Biographical Statement for Dr. Howard J. Silver
Dr.
Silver serves as the Executive Director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA) in Washington, DC, a position he has held since 1988. The Consortium, supported by over 100 professional associations, scientific societies, universities and research institutes, promotes attention to and federal funding for the social, behavioral, and economic sciences and serves as a bridge between the research community and the Washington policy making community. Dr. Silver previously served COSSA as its Associate Director for Government Relations from 1983-88.
Prior to joining COSSA, Dr. Silver was a consultant for legislative and political research, a political campaign manager, and a legislative analyst in the U.S. Department of Education. He has taught political science and public policy at a number of colleges and universities. Dr. Silver came to Washington in 1980 as an Institute for Educational Leadership Policy Fellow.
Dr. Silver has testified before Congress, spoken at many professional meetings on federal funding of science, and written extensively on executive-legislative relations, the federal budget process, and science policy as it affects the social and behavioral sciences. In 2001, to celebrate the Consortium’s 20th Anniversary, he co-wrote and edited, Fostering Human Progress: Social and Behavioral Research Contributions to Public Policy. He recently published “Science and Politics: The Uneasy Relationship” in Open Spaces magazine (Vol. 8 Number 1).
Elected by his science policy colleagues, Dr. Silver served from 1994-2000 as the Chairman of the Coalition for National Science Funding (CNSF), an ad-hoc advocacy group with membership from scientific and engineering societies, higher education associations, and industrial groups. A tribute to his leadership of CNSF appeared in the November 1, 2000 issue of the Congressional Record. In 1998, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
He is a co-founder of the Association for the Accreditation of Human Research Protection Systems. In 2006 he became the President of the National Capital Area Political Science Association, after serving on its council. He was on the planning committee for the 2004 Gordon Research Conference on Science and Technology Policy. From 1998-2000 he served on the Council of the American Political Science Association (APSA). Prior service includes: President, Treasurer and Program Chair of the Section on Applied Political Science of the American Political Science Association, the Executive Committee of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, and the steering committees of the National Commission on Social Studies in the Schools and the Coalition for the Advancement of Foreign Languages and International Studies.
Dr. Silver received his Ph.D. in Political Science from The Ohio State University in 1975. A native of New York City, he obtained his B.A. from the City College of the City University of New York in 1969.
Strengthening COSSA for the Challenges Ahead: Is the Past Prologue?
(remarks by COSSA Executive Director Howard J. Silver, Ph.D., at the COSSA Annual Meeting, November 3, 2003)
printable pdf
Science and Politics: The Uneasy Relationship,
Open Spaces: Views from the Northwest
http://open-spaces.com/article-v8n1-silver.pdf
Science Funding in an Age of Austerity, University of Texas at Austin, October 14, 2011