In December, the University of Michigan's Andy Hoffman led a panel at Amherst’s Institute for Social Science Research, promising to be “provocative in order to push scientists outside of their comfort zones, and scientific institutions into faster change.” Hoffman, who earned his BA in chemical engineering from UMass Amherst and his PhD in management/civil & environmental engineering from MIT, quickly delivered on that promise, with a review of studies on the “abysmal state” of public perceptions of science.