Turning Expertise into Societal Impact
Helping scientists, engineers, health professionals, and mission-driven organizations connect skills, stories, and spaces so expertise and lived experiences can inform and influence policymaker and public decision-making.
Scientists, engineers, health professionals, and mission-driven organizations...
often care deeply about societal challenges—from health and energy to economic development and national security. Yet expertise alone rarely influences policy decisions.
Effective policy engagement requires more than strong analysis. It requires connecting skills, stories, and spaces—rigorous analysis, lived experiences, and real-world decision environments.
Through the Science and Technology Policy Academy...
Dr. Deborah Stine helps professionals and organizations translate their expertise and lived experiences into insights that inform and influence policymaker and public decision-making through keynote speaking, policy analysis and program evaluation, career coaching and workshop facilitation.
Services Offered by the S&T Policy Academy
Keynote Speaking
Keynotes introduce:
- Skills–Stories–Spaces
- ACE (Analyze, Communicate, Engage)
- 4E Policy Analysis (Effectiveness, Efficiency, Equity, Ease of Political Acceptability)
These talks are frequently delivered for nonprofit organizations and mission-driven communities seeking to help their members engage more effectively in policy discussions.
Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation
Independent policy analysis and program evaluation support universities, nonprofits, foundations, and public-sector organizations seeking to understand complex societal challenges and opportunities.
Dr. Stine can conduct this analysis independently or work with professional staff, faculty, or students—teaching, leading, or facilitating their analysis.
All analyses use the Skills–Stories–Spaces, 4E, and ACE approaches to produce decision-ready insights for policymakers and the public.
Career Coaching
Mission-Ready Career Coaching
Individual coaching for students through senior professionals who want to move their expertise into roles that inform and influence policy. Clients include individuals seeking policy-related employment, professionals incorporating policy activities into their current roles, subject matter experts managing policy issues yet lacking policy experience, and professionals building independent consulting practices.Mission-Ready Career Community Co-Working Space
A collaborative co-working environment designed for individuals pursuing mission-driven careers. Participants gain:- structured time for job searches and policy work
- peer support and shared learning
- periodic guidance from Dr. Stine
Workshop Facilitation
- Career Transitions, including Fellowships
- Community Engagement
- Communicating with Policymakers and the Public
- Generative AI Applications
- Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation
How Dr. Deborah Stine Works With Organizations and Professionals
Organizations and professionals often recognize the importance of connecting scientific and technical expertise with societal decision-making but lack practical frameworks for doing so.
Through keynote speaking, policy analysis, workshop facilitation, and career coaching, Dr. Stine helps organizations and their members translate expertise and lived experiences into insights that inform and influence policy.
Each engagement applies the Skills–Stories–Spaces approach, connecting analysis, lived experiences, and real-world decision environments to achieve societal impact.
Are you an organization or individual interested in working with Dr. Stine? If so, schedule a no obligation discovery call.” with the Discovery call button.
Experience Informing Policy Decisions
Dr. Stine has worked across government, academia, and nonprofit organizations to help connect expertise with real-world policy decisions.
National Science and Technology Policy
White House – President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
While serving as Executive Director of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in the White House, Dr. Stine helped coordinate federal policy discussions on advanced manufacturing and innovation competitiveness. She worked with senior policymakers, industry leaders, and academic experts to identify strategies that strengthened U.S. manufacturing and informed national policy priorities.
Congressional Science and Technology Legislation
Congressional Research Service
Dr. Stine worked at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), providing nonpartisan policy analysis to Members of Congress and congressional committees. Her work helped inform legislative discussions related to science and technology policy, including issues addressed in the America COMPETES Act, which strengthened federal support for research, innovation, and STEM education.
Regional Economic Development and Manufacturing
Catalyst Connection
Dr. Stine has also worked at the regional level to help connect emerging technologies with local economic development opportunities. For example, she conducted an analysis for Catalyst Connection examining the potential for manufacturers in the Appalachian region to participate in emerging AI data center supply chains.
This work helped identify opportunities for local manufacturers to engage in new markets while strengthening regional economic development strategies.
Health Policy and Lived Experience
West Virginia University and Marshall University
As a consultant to West Virginia University, Dr. Stine served as study director for the report Roads to Wellness: A System Analysis of Crucial Links between Transportation and Health in West Virginia.
Working with students and researchers, she guided a system analysis examining how transportation barriers affect access to healthcare for West Virginians with chronic health conditions.
The team evaluated policy options using the 4E framework—Effectiveness, Efficiency, Equity, and Ease of Political Acceptability.
Dr. Stine also trained students to gather lived experiences from patients, healthcare providers, and transportation organizations and incorporate those perspectives directly into the analysis.
Thank you very much for all of your work on the Idaho Science & Technology Policy Fellowship orientation [Level 1: Intro to S&T Policy]. We are deeply appreciative of your ability to quickly develop a curriculum, create online learning platforms, author daily emails (with Idaho photos), and cover so many topics.
I truly learned so so much that will definitely benefit me and my career. You're a great teacher and I appreciate you being able to approach policy teaching from the scientific perspective." [Level 2: Public Policy Analysis
I'm glad I took the policy analysis course [Level 2] because I was having difficulty finding training opportunities for higher-level skills. I gained a lot from the process of developing my policy analysis question and options, and workshopping these through one-on-one calls.
The Level 3 [Public Policy Analytical Methods] course provided me with different ways to analyze policy options. I learned about benefit-cost analysis, cost effectiveness analysis, and risk analysis, all of which can be applied to a variety of policy topics. Debbie is extremely helpful in answering questions and providing feedback.
Debbie does a great job of helping you distill ideas into impactful statements and questions. The academy got me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to step back and bring new skills and new ideas to my research. And these results are tangible. I was awarded an internal seed grant from my university...
The Science & Technology Policy Academy helped me to see that I did not need to change my research to be more policy relevant, I needed to learn how to communicate the research I was already doing in a policy relevant way.
I valued receiving frequent feedback from Debbie on materials like logic models and policy briefs to produce products that are easy to understand, relevant to policymakers, and effective at communicating the policy relevance of my research.
The S&T Policy Academy helped me conceptualize a framework for writing about policy issues of interests, in a way that would be compelling to a legislator. As someone working in science policy and much of it is on the job, this structured learning environment has been a really helpful learning experience...
In considering the services of a coach/mentor or instructor, science and technology policy I recommend you consider Deborah Stine. I was a bit overconfident in what I thought I knew and could do. Her calm, patient, knowledgeable guidance on the development and use of logic models was invaluable.
I knew I wanted to engage with science in a new way, outside of the lab- but I wasn't sure where to start my career search. I loved how the course material was laid out in a logical way, and it was at your own pace. I was able to find a position that was a perfect fit for my interests in life sciences policy and biosecurity.
I took the "Public Policy Analysis" [Level 2] course with the Academy just after completing my PhD. While I had no formal policy training prior, I was passionate about using my science background to help inform public policy. The course was the perfect step to make that happen
