The Staff Director of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Bob Simon, has been elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.
Simon was elected by his peers in the AAAS as a Fellow “for distinguished contributions to the integration of science with public policy, particularly for shaping policies and legislation related to energy, environment, and research and development.”
Simon was among approximately 450 AAAS Fellows selected this year for their distinguished efforts to advance science or its applications. The Fellows will be formally announced in Science, the journal published by the AAAS. He and the other new AAAS Fellows will be honored during a special ceremony at the 2007 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco on Feb. 17.
“This honor highlights Bob’s leadership and contributions in energy and science policy over many years,” said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the Senate Energy Committee’s chairman. “As one of the top scientists on the staff of Congress, he has played a key role in shaping laws and Federal programs that use science and technology to promote the common interest.”
The AAAS has honored its top achievers in various fields with the distinction of being named a Fellow since 1874. The selection process includes review by one’s peers in one of the 24 sections of the association and a vote by the AAAS Council, which is the policymaking body of the association. The AAAS was founded in 1848 and publishes Science, the most widely read of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated readership of 1 million.
A graduate of Ursinus College in Pennsylvania, Simon earned his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1982. Before coming to the Senate in 1993, he worked at the Department of Energy and the National Research Council of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering. Simon has served in a variety of science and technology-related positions in the United States Senate since 1993, and became Staff Director for the overall committee this month when Democrats officially became the majority party in the Senate.