Science and the Presidential Election
Speakers and Panelists
George Daley received his PhD in biology from MIT and an MD degree from Harvard Medical School through the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and has received research awards from Harvard Medical School, the National Institutes of Health, the New England Cancer Society, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the Edward Mallinckrodt, Jr. Foundation, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America.
Kelly Sims Gallagher is Director of the Energy Technology Innovation Project (ETIP) of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and an Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy. She has a M.A.L.D. and Ph.D. in International Affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Her research interests include energy technology innovation, international energy cooperation, energy policy, climate change policy, international environmental policy, and technology transfer/economic development questions. She has an A.B. in international affairs and environmental studies from Occidental College. She speaks Spanish and basic Mandarin Chinese. Her book, China Shifts Gears: Automakers, Oil, Pollution, and Development, was published by MIT Press in 2006.
Sheila Jasanoff is Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government. She has held academic positions at Cornell, Yale, Oxford, and Kyoto. At Cornell, she founded and chaired the Department of Science and Technology Studies. She has also been a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Cambridge, Fellow at the Berlin Institute for Advanced Study, and Resident Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio study center. Her research concerns the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and public policy of modern democracies, with a particular focus on the challenges of globalization. She has written and lectured widely on problems of environmental regulation, risk management, and biotechnology in the United States, Europe, and India. Her books include Controlling Chemicals (1985), The Fifth Branch (1990), Science at the Bar (1995), and Designs on Nature (2005). Jasanoff has served on the Board of Directors of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as President of the Society for Social Studies of Science.
Henry Kelly, Ph.D. has been the president of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), since July 2001. Prior to joining the FAS, Kelly spent more than seven years as Assistant Director for Technology in the Office of Science and Technology in the White House and convened the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. Before his tenure at the White House, he was a senior associate at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment; assistant director for the Solar Energy Research Institute; and worked on the staff of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Kelly is an elected fellow of the American Physical Society, 2002 winner of the APS' Leo Szilard Lectureship Award for "promoting the use of physics for the benefit of society," and was named the biannual "Champion of Energy Efficiency" in 2000 by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. He is the author of numerous books and articles on issues in science and technology policy. Kelly received a PhD in physics from Harvard University.
Kevin Knobloch brings 27 years of experience in legislative policy, media, and advocacy to his job as leader of UCS. He is knowledgeable about a wide range of environmental and arms control issues, including natural resource and clean energy economics, advanced technology vehicles, nuclear weapons, forest conservation, renewable energy, and corporate responsibility. Kevin first worked at UCS from 1989 to 1992 as Legislative Director for Arms Control and National Security. He returned in January 2000 and was named President in December 2003. He oversees all of the organization's research, public education, and legislative programs. Kevin recently served as chair of the Green Group, a coalition of the CEOs of 34 national environmental organizations, and currently serves as co-chair, along with Frances Beinecke of NRDC, of the Green Group Climate and Energy Committee. He led UCS delegations to the United Nations International Climate negotiations in Montreal in 2005 and in Bali in 2007. In addition to his positions at UCS, he served as director of conservation programs for the Appalachian Mountain Club in Boston. During six years on Capitol Hill, he was the legislative director for then-Senator Timothy Wirth (D-CO) and legislative assistant and press secretary for Representative Ted Weiss (D-NY). He was also an award-winning newspaper journalist, writing for several Massachusetts publications. He recently completed eight years on the board of directors of the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies (CERES) and serves on the Environmental League of Massachusetts. He is also cofounder and former president of the Arlington (MA) Land Trust. Kevin holds a master's degree in public administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, with a focus on natural resource economics and environmental management, and a bachelor's degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he concentrated in English and journalism.
