing high power laser development. And then I finally put one in one together. So it's, yeah, it's a little silly, but 1980s cinema is why I became a laser scientist. Okay, God. That is so cool. Too bad they didn't have a little girl in that position rather than a boy, because, you know. Yeah, we're making progress, but science is still very male dominated, whether it's represented in the media or in reality. So Christina, you're also an author. I'd love to learn more about what you wrote. Sure thing. So my book is titled sustainable networking for scientists and engineers. And the principle why it's called sustainable networking is the idea of treating professional guidance and assistance and support as a resource. And like any resource, it can be consumed and it can be created. And so if you lead with generosity, and you try and create more of that resource than you are consuming, you're going to help to contribute to sort of a virtuous cycle of success where you help your network connections. They become more successful. As your network becomes more successful, it becomes an even greater resource to help you succeed in your career. And it is for, it is written for a scientific audience specifically because that audience tends to be a little skeptical. Both in terms of networking, what is it? How do I do it? Is it actually important for me to engage in networking? And also in terms of I want to see evidence to support the claims that you're making. So the book itself is actually full of references to peer reviewed research. I did add, I study a lot of psychology in the process of writing the book. And I've actually got a copy here I could show you. Oh, is it blurry? There we go. Oh, they're censoring you. There we go. There we go. My face did not blur it. So this is actually available from SPIE. The electronic version is free if anyone wants to download it. That's a great resource. We'll put a link in our description. Fantastic. Yeah, that's real. I thought it was fascinating when you, when I first learned that you wrote a book about networking, because one of my first chapters of my book is called Talking, which is all about networking. I've had so many amazing opportunities come through my life because of networking. So the fact that you took the time to do the actual research behind it, I didn't, I just talked about anecdotal stuff. But the fact that you have done that research and are making the ebook free, I think that's a huge resource. So thank you from everyone for that opportunity to learn. Absolutely. And I like to think that even though this book was originally intended for an international STEM audience, it has a lot of principles that are useful no matter what your background or career is in. Absolutely. I think networking is key. And I also love the fact that it's kind of like good karma, right? I mean, you know, you foster and you like help others. And then in hopefully it just comes full circle and helps you out, right? Absolutely. So Christina, I'm sure you saw a lot of networking when you were in the Senate. I'm sure there was a lot of wheeling and dealing. And it's all about who you know and what kind of relationships you can build. I'd love to learn about that kind of environment. Sure thing. So yes, something that was a really stark difference for me coming from industry to policy was how many people I interacted with on a daily basis or on a particular project. So in industry, typically we had a customer. I had my project manager and maybe I had a technician. And the only I only really worked with my project manager and technician on a daily basis. So there's two people. So you go to policy to Capitol Hill working on developing a piece of legislation. And there are tons of subject matter experts to discuss specifics with at the Congressional Research Service. There's legislative council who helps in developing the legislation to a proper format and proper wording. There are all kinds of stakeholders, special interest groups, federal agencies. And then there's all the people in my office that I work with and collaborate with. And then there's the people in the other offices that we collaborate and work with. And so you're going from two to dozens of people that I was working with. And so in that environment where you're dealing with people so much more, networking is a very, is deeply part of the culture and how things get done because the pace of things that happens on Capitol Hill is rapid fire on certain things. And sometimes you have a question and you have a tight deadline and how do you get a really good answer? Well, you know who to reach out to in their network to ask them that question. And the thing that's also really interesting for me is, because networking is such a part of the culture, something called the informational interview is much more common in a policy space than it was for me in an industry space. And the informational interview is a meeting without an agenda or an action item where, you know, pre pandemic, we would sit down over a cup of coffee and just get to know the person, you know, what is what is their background? Where are they from? What's their portfolio? What are they working on? Who are they working for? What is their members priorities right now? And these meetings are really important because you don't necessarily know, you know, what project I'm working on right now may not involve them, but sometime down the line, it may, this person may be the right person to reach out to for a topic. And so despite the fact that things are so fast paced, Hill staffers tend to be in a way very