During Spring Break, Morgan Knuesel, a third-year graduate student working in the Relativistic Heavy Ion Group (RHIG), and Cassady Mullaney (née Smith), a fifth-year graduate student working in the Lehnert group, were part of a group of 26 students who traveled to Washington, DC for three days in order to meet with Congressional staff and key stakeholders as part of the Yale STEM Day Program. Among the concerns that the group addressed were the Scientific Integrity Act; funding for the physical sciences; protections for lab animals; and wildfire prevention.
Yale STEM Day began in 2025 under the auspice of the Jackson School of Global Affairs. The program draws students from Yale College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, the School of the Environment, and the School of Public Health. The students attended workshops, talks by guest speakers, career talks, and various networking events to prepare for the trip. In preparation for the event, the students set up meetings with their representatives and senators.
For this year the students were divided into five teams - biomedical engineering, quantum, space, carbon capture, and energy & land management. In the fall, the group began preparations for the event by holding campus workshops on the basics of science communication and advocacy.
Knuesel commented, “The STEM Hill Day program was an incredible opportunity for both undergraduate and graduate students to learn how to communicate their science to the people drafting, proposing, and voting on the legislation that directly impacts that science. Policy experts in D.C. need our expertise as scientists, and this program has helped train Yale students on how to have those crucial conversations. This year, I had the opportunity to pull from my experiences in D.C. over the past year to act as more of a mentor for the energy and land management team. The four of us had fifteen meetings in just two days, and I think they did a wonderful job utilizing their professional and personal experiences to give congressional staff actionable steps forward on climate and environment policies. I look forward to being part of the program again next year, and I encourage everyone who might be interested in learning more about science policy to keep an eye out for workshops that will be hosted again in the fall.”
Mullaney added, “This was my second trip to the Hill with Yale, and now is such a pivotal time to get involved with all the threats to science funding. I was part of the quantum team, as my research has focused on quantum error correction and microwave to optical quantum transduction. This year, we were able to meet with many more Republican offices, which was beneficial to try and gain Republican co-sponsors to support the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act. There’s a lot of hype around quantum, and a push to go more from academic R&D towards industry. Our group expressed the great potential of quantum technologies, but also gave realistic expectations based on our experiences in the field, and emphasized how crucial fundamental R&D still is to the advancement of these technologies. While our own representatives may not always be directly involved with or aware of these bills, every single representative can vote, and even making them aware of the issues can have a great impact. “
Parts of this story were taken from the Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences news story of April 6, 2026 and the Yale Daily News story of February 26, 2025. Please see below for links to the original stories and to a flickr album of photos.