Professional Leadership
Susan HackwoodDirector |
Susan Hackwood, PhD, is Professor of the Graduate Division and Edward A. Dickson Emeritus Professor at the University of California Riverside. She is also Dean Emeritus of the Bourns College of Engineering. Until July 2018 she was the Executive Director of the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST). CCST is a not-for-profit corporation comprised of 200 plus science and technology leaders of the highest distinction. Sponsored by the key academic and federal research institutions in California, CCST advises the state on all aspects of science and technology including energy, information technologies, biotechnology, nanotechnology, stem cell research, healthcare technologies, climate change, disaster prevention technologies, intellectual property, technical workforce development, and education. Dr. Hackwood has worked extensively with industry, academia and government partnerships to identify policy issues of societal importance. |
Doug BrownAssociate Director |
Doug Brown most recently served as the Program Advisor for CCST's Science & Technology Policy Fellowship which places PhD scientists and engineers in the California Legislature. Brown has formerly served as Chief-of-Staff to the 2008 Governor's Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and as Principal Consultant with the California State Senate. Mr. Brown is an economic development specialist who was also the Assistant Director for Business Relations at the Employment Development Department. He spent three years with the California Technology, Trade & Commerce Agency where he designed the state's Small Business Development Center program. His federal experience includes positions with the US Senate, the Small Business Administration, and the White House Conference on Small Business. Mr. Brown, a former Peace Corps volunteer and a Vietnam veteran, has a B.A. in International Relations from the University of Kansas and a Master's degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the George Washington University. |
Richard M. CarpianoFaculty Director |
Richard M. Carpiano is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Riverside. A public and population health scientist and medical sociologist by training, Dr. Carpiano studies how social factors contribute to the health of adults and children. A substantial focus of his research concerns factors underlying vaccination acceptance. As part of this work, Dr. Carpiano served as a member of The Lancet's Commission on Vaccine Refusal, Acceptance, and Demand in the United States. More recently, his research and policy activities have also focused on pandemic preparedness and response. He is a co-director of Resilient, a multisector collaborative that aims to improve pandemic preparedness through fostering community resilience, and member of the California Council on Science and Technology’s COVID-19 Task Force, which advises policymakers regarding how California can improve its preparedness for public health threats. Dr. Carpiano received his Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Sociomedical Sciences (with concentration in Sociology) from Columbia University, M.P.H. from Case Western Reserve University, and M.A. and B.A. in Sociology from Baylor University. From 2004-2006, he was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at University of Wisconsin-Madison. |
Jacob O'ConnorInstructor |
Jacob O’Connor, PhD, works as an Assistant Consultant for the Senate Transportation Committee, helping inform and advise Senators son topics including rules of the road, licensing and registration, highway design, and vehicle emissions standards. PRior to this position Jacob was a CCST Science Fellow where they worked in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. They received their PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Washington in 2021 completing a research dissertation on computational peptide design. After graduating they became a CCST Science Fellow. They have developed and led communication and policy training courses for scientists as the manager of ENGAGE at the University of Washington and as a leader of the training of the 2023 cohort of CCST Science Fellows. |
Brynn CookInstructor |
Brynn Cook, PhD, is a California State Senate Environmental Quality Committee Consultant. She formally served as legislative analyst at CalRecycle and a legislative analyst for California State Senator Lena Gonzalez. Brynn was a California Council of Science and Technology Science Fellow after that, she received a PhD in Ecology from the University of Virginia. Her dissertation focused on the impacts of air pollution on pollination, specifically the relationships among tropospheric oxidants, floral volatiles, and insect pollinators. She received a BA in Environmental Sciences from UC Berkeley and is a proud community college graduate of Moorpark College. |
Amy GilsonInstructor |
Amy Gilson, PhD, is the Deputy Director of External and Legislative Affairs at the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA). She was the Policy Manager of Californians Against Waste (CAW), a non-profit environmental research and advocacy organization focused on conserving resources and preventing pollution. Prior to joining CAW in 2021, Amy served as committee consultant for the California State Senate Committee on Transportation, where she focuses on electric vehicles, shared micromobility, and transportation data governance. Amy was a CCST Policy Fellow with the California State Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials and served the chair of that committee as a legislative aide. Prior to coming to the California Legislature, Amy was a project manager at Microsoft Research New England. Amy has created and led multiple science communication and policy programs including the Harvard Science in the News Podcast and the STEM solutions in Public Policy Competition with the University of California Center Sacramento. She received her PhD in Chemical Physics from Harvard University and a PhD secondary field in Science, Technology, and Society (STS) Studies from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. She holds a BS in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. |
Thomas DuggerInstructor |
Thomas Dugger received his B.S. in Engineering from Olin College of Engineering and his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Riverside, where he also completed the Science to Policy (S2P) certificate program and served on the S2P student cabinet. His dissertation topic was sustainable plastics and his S2P focus was graduate education. He worked as a grant writer for S2P and is now a Research Strategy Officer at UC Office of the President in VP Theresa Maldonado’s Research & Innovation department. His main projects are supporting California’s burgeoning renewable hydrogen economy and state-funded climate action grants. Outside of work, he enjoys strategy games, cooking, biking, and cuddling his teenage rescue great dane, Connor. |