John P. Holdren, Ph.D.

Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology

Policy for Science, Technology, and Innovation in the Obama Administration: A Mid-Course Update

Dr. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and is highly regarded for his work on energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former AAAS president, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. Prior to joining the Obama administration, Dr. Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. He also served as a member of President Clinton’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) from 1994 to 2001.

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Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D.

Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry, California Institute of Technology

Design and Evolution: Engineering Biology in the 21st Century

Frances Arnold is a pioneer in the use of methods of laboratory evolution to generate novel and useful enzymes and organisms for applications in medicine and in alternative energy. Her multidisciplinary approach reveals insight into the way natural evolution might have occurred. She holds more than 20 patents and patent applications, has co-authored 220 scientific publications, and edited several books on protein engineering and laboratory protein evolution. Dr. Arnold is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. Recent awards and honors include the Linnaeus Lectureship at Uppsala University in Sweden and the Genencor Award in Enzyme Engineering. She received a bachelor's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Rita R. Colwell, Ph.D.

Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, College Park, and Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health

Dr. Colwell’s interests are focused on global infectious diseases, water, and health, and she is developing an international network to address emerging infectious diseases and water issues, including safe drinking water for both the developed and developing world. She recently chaired a study committee of the National Research Council that wrote, Responsible Research with Biological Select Agents and Toxins. Dr. Colwell has held many advisory positions in the U.S. government, nonprofit science policy organizations, and private foundations as well as in the international scientific research community. A former AAAS president, she is the recipient of 54 honorary doctorates, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. She was awarded the National Medal of Science by the President of the United States and the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan. She has a B.S. degree in bacteriology and M.S. degree in genetics from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. degree in oceanography from the University of Washington. She is also president and chief executive officer of CosmosID Inc., and senior advisor for Canon US Life Sciences Inc.

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Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.

Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health

Dr. Fauci oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections, influenza, tuberculosis, malaria and illness from potential agents of bioterrorism. NIAID also supports research on transplantation and immune-related illnesses, including autoimmune disorders, asthma and allergies. The NIAID budget for fiscal year 2010 is approximately $4.8 billion. Dr. Fauci serves as one of the key advisors to the White House and Department of Health and Human Services on global AIDS issues, and on initiatives to bolster medical and public health preparedness against emerging infectious disease threats such as pandemic influenza. He is also a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which is tasked with recommending policies on such questions as how to prevent published research in biotechnology from aiding terrorism without slowing scientific progress. Fauci graduated from Holy Cross College as a premedical student and then attended Cornell University Medical School where he received his medical degree and completed both his internship and residency.

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Claire M. Fraser-Liggett, Ph.D.

Director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and Professor of Medicine, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore

Dr. Fraser-Liggett was previously the president and director of The Institute for Genomic Research, and has played a role in the sequencing and analysis of human, animal, plant, and microbial genomes to better understand the role that genes play in development, evolution, physiology and disease. She led the teams that sequenced the genomes of several microbial organisms, including important human and animal pathogens, and as a consequence helped to initiate the era of comparative genomics. She has served on a number of National Research Council’s committees on counter-bioterrorism, domestic animal genomics, polar biology, and metagenomics. Dr. Fraser-Liggett has more than 220 scientific publications, and has served on committees of the National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, and National Institutes of Health. She received her Ph.D. degree in pharmacology from State University of New York, Buffalo.

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The Honorable Rush Holt

U.S. Congressman

Prior to his election in 1998 to represent New Jersey’s 12th District, Dr. Holt worked as an educator, scientist, and arms control expert. At the U.S. State Department, he monitored the nuclear programs of countries such as Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and the former Soviet Union. From 1980 to 1988, he served on the faculty at Swarthmore College, where he taught courses in physics, public policy, and religion. From 1989 until his 1998 congressional campaign, he was Assistant Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the largest center for alternative energy research in New Jersey. Dr. Holt serves on the House Committee on Education and Labor, the Committee on Natural Resources, and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, its only scientist. He also chairs the Select Intelligence Oversight Panel.

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Moderator Jeanne Guillemin, Ph.D.

Senior Fellow, MIT Security Studies Program, Center for International Studies

Educated in anthropology at Harvard University and Brandeis University, Dr. Guillemin is the author of Anthrax: The Investigation of a Deadly Outbreak, about the controversial 1979 Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak and the 1992 field inquiry that revealed its military source. Her widely-praised 2005 book Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Programs to Contemporary Bioterrorism was cited in Foreign Affairs as an “excellent guide” to past and future policy issues. An associate of the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons Disarmament, she has regularly participated in the annual Pugwash Working Group on the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions in Geneva, was an editor for the World Health Organization’s 2004 guide to public health responses to chemical and biological weapons attacks, and serves on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Weapons of Mass Destruction as well as on corporate and academic boards. Her new book, entitled American Anthrax, is about the 2001 anthrax letter attacks and will appear in September 2011.

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Graham Walker, Ph.D.

American Cancer Society Research Professor, HHMI Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Inspiration and Engagement in Education

Dr. Walker is an American biologist, notable for his work explicating the structure and function of proteins involved in DNA repair and mutagenesis. In addition to his scientific achievements, Dr. Walker is coordinating a program at MIT to develop curricular materials in biology. In 2010, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) announced three grants to MIT that recognize and promote excellence in science education at the Institute. These grants are part of an initiative by HHMI to help universities strengthen undergraduate and precollege science education nationwide. The resources will help faculty at research universities pursue some of their most creative ideas by developing new ways to teach and inspire students about science and research. One grant was a renewal of a project to promote undergraduate education in the biological sciences that Dr. Walker has directed for the past 20 years. In addition, MIT Professors Catherine L. Drennan and Walker were two of only 13 faculty members from around the nation to be named as HHMI Professors in the 2010 round of awards. Launched in 2002, the HHMI Professors Program recognizes accomplished research scientists who also are deeply committed to making science more engaging for undergraduates.

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