This is the Daystrom Institute Episode Analysis thread for Lower Decks 5x07 Fully Dilated.
Now that we’ve had a few days to digest the content of the latest episode, this thread is a place to dig a little deeper.
I wonder if “senior science officer” isn’t actually a very prominent position - by this era of Starfleet, the Operations officer tends to fill this role.
I think the TNG Technical Manual explains that the Ops officer manages and allocates the ship’s resources like sensors, while the actual scientists are presumably down in their labs rather than on the bridge.
If that’s still the case, I wonder what a science officer on the bridge actually does.