Unelected Representative is a research-based look at our changing democratic institutions.
Dr. Sheril Kirshenbaum is an Emmy Award-winning scientist and author in the Office of Research and Innovation at Michigan State University. She is also an assistant professor in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences, where her research explores how senior policymakers in the U.S. government make decisions about science and policy. She hosts and writes the PBS series, Serving Up Science.
Sheril co-authored Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future with Chris Mooney, chosen by Library Journal as one of the Best Sci-Tech Books of 2009 and named by President Obama’s science advisor John Holdren as a top recommended read. She also wrote The Science of Kissing, which explores the science behind one of humanity’s fondest pastimes. Her Substack, Uncivil Discourse, focuses on our changing democratic institutions.
In 2007, Sheril co-founded Science Debate (now Science on the Ballot) and served as Executive Director from 2015-2022. She has been an International Affairs Fellow through the Council on Foreign Relations with Senator Gary Peters (2024-2025), a Presidential Leadership Scholar (2015), a Marshall Memorial Fellow (2012), a Next Generation Fellow through the Robert Strauss Center for International Security and Law (2012), and a John A. Knauss Fellow in the U.S. Senate with Senator Bill Nelson (2006). She speaks internationally about science communication and has appeared as a thought leader at events like TEDGlobal and Ciudad de las Ideas.
In 2023, Sheril was awarded a regional Emmy by The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. She has been featured in documentary films about science and society and her writing appears in publications such as Bloomberg and The Atlantic, frequently covering topics from climate change to parenthood. Her work has been published in scientific journals including Science and Nature and she is featured in the anthology The Best American Science Writing 2010. Sheril has been a guest on news programs like CNN and Fox News and interviewed in magazines such as Vanity Fair. She hosted blogs at Discover, Scientific American, and Wired, as well as the weekly NPR podcast Serving Up Science.
Previously, Sheril served as director of the University of Texas at Austin Energy Poll. She has also worked with the Webber Energy Group at the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy and Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. Sheril has been a visiting scholar with The Pimm Group, a fellow with the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, and a Howard Hughes Research Fellow.
Sheril holds a Ph.D. in Community Sustainability from Michigan State University, master’s degrees from the University of Maine, and bachelor’s degrees from Tufts University. She lives in Michigan with her husband, David Lowry, and sons.
