President Barack Obama has named Christopher Chyba, a Professor of Astrophysics and International Affairs and Director of the Woodrow Wilson School's program on Science and Global Security, to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).

President Obama announced members to PCAST during remarks at the National Academy of Sciences in in late April. PCAST is an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and engineers who advise the president and vice president and formulate policy in the many areas where understanding of science, technology, and innovation is key to strengthening the U.S. economy and policy making, according to a press release available on whitehouse.gov.

"This council represents leaders from many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience and views," said the president in a statement. "I will charge PCAST with advising me about national strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation."

According to the announcement, PCAST will be co-chaired by John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, Director of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and one of the principal leaders of the Human Genome Project; and Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former head of the National Institutes of Health and a Nobel laureate.

Dr. John Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy noted, "This PCAST is a group of exceptional caliber as well as diversity, covering a wide range of expertise and backgrounds across the relevant science, engineering and innovation fields and sectors.  The president and I expect to make major use of this extraordinary group as we work to strengthen our country’s capabilities in science and technology and bring them more effectively to bear on the national challenges we face."