Center Appoints Dave Rejeski as its First Flum Scholar

The Woodrow Wilson Center has appointed environmental policy expert Dave Rejeski as its first Paul Flum Scholar.

Rejeski is from the Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Policy (EPA), but since 1994 has been assigned to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ). Beginning in July 2000, Rejeski will be resident at the Center working on long-term challenges facing the United States as well as the challenge of finding ways to make policymakers think long term.

"One of our key aims at the Woodrow Wilson Center is to promote a more coordinated and coherent focus on the future," said Center director Lee Hamilton "Dave has more than proven himself capable of fulfilling this aim. His extensive background in long-term thinking by policymakers, as well as his dual role at both the White House Council on Environmental Quality and Office of Science and Technology Policy, makes him the perfect candidate for our first Flum Scholar."

While at OSTP, Rejeski worked on the development of the National Environmental Technology Strategy, and has been developing a new report at CEQ looking at the broad technological, economic, and institutional trends affecting environmental policy over the next 10-15 years. Currently, he also is a visiting fellow at Yale University, working on long-term impacts of information technology on environmental policy. "The rate of change occurring in areas such as informatics and genetics means that foresight can no longer be viewed as a luxury or option for public policymakers," commented Rejeski, "nor can the government afford not to engage industry, academia, and other stakeholders in a continuing dialogue on long-term issues."

Rejeski has a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design, a Masters degree in Environmental Design from Yale University, and a Master of Public Administration degree from Harvard University.

The Flum Scholarship is funded by the Goals for Americans Foundation and named for its founder and president, Paul Flum. He established the organization in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1997 to encourage more long-range planning and vision in the policy process. The search for the Flum Scholar was conducted jointly by the Woodrow Wilson Center and the Goals for Americans Foundation through a nationally advertised competition.