Something really interesting about working on the Hill was that you often didn’t know how your days would go when they started. Late-breaking news, a leak from a private company, or even a tweet could totally change the outcome of the day. I learned how to be very adaptable, even with my working conditions. I started my fellowship in the summer of 2020, meaning I spent its entirety working from home. Despite not having the in-person experience of the fellowship, 2020 marked the first time our national systems grappled with deep-seated health inequities and understanding how our technology may be worsening both inequity and privacy concerns. In this pivotal time, I got to play an important role pushing this discourse forward.
Something I grew to really appreciate during my TechCongress orientation was the clear explanation of oversight as a tool in our toolbox as Hill staffers. I have always had a strong sense of justice and fairness and wanted to be able to affect change. This is what made working in Senator Warren's oversight office the perfect fit for me. When I began my TechCongress fellowship, Democrats were in the minority. I knew realistically that a piece of legislation I worked on might never see the light of day simply because of who my boss was, in addition to the math of Congress requiring 60 votes. As a result, I believed oversight investigations would allow me the most impact. I was nervous about being new to the policy space but, on my first day in the Warren office, they expressed how excited they were to have someone with a health background join, especially given the Senator’s placement on the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and the ongoing pandemic. From day one, I felt my expertise and unique background were seen as a benefit that strengthened the office, for which I was so grateful.
When I joined my office, I began some work around federal pandemic preparedness and response, as well as around the spread of the pandemic among incarcerated individuals. I really enjoyed holding the government accountable for their response to the pandemic. Another thing I did in my office was meet with the constituents who were more scientifically and technically minded. I always found these constituent calls fascinating. Massachusetts is home to a lot of world-class universities, biotech companies, and science advocacy groups. It was rewarding to solicit their expert advice on a new piece of legislation and how the Senator's support of that legislation could really benefit the science they were doing.
Sometimes, my days were spent building a coalition of other members in the House and Senate for an oversight product or bill that I was working on. This involved being really thoughtful about which members to include by knowing who was likely to throw their support behind your member—more member support for a product meant it gained more visibility and was more likely to affect change. There were certainly some challenges; I spent time working on three different bills, none of which made it to the introduction stage.
Other times, my work could be highly technical in nature. These outputs highlighted the utility of my PhD training. Through a PhD, we become experts in spotting issues, identifying what could be done better, and offering suggestions for follow-up experiments or remedies. I saw a direct connection between my technical training and subsequent ability to advise on technical solutions. An average day typically involved reading and researching, whether it was a new scientific publication, the Twitter feed of a well-accomplished epidemiologist detailing how scientists were being sidelined, late-breaking headlines or even meeting with academics or civil society leaders to better understand policy changes they suggested for a bill we were drafting. Some projects that resulted from my issue-spotting included: work on how tenant screening algorithms could worsen the post-COVID housing crisis; a deep dive into studies detailing how racial biases were encoded in medical devices, resulting in the FDA taking action; researching the statistical methods used by the CDC, leading to the agency correcting its miscalculated COVID mortality risk for people of color; and raising the issue of racial bias in clinical algorithms, prompting the federal government to investigate this for the first time.
I learned that sometimes a single letter from a member or members of Congress is enough to end an improper practice or spark long overdue changes. While not every project I worked on was a win, I came into the fellowship with a clear goal—to advance equity in health and to address algorithmic and AI biases. I am proud to say that my time on the Hill was incredibly impactful, not just for the American people, but for my career and for moving my office closer to the forefront of these issues.
Crystal Grant
This piece was written by TechCongress alum, Crystal Grant (Congressional Innovation Scholar, January 2020).
Dr. Crystal Grant is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks’ Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons. At CSR, she is interested in the impact of AI and other emerging technologies on biosecurity. Dr. Grant holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from Emory University, and a B.A. in Biological Science with a minor in Anthropology from Cornell University.
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