generous with their time to take opportunities to have copies and get to know each other and network in this fashion, which is something that was pretty new to me as a scientist. Typically, if you had a meeting with someone you had something that you were trying to accomplish and those didn't happen as often. So it was a really fascinating look into a different culture. Yeah, I can imagine. Was there a lot of these types of meetings across the aisle or is typically within your own kind of silo or pocket? I would say that meetings with the same party are a little more common, but getting to know people in offices across the aisle is still very valuable and important because when things get done, it takes bipartisan support typically. So being collaborative and knowing people in offices of all kinds is typical and important, I think, for getting things done. So you think Pelosi's aides are having lunch and coffee with the McConnell's aides? That I have no idea. So what made you interested in policy to begin with? So I got interested in policy starting as a graduate student. I was participating in events called Congressional Visit Stays and these are events hosted by professional societies where they bring constituents to meet with their elected officials or their elected official staff. So I, as an Optics graduate student, worked with the National Photonics Initiative for most of the Congressional Visit Stays. And those events, the first day is, you know, it's all typically scientists for the MPI events and scientists may not know a lot necessarily about how government functions. So they get a training and this is how Congress functions. This is what's happening right now in terms of the news and what's going on in the landscape. And here's how you talk to congressional staff. Here's what the information they want from you. And the scientists are not always used to communicating people who are not scientists. And so that's a bit of a training in terms of how do you communicate these interesting things? How do you talk about your research to get someone excited about it when they aren't an expert in that topic area? And so I found that really invigorating, getting to share science and get people excited about it and finding ways like, oh, you can sponsor this letter or you can co-sponsor this piece of legislation and it'll be really valuable for optics and science research. And so the MPI did all that sort of guidance and preparation for that. And then the day of is meeting with office after office, taking constituents for those meetings to meet typically with staff, but sometimes with members. And I just, I always left those so full of sort of hope and excitement that, you know, we can, we can make the world a better place through science. And so that is also how I became familiar with the fellowship program that I later applied for. And it was during travel when I sort of really got inspired to have this idea. You know, I want to find a way to give back more directly to my society and to my community, which is how I ended up applying. That's awesome. So as a policy fellow, what kind of policy did you work on? So as a fellow, I was effectively equivalent to a legislative assistant, meaning I had a particular portfolio of topics that I worked on. My main topic was the energy efficiency of the federal government. So the subcommittee that I worked on was a federal oversight committee, hence the federal government. So I spent time thinking of and developing legislation that would try to make the government more energy efficient. That's awesome. Did you get any legislation close to passing or passed? No. So there's, so actually it's very rare for a fellow to see a piece of legislation passed into law during their tenure, because it's generally a pretty long process. Unless it's a piece of emergency legislation that gets pushed through quickly, the development of legislation and it passing the law is a long process. So generally the goal for fellows is to see a project that they worked on introduced, which is sort of the first step the legislation takes in being passed into law. And sometimes, you know, fellows see things that they introduced pass into law later on after that fellowship. I unfortunately did not get to get anything introduced largely due to the coronavirus pandemic. So federal energy efficiency is incredibly important, but it took the backseat to the pandemic, which I think is, you know, the right thing to do. But it meant that there was a period of time where I wasn't really able to introduce things. And there was a lot of interest in that topic compared to the current virus. So I developed a lot of projects and I learned a ton of stuff, but that is one thing I did not manage to complete during my fellowship. Well, there's still a chance that some of it might pass. And then you can add that feather to your cap later. It's true. It's true. A lot of my projects are going to continue being worked on in the office, potentially by future fellows or current staff. So it is entirely possible. I will hold out. Fingers crossed for you. Okay. So do you have any cool or interesting stories that you'd like to share with us about your time in the Senate? Sure. So I mentioned I worked on a subcommittee, and I went into the fellowship wanting to do committee work because I was very interested sort of in the process of exactly how legislation goes from being thought up to law. And the committees play a really big role in that. And so any legislation that gets to the floor typically has to go through a committee markup first. And so the chairperson