Appendix D
Advisory Group on Convergence Biographies
Co-Chairs
Marcia McNutt, Ph.D., is a geophysicist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences. From 2013 to 2016, she served as editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals. Prior to joining Science, she was the director of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) from 2009–2013. Dr. McNutt began her academic career at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was the E.A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics and directed the Joint Program in Oceanography/Applied Ocean Science and Engineering, jointly offered by MIT and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. She is a veteran of more than a dozen deep-sea expeditions, on most of which she was chief or co-chief scientist. Dr. McNutt received a B.A. in physics from Colorado College and her Ph.D. in earth sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
C. D. Mote, Jr., Ph.D., is the president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and Regents’ Professor on leave from the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Mote earned his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of California (UC), Berkeley, in mechanical engineering. He held an endowed chair in mechanical systems at UC Berkeley and served as the university’s vice chancellor. In 1998 Dr. Mote was recruited to the presidency of the University of Maryland, College Park, a position he held until 2010 when he was appointed Regents’ Professor. The NAE elected him to membership in 1988 and to the positions of Councilor (2002–2008), Treasurer (2009–2013), and President for a 6-year term begin-
ning July 1, 2013. A highlight of global engineering engagement under his tenure is promotion of the NAE’s 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering from 2008, as these challenges’ solutions are needed to achieve the “[c]ontinuation of life on the planet, making our world more sustainable, safe, healthy, and joyful.”
Victor J. Dzau, M.D., is the president of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). In addition, he serves as vice chair of the National Research Council. Dr. Dzau is chancellor emeritus and the James B. Duke Professor of Medicine at Duke University and the past president and the chief executive officer of the Duke University Health System. Previously, Dr. Dzau was the Hershey Professor of Theory and Practice of Medicine and Chairman of Medicine at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, as well as chairman of the Department of Medicine at Stanford University. He maintains an active National Institutes of Health–funded research laboratory. Since arriving at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Dr. Dzau has designed and led important initiatives such as the Commission on a Global Health Risk Framework for the Future, the Human Genome Editing Initiative, and Vital Directions for Health and Health Care. The launch of the NAM Grand Challenge for Healthy Longevity represents his vision to inspire people across disciplines and sectors to coalesce around a shared priority and audacious goal to advance health.
Members
Frances H. Arnold, Ph.D., is the Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Biochemistry, and Bioengineering at the California Institute of Technology, where she engineers biological molecules and systems by directed evolution. Dr. Arnold received a B.S. in mechanical and aerospace engineering from Princeton University in 1979 and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1985. She is listed as co-inventor on more than 30 U.S. patents and has served as a science advisor to more than 10 companies, including Maxygen, Amyris, Codexis, Mascoma, and Gevo Inc., a company she co-founded in 2005 that develops new microbial routes to produce fuels and chemicals from renewable resources. She has received numerous academic awards, including the 2011 Charles Stark Draper Prize, and is one of the select few who is a member of all three membership organizations of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine—the National Academy of Engineering (2000), the National Academy of Medicine (2004), and the National Academy of Sciences (2008).
Peter G. Brewer, Ph.D., is the senior scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). His research interests are broad and include the ocean geochemistry of the greenhouse gases. He has devised novel techniques both for measuring and for extracting the oceanic signatures of global change. Prior to joining MBARI in 1991 he spent 24 years as a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, rising to the rank of senior scientist. He served as the program manager for Ocean Chemistry at the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1981 to 1983, receiving the NSF Sustained Superior Performance Award. He has taken part in more than 40 deep-sea cruises, has served as the chief scientist on more than 100 remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) dives, and has served as the chief scientist on major expeditions worldwide. He is a fellow of, and the 2016 Maurice Ewing Medal awardee, of the American Geophysical Union and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Internationally he has served as a lead author for the 2005 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on CO2 Capture and Storage, as a member of the Standing Committee on Research, and as vice-chair of the Joint Global Ocean Flux Study. He served as a member of Vice President Gore’s Environmental Task Force and was a member of Measurements of Earth Data for Environmental Analysis. He served as co-chair of the NSF Decadal Report Ocean Sciences at the New Millennium on the U.S. National Methane Hydrates Advisory Committee, and on the IPCC Working Group II Fifth Assessment Report. In 2010 he received the Zheng Zhong Distinguished Visiting Fellowship from Xiamen University and a United Kingdom Royal Academy of Engineering Distinguished Visiting Fellowship. He is appointed as an independent scientist to the BP Gulf of Mexico Research Institute Board overseeing the research devoted to the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil release. In 2012 he received an Einstein Visiting Professorship from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and was made an Honorary Professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an. He also serves on the Major Projects Review Board of the University Grants Committee of Hong Kong.
Steven Chu, Ph.D., is the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Physics and a professor of molecular and cellular physiology in the Medical School at Stanford University. Dr. Chu was the 12th U.S. Secretary of Energy from January 2009 until the end of April 2013. As the first scientist to hold a Cabinet position and the longest serving Secretary of Energy, he recruited outstanding scientists and engineers into the U.S. Department of Energy. He began initiatives such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy and the Energy Innovation Hubs. Prior to his Cabinet post, he was the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where
he was active in pursuit of alternative and renewable energy technologies, and