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up-to-date science. We garnered support for the amendment
among the Senate offices by explaining the importance of
informal STEM education and by detailing for each Senator on
the Commerce Committee how their state has benefitted from the
NISE Network. The amendment was passed on to the bill in the
managers’ package during the committee markup on 29 June
2016. The bill is now making its way through the legislative
process with a vote possible this fall.
This article will be my final GSA-USGS Congressional Science
Fellow Report. As my fellowship comes to a close, I would like to
thank both GSA and the USGS for supporting my year in the
Senate. It has truly been a privilege to advance the importance of
geoscience, and to help bring the wonder of discovery and innova-
tion to all citizens. Please feel free to contact me if you have any
questions. I’m always happy to talk about the intersection between
science and policy, and am eager to help scientists enter the
science policy world.
The manuscript is submitted for publication by Karen Paczkowski,
2015–2016 GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow, with the
understanding that the U.S. government is authorized to reproduce
and distribute reprints for governmental use. The one-year fellowship is
supported by GSA and the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of
the Interior, under Assistance Award No. G15AP00128. The views
and conclusions contained in this document are those of the author
and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official
policies, either expressed or implied, of the U.S. government.
Paczkowski works in the office of Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA)
and can be contacted by e-mail at karen.paczkowski@gmail.com.
Leadership Opportunities
Volunteer or nominate a colleague to serve on a GSA
Committee, and help advance the impact of geoscience and
geoscientists. Students and early career professionals are
encouraged to bring their unique points of view to GSA
leadership.
www.geosociety.org/committees
2016–2017 GSA-USGS Congressional GSA TODAY | www.geosociety.org/gsatoday
Science Fellow Named
Kirstin L. Neff
Kirstin L. Neff is thrilled to serve as the 2016–2017
GSA-USGS Congressional Science Fellow. She has accepted a
placement in the office of Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM),
where she will be working on water and public lands issues.
Kirstin earned a B.A. cum laude from Wellesley College in
2008, with majors in political science and Russian language
and literature. She wrote a senior honors thesis on U.S. immi-
gration policy and received an award from the economics
department for her paper on tariffs in the cement industry.
She conducted ecological research on Lake Baikal in Siberia
and studied abroad in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia.
While at Wellesley, she was a managing editor of the
International Relations Council Journal, a student-run peer-
reviewed publication, and co-president of the College
Democrats.
Kirstin received an M.S. (2013) and Ph.D. (2015) in
hydrology from the University of Arizona in her hometown
of Tucson. She was awarded a U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency Science to Achieve Results (EPA STAR) Fellowship to
support her doctoral research, which used stable water
isotopes to characterize the seasonality of groundwater
recharge across the Basin and Range Province of western
North America. Her research has implications for climate
change and development impacts to aquifers. Most recently,
she was a postdoctoral scholar at NASA’s Jet Propulsion
Laboratory, working on satellite radar measurements of
subsidence in California’s Central Valley.
Kirstin has expertise in hydrologic modeling, water policy,
remote sensing and spatial analysis, K–12 science outreach,
and international relations. She has extensive experience in
communicating scientific and technical information, having
worked as a technical writer in the engineering sector and as
a mentor scientist for several outdoor education programs.
She speaks Spanish and Russian.
She is passionate about building a scientifically literate
workforce through STEM education and conserving natural
resources through public outreach and scientifically sound
policymaking. In her fellowship year, she is looking forward
to learning about the legislative process and further devel-
oping her science communication skills while contributing
her scientific expertise to the policymaking process.
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