About the Board

The Board on Behavioral, Cognitive, and Sensory Sciences was created to offer the best analysis and judgment of the scientific community to inform decisions on pressing policy issues, and to assist in setting research agendas that are emerging in these scientific fields. The objective is to anticipate the policy issues likely to arise as a result of new developments in these sciences.

Consisting of behavioral, cognitive, and sensory scientists who have served on the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and other experts in these scientific fields, the Board identifies areas in which new scientific developments are creating opportunities or potential problems for public policy. It serves as an intellectual resource for the NRC and for policy-making communities, identifying, for example, new ways in which these fields can inform policy decisions, new policy issues that are emerging from behaviorally based technologies or practices, and new opportunities to move behavioral and cognitive science in directions that will provide policy-relevant knowledge. Specifically, the Board:

interacts with representatives of government agencies regarding current policy questions and the ability of the behavioral, cognitive, and sensory sciences to provide useful insights on these questions;
sponsors scientific workshops to discuss new behavioral knowledge and technology and to identify policy issues that may arise as this knowledge and technology come into wider use;
organizes policy forums or seminars to make the relevant policy-making communities aware of emerging policy issues and the scientific issues involved in addressing them;
advises DBASSE on the need for new studies or other activities to address policy issues emerging from new developments in behavioral, cognitive, and sensory science; and
discusses with government agencies the feasibility and advisability of conducting detailed studies of emerging issues that require intensive examination.

Dr. Anne Petersen, Senior Vice President for Programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, chairs the Board. Dr. Petersen is a psychologist who specializes in adolescent biopsychosocial developmental and social risk, with an emphasis on girls. She has chaired an NAS panel on Child Abuse and Neglect and served on numerous NAS and IOM committee and panels. Currently, Dr. Petersen is a member of the Institute of Medicine.