Duties and Responsibilities: The Science officer is generally responsible for obtaining and analyzing all scientific data received from the ship's sensors, whether from the main sensor arrays or hand-held tricorders.
Science Officers may either be specialized, concentrating in one or two specific areas, or be "general practitioners," a jack-of-all-trades. The Science Officer is responsible for taking raw data provided by these input devices and translating that data into dialogue easily understood by the crew, especially the ship's Commanding Officer. It is frequently the input of Science Officers that tells a starship captain that what he is seeing on the viewscreen is a potentially hostile enemy. Because of relating functions, Science Officers may sometimes be required to work closely with the CMO or the Counselor. The Science Officer complement is usually commensurate with the size and mission of the ship in question. Small ships may have only one science officer, and he may also function as the ship's First Officer. On the other hand, larger starships, such as the Galaxy-class, may have dozens of science officers.