Science advocacy is hard. If not you, who?

Admit it, when an email arrives in your inbox from “MBX OSTP” with the subject line “Invitation to the White House”, and warning “External Email – Use Caution,” you, like me, may be ready to click Delete. Fortunately, having recently received the incredible news that I had been elected 2025 American Chemical Society president-elect, the legitimacy of such a dubious-sounding message seemed within the realm of possibility. I had indeed been invited to serve on a panel at an event that took place on Dec. 19 at the White House, hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). This was no ordinary event—it was a celebration of the release of a report on the future of sustainable chemistry in manufacturing. As a member of a cross-disciplinary team at the Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, funded by the National Science Foundation, I have contributed to the development of design principles