About

Scott L. Sellars is Science and Technology Policy Advisor and Diplomat at the U.S. Department of State. He was a Systems Integration Engineer at the University of California, San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute and a Visiting Fellow with the American Meteorological Society’s Policy Program in Washington DC. Scott’s interest in federal policy started with a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship at the National Science Foundation's Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure and the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Science and Technology Cooperation, sponsored by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 

Scott received a Bachelor of Science degree in Meteorology from the University of Utah in 2005, a Master of Arts degree in Climate and Society from Columbia University in 2009 and a Master of Science (2012) and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 2014.

Scott led a multi-institutional group of scientists who have developed the CONNected objECT algorithm, or CONNECT, designed to study a weather phenomenon using “object oriented” approaches and machine learning. He worked to scale up the approach using advanced cyberinfrastructure developed as part of NSF’s Pacific Research Platform at UC San Diego’s Qualcomm Institute/Calit2. His team bridged the scientific disciplines of atmospheric science, hydrology, climate, and computer science.

Scott’s interest in policy started early in his research career, where he decided to be a 2014-2015 Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the California State Legislature, sponsored by the California Council on Science and Technology. During his one year fellowship, he was placed in the office of California State Assembly Member Bill Quirk (former Nuclear Engineer from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) providing support to the member in several areas, including staffing California Assembly Appropriations Committee, managing five legislative bills, research and legislative analysis. Two of the Assemblymember’s energy related bills Scott staffed were signed by California Governor Jerry Brown in October of 2015.

Scott continues to be particularly interested in providing our policy makers and leaders with the most current and top quality scientific information, engineering solutions, knowledge, and technology available so that their decisions will have the highest probability for success.