During his career, Riordan has worked closely with a number of people he considers great civic scientists. He points to SLAC's Wolfgang Panofsky and Sidney Drell, whose contributions to nuclear arms control are widely known. Riordan himself helped formulate the American Physical Society's recently published official position on the technical viability of a national missile defense system, urging the United States not to deploy such a system unless it is proven effective against anticipated countermeasures. But Riordan says scientists don't have to be bigshots to play important roles in public life. Federal agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the National Science Foundation all need science advisers.
Scientists also play an important role in civic life when they interact with the press.
Unfortunately, Riordan said, many scientists are leery of the press. They see that the press doesn't always get things right and it leaves out complexities and qualifiers scientists feel are necessary to explain their work. The civic biologist Lucy Shapiro, the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Professor in the departments of Developmental Biology and Genetics, is a laboratory scientist, first and foremost. But about 15 years ago she decided she could also be a civic scientist. It's hard to do both in early stages of a scientific career, she said.