for the committee is the one who decides what pieces of legislation get brought before the committee to be voted on and approved, essentially. And so this is I discovered a very condensed process. So it's in less than two weeks, the markup is announced, the legislation that the chairperson has selected for review is announced. And then in my office, those pieces of legislation would get divvied up across staff. I would read my assigned bills. I would write up a summary and I would offer a tentative vote recommendation. And then that gets run off the chain through the various levels of staff, ultimately to senior staff and for the member to approve. And while that is going on, there is a lot of discussion between offices on how the members feel about the different bills, how people are likely to vote on them, so that ideally everything comes together. It's just big whirlwind. Everything comes together the day of the markup. And people more or less know how it's going to go. Oftentimes, there are disruptions and things don't necessarily go exactly as planned. But more often, people know how it's going to go. And that is very much a product of collaboration. So there are staff meetings where it's all the committee staff on both sides of the aisle get to meet together and discuss the legislation. And there's a ton of collaboration to get that done because there's a lot of things and it takes cooperation on both sides of the aisle to have a successful markup. And so that was something that was really heartening for me to see. We have all this bad news of gridlock and how partisan Congress is right now. And that's not wrong. But what doesn't make the headlines is how much stuff does get done that's really important and that is done on a collaborative bipartisan basis. So something that was really heartening and inspiring for me from my fellowship was I developed both a better understanding of Congress and how our different functions. And that gave me more faith in the institution itself. So that that gave me a lot of inspiration going forward. That is very heartening. And I'm glad you shared that because you're right. There is a lot of news about how everything is hyperpartisan. And it's just really great to see that people are still working together. So thank you for sharing that. So if a individual would be interested in doing something similar to what you did, how would they go about doing that? Sure thing. So the fellowship that I participated in is specifically for scientists with terminal degrees. So there are people who study math, geology, optics, veterinary science, all these things. And there are a number of different fellowships. So the one I did is the AAAS fellowship. But there are actually a whole host of different policy fellowships where people from different backgrounds can go work in an office, either legislative branch or executive branch. And so I think researching policy fellowship and looking for ones for which you are eligible would be the way to find out about the different options that are out there. I know we had another fellow in my office who was a tech congress fellow. She came from an industry background. So there are a lot of options out there. And I think key term searching policy fellowship and some other keywords perhaps related to your own background could definitely turn up some results. It's really exciting. I hope some of you in the audience take the initiative to go and do that because there's always a need for people with real world experience to kind of work with the legislators, right? So great. So you've moved from DC to Boulder. What sparked that transition? Ah, so this is something that we like to call the two body problem, which is a joke that scientists like to make when they're married to another scientist. So in physics, when you have a one body problem and how an object is moving around, it's relatively easy to characterize because it's one object. But when you suddenly have two, it becomes far more complex and rapidly becomes hard to characterize exactly. And so when you have two physicists or two scientists in a relationship, it's a two body problem in terms of the career hunt. And so my spouse found his just perfect dream job here in Boulder, Colorado. And considering that I had hauled him to DC twice, once for a laser job and once for my policy job, I said, all right, fair is fair, you shouldn't pass this opportunity up, let's move to Boulder. And so I ended up actually, I moved to Boulder at the end of July and sort of finished up my my fellowship remotely, especially since I was already working from home since since everyone has sort of left the offices pretty early in the pandemic. Well, that's very nice of you guys working as a unit to gravitational planets revolving around spinning through the universe, right? Absolutely. So what's next for you? Well, I am still looking for work. I am looking for both policy jobs and tech jobs. And Boulder, of course, has a great community of optics companies and tech companies. So that is always a possibility. I think it would also be really cool to be involved in Colorado policy on a state level. And so the die has yet to be cast. That's awesome. Would you look to run for office yourself? Oh, that's a maybe. So the the aspects of public service and trying to support my community and making this better for people really speaks to me as a role as a public service. But the truth is, I'm also someone who suffers from social anxiety. I fear my words being misunderstood or taking out of context. And I fear people disliking me. And so any kind of position