Jacquelyn Gill '05 holds a joint appointment at the Climate Change Institute and the School of Bi...Jacquelyn Gill '05 holds a joint appointment at the Climate Change Institute and the School of Biology and Ecology at The University of Maine.

Michael Eisen, an evolutionary biologist, is among the elite of American scientists, with a tenured position at the University of California, Berkeley, and generous funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for his research on fruit flies.

But late last month, dismayed over the Trump administration’s apparent disdain for evidence on climate change and other issues, Dr. Eisen registered the Twitter handle @SenatorPhD and declared his intention to run in the 2018 election for a seat in the United States Senate from California. His campaign slogan: “Liberty, Equality, Reality.”

Jacquelyn Gill, a paleo-ecologist at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute, has been actively recruited to — eventually — make a bid for a congressional seat by 314 Action, ever since she was quoted in the journal Nature urging her fellow scientists to “do more than write letters.” Staff members at 314 Action (which takes its name from the number pi) liked her attitude, and she happens to live in a swing district.

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