On May 5th, Science Soapbox traveled to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for their second annual Science Diplomacy Meeting. We spent the day soaking in a dearth of fascinating projects and meeting dozens of kindred spirits. We also had the pleasure of sitting down with Dr. Alex Dehgan, co-founder and CEO of Conservation X Labs. In his previous life, Dr. Dehgan served under numerous science diplomatic positions, including Chief Scientist & Director for the Office of Science & Technology at the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Taking advantage of Dr. Dehgan’s wide range of experiences, we chatted about diplomatic relations with Iran, conservation, and the perfect union of optimism in science and global development.
Here are some of the links and references mentioned during the show:
- Learn more about Conservation X Lab’s on their official page with information on awesome projects like the Blue Economy Aquaculture Challenge mentioned in our interview
- Dr. Dehgan mentioned “Are slaves catching the fish you buy?” — the Pulitzer Prize winning piece from the Associated Press — and we couldn’t resist sharing it here
- Read more about Dr. Dehgan’s thoughts on the future of USAID’s Global Development Lab in this interview with the Center for Global Development and visit the lab’s official page
- We interviewed Dr. Dehgan at the annual meeting hosted by the Center for Science Diplomacy, which you can virtually visit here
- As promised, here’s a link to more information about Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, which we just couldn’t stop raving about in our introduction
This episode was recorded on May 5, 2016 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Special thanks to Visager for music, the AAAS for a great meeting, and Nam Thai for the photo used for the interview.