The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Science and Technology Policy Program (COPA-STEP) aims to improve public and environmental health, economic and social equity, and public scientific discourse in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We do this by enabling a diverse, civic-scientific community and building bridges within the STEM ecosystem, between science and policy, and between scientists and the public in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Leadership
Christine Kirchhoff, Ph.D., P.E.
Dr. Kirchhoff is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Design and Innovation and Director, Law, Policy and Engineering Program.
Tomotaroh ‘Tomy’ Granzier-Nakajima, Ph.D.
Tomotaroh received his PhD in physics at Penn State in 2021. He is now a science policy fellow covering energy and the environment at MOST.
Patricia Gruver-Barr
Patricia Gruver-Barr is the Program Administrator for COPA-STEP and Law, Policy, and Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. She is a 7th generation Pennsylvanian with over a decade of experience working in science policy, having worked in science diplomacy, tech diplomacy, and tech policy in government and think tanks. She has worked on policy issues ranging from agritech to AI to marine science to quantum.
Stefan Peterson
Stefan is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania studying microbiology in the Cellular and Molecular Biology Program.
Erin K. Reagan, Ph.D.
Erin is a fourth-generation Pennsylvanian currently pursuing her PhD at the University of Pennsylvania, where she studies vaccines and infectious diseases under Dr. Drew Weissman. Erin previously served as the President of the Penn Science Policy and Diplomacy Group, training hundreds of STEM graduate students in how to better communicate their research to policymakers and the public.
Holy Mayton, Ph.D.
Holly completed her PhD in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University of California Riverside (UCR) in 2018 with a Designated Emphasis in Public Policy. Holly has served as a founding Director of the National Science Policy Network, founding coordinator of the COVES Policy Fellowship, and a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Department of State. Currently, Holly is the Administrative Director of a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center, headquartered at the University of Pennsylvania.
Shannon Wolfman, Ph.D.
Shannon completed her PhD in Neurobiology at the University of Chicago in 2016 and did post-doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania until 2022. She is currently the Global Climate Change Fellow at Annual Reviews.
Past Members
Tala Azar
Tala is currently a Bioengineering PhD student working in orthopaedics at the University of Pennsylvania
Natalia Grube
Natalia is a Biology Ph.D. student studying host-parasite co-evolution at Pennsylvania State University.
Council
The council was created to obtain input from parties interested in a science policy fellowship in Pennsylvania. Members of the council come from organizations including:
Penn State Science Policy Society
University of Virginia
Penn Science & Policy Diplomacy Group
Pitt Science Policy Group
Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy