Adam Stoll, PhD '94
Informing Policy behind the Scenes
With 535 bosses, Adam Stoll, PhD '94, never knows what will land on his to-do list each day. As the head of the education and labor section at the Congressional Research Service (CRS), he works with his staff to assist any member of Congress who needs research to support a bill before it is introduced or to understand the implications of legislation being considered.
Working at CRS is a plum job for those interested in applying their research skills to inform public policy. What better way to have an impact than by helping Congress make informed decisions? Stoll researches education, a hot button issue that ranks among the top three concerns of most politicans these days alongside health care and the war in Iraq.
While think tanks and lobbying groups are ubiquitous inside the beltway, CRS is a place where members of Congress can get unvarnished, impartial research unencumbered by political or personal agendas. Particularly well known for doing quick turnaround work that is unbiased and often confidential, CRS stands with the Congressional Budget Office and the Government Accountability Office as the three nonpartisan agencies that support the work of the Congress.
"It's important that Congress have access to objective analysis before members go public with something," says Stoll.
While it's true that Stoll must be prepared to field requests from any member of Congress at any moment, his children's notion that he sits in a room all day waiting for the phone to ring isn't accurate.
"It's not like Congress is calling us to do a Google search for them," says Stoll. "Many of the projects we work on are complex, very technical, and relatively long-term, and they can involve fairly sophisticated modeling and simulations."
There is also a bit of intrigue involved in the work that Stoll does. While some of his reports have subsequently been published in books, the confidential nature of his work prevents him from openly discussing what he is working on right now.
"I have to maintain a low profile," says Stoll. "Try explaining that to my kids."