Richard B. Marchase, Ph.D., is currently serving as the 93rd President of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology (FASEB), which represents over 80,000 scientists and is recognized as the principal advocacy voice for investigators in the biomedical research community on issues related to research funding and policy. Previously, he served as FASEB's Vice President for Science Policy. Marchase is also Professor of Cell Biology and the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His administrative functions include strategic planning, regulatory oversight, recruitment, and space allocation for a research enterprise generating approximately $430 million annually. He leads the university-wide centers program at UAB that is recognized nationally as a paradigm for multidisciplinary collaborations. He functions as the principal University liaison for regional economic development issues and to the UAB-affiliated Southern Research Institute. Marchase serves on the Boards of the UAB Research Foundation, The Innovation Depot, and the Biotechnology Association of Alabama. He maintains a collaborative role in research, working with colleagues to study cardiac responses to stress. Marchase received his B.S. in 1970 from Cornell University and was honored with the Hamilton Award as the Outstanding Graduate in Science and Engineering. He received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in Biophysics. He did postdoctoral training at Duke University, was named a member of the faculty there, and later was honored as a Nanaline H. Duke Scholar. In 1984 he received one of the inaugural Presidential Young Investigator Awards from the National Science Foundation. Marchase was recruited to the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the Department of Cell Biology in 1986, and subsequently served as Chair and Associate Dean for Research in the School of Medicine. He was named Vice President for Research in 2004, and responsibility for leading UAB's participation in regional economic development issues was added to his portfolio in 2006.
Jeff Nesbit is a senior communications strategist with 25 years of experience working in the national media, Congress, the Food and Drug Administration, the White House and Private Industry, was appointed director of the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs at the National Science Foundation (NSF). Nesbit oversees the agency's communication activities with the public, Congress, the news media, states and governors and various scientific, engineering and education organizations. He began his duties at NSF on June 12, 2006. Nesbit has managed a successful strategic communications consulting business for more than a decade. His clients and projects have included dozens of national nonprofit, trade associations, media companies, Fortune 500 companies, major health foundations, public relations agencies and advocacy organizations such as the Discovery Health Channel, the American Heart Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Red Cross, Porter-Novelli, CTIA- the Wireless Association, the Koop-Kessler Committee on Tobacco Policy and Public Health, Burson-Marsteller, the Kaiser Family Foundation and a number of major pharmaceutical companies. Prior to forming his own communications consulting business in 1992, Nesbit was the Director of Communications to former Vice President Dan Quayle at the White House; Associate Commissioner for Public Affairs at the FDA for David Kessler, M.D.; a U.S. Senate press secretary and a national journalist with media organizations such as Knight-Ridder Newspapers. In addition, Nesbit is the author of 17 novels for children and adults.
Lesley Stone is Executive Director of Scientists and Engineers for America, and previously served as Deputy Director of the organization and of the SEA Political Education Fund. Stone brings vast political and project management experience to her role at SEA, and is an expert on public health policy. Stone also serves as a professorial lecturer at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, teaching Global Health and Politics. Prior to joining SEA, Stone was awarded a Zuckerman Fellowship by Harvard University to study public administration at the Kennedy School of Government. Her work at the Center for Law and the Public's Health at Georgetown University Law Center and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health focused on public health law and policy, including research, writing, teaching, and managing a research team. Stone practiced international trade law at Steptoe & Johnson, LLP and clerked for a federal judge after graduating from Harvard Law School with honors.
Dorothy Shore Zinberg is Lecturer in Public Policy, Faculty Associate at the BCSIA, and a faculty member with the Program for Science, Technology, and Public Policy. She is author and editor of numerous books and articles, including Uncertain Power: The Struggle for a National Energy Policy and The Changing University: How the Need for Scientists and Technology Is Transforming Universities Internationally. Over the past decade, she wrote a monthly column on science and technology issues for the (London) Times Higher Education supplement. Her current research includes an examination of the social-political aspects of educating foreign scientists and the impact of information technology on higher education. Zinberg has been a visiting scholar at the Institute of Policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and at the National Institute for Science and Technology Policy in Tokyo. She is currently a Research Fellow at University College London and serves on the board of directors of Talking Science Internet Radio. She recently served on NATO's Science and Technology Policy Committee and was also a Visiting Professor at Imperial College London.