A New Initiative to Advocate for Grad Students in Congress

by Mason Ng, Jack Reid, and Benjamin Lane

Mason Ng is a 5th year graduate student in astrophysics at MIT studying the dynamics and evolution of neutron star X-ray binaries with X-ray timing, spectroscopy, and polarimetry. He is the Vice-Chair of the MIT Graduate Student Council External Affairs Board (MIT GSC EAB). 

Jack Reid is a 6th year graduate student in aerospace at MIT working on the use of earth observation imagery for sustainable development.

Benjamin Lane is a 5th year graduate student in physics at MIT studying the interaction between light and mechanical systems in the quantum regime as a member of LIGO Lab. He is the Chair of the MIT GSC EAB.

Do you want to advocate for more robust funding for graduate researchers? Do you want to see more support for graduate researchers? What if there was a forum for your representatives to discuss and advance policy solutions to support graduate researchers?

Enter the Graduate Research and Development (GRAD) Caucus! 

If you need a brief refresher on science policy, you can refer to this Astrobites article on science policy. In summary, there are three branches of government: the executive branch (e.g., White House), the judicial branch (e.g., Supreme Court), and the legislative branch (e.g., Congress). In this bite, we will focus on the legislative side of things. The U.S. Congress is divided into two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Each chamber has several “standing committees” that are tasked with legislating (e.g., House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology), the act of writing bills and evaluating policy recommendations for consideration of the full chamber. There are also informal forums for lawmakers to discuss areas or topics of interest — these are referred to as caucuses. Some prominent caucuses in the House include the Congressional Black Caucus and the House Freedom Caucus. 

On July 13th, the GRAD Caucus in the House of Representatives was officially launched! The GRAD Caucus is co-chaired by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D, CA-19), Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R, FL-12), Rep. Mike Doyle (D, PA-18), and Rep. Stephanie Bice (R, OK-5). These four Representatives are the inaugural members and we hope to grow the caucus quickly in the next weeks (see more below on how you can help with recruitment!) The caucus will provide briefings on policies and programs important to graduate researchers, provide connections between lawmakers and graduate researchers performing groundbreaking research across the nation, and provide a forum for caucus members to advance policy solutions needed to support these researchers as they support society. Graduate researchers have also been actively advocating for better policies for themselves, which led to the formation of the caucus. 

To illustrate the impact that graduate researchers have in the advocacy process, some of us might recall the major overwrite of the U.S. tax code in 2017, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. There was a provision in a House version of the bill that…