that had a lot of limelight and public scrutiny is something that would be really emotionally challenging for me. And I don't know. Maybe when I'm older and I have thicker skin, maybe I can handle that sort of position. But I'm at a place in my life right now where if I were to run for office, it would probably be something local or I could be helping my local community. So one thing that's really interesting to me is I see these politicians speaking. And I wonder, do they believe what they're saying? Or do the policy people underneath them even believe what they're saying? How much of what some politicians are talking about is completely in line with their beliefs? And what is just politics? Sure. Well, definitely I believe, and from what I saw, that all members, whether they are, which side of the aisle they're on, they really care about their constituencies and representing the interests of their constituencies. And so I generally think that members are they believe the things that they are saying and they are on the whole working towards those things because they think they are in the interest of their constituencies and they will help their constituencies. So people really have their home district or home state in mind in terms of what they do. And it's an interesting question as to whether you have an ideological match between the staff and the member. And I want to say generally, yes, you do. I think when things were less partisan, you did have more migration of career staff across the aisle occasionally. Because you can have an ideological disagreement on certain topics. But that's not the topic that you're working on. And so you could work on the thing that works for your ideology and matches with the member, whether the rest of it matched or not. However, I think that that sort of thing is becoming less and less common due to partisanship. And I know that as I was going through orientation for the fellowship and the AAAS posts a really amazing and extensive orientation, we were definitely advised not to put ourselves in a situation where we would see a lot of conflict. So I guess in the past there may have been fellows who were like, I'm going to go to an office where I have big ideological differences and I'm going to change everyone's mind. And that is really ends up in a not very productive situation. That just sort of sets up a lot of conflict. And so based on sort of those historical experiences, we were generally advised to make sure that you have an ideological agreement with the member. Obviously, it's in the placement process for the congressional fellows, it's sort of it's a matching process. It's an interview process to find the right fit. And so obviously, there's decision making on both sides as to what would work best for the office and for the fellow. And so while it can be done, it has be done. I know, for example, a fellow who is typically democratic in his ideological beliefs, who has worked in a Republican office quite happily. And it was because the topic that he was working on was not in conflict ideologically. So he's working on more science policy related things that didn't have any conflict. So it used to be more flexible. And I think it's become less flexible. But it does still happen where people might find those situations where they don't agree on everything with their member, but they're happy working on the topic that they're working on. So as an applicant, do you pick your top five senators that you want to work for? Or how does that matching work? The placement process is actually very interesting. So some offices already are aware of the AAAS fellowship program, and they will submit a position description to the fellowship program. And so the fellows can go through that, those descriptions, and then you begin sort of an interview and matching process. It is also possible for fellows to sort of go outside of those submitted ones and introduce themselves to an office. If they're particularly interested in an office that didn't submit one, then the fellow has to do a little more explaining of what a fellow is and what a fellow can do and what the value is there. But it can be, and it has been done, that people have sort of gone outside of the descriptions to find an office. And how many fellows does a senator typically have? It's variable. So there are actually, so my fellowship program, there are obviously many fellowship programs. In my fellowship program, we had just over 30 fellows in our cohort, and there are hundreds of offices. And so some offices are really interested in having fellows, and we'll take, there was one office, one center office where I know I took three fellows from my cohort. But typically I think if an office takes a fellow, it's one. And in terms of, there's sort of a supply and demand thing. So Christina, this was a very engaging chat. I learned a lot. This has been really fun for me. Do you have any parting words or asks for audience? Sure thing. So if you are a scientist and you might be interested in policy, I highly recommend checking out the AAAS, Science and Technology Policy Fellowship. It's a really wonderful program. I also want to offer thanks to the societies that sponsored me, OSA and SPIE. It was a really wonderful experience. I also, if you are interested in learning more about sustainable networking, I highly recommend checking out SPIE's website. The book is Sustainable Networking for Scientists and Engineers. You search that and SPIE, you will find it, and you can download a free PDF out of the book. That's great. Thanks, Christina. Thank you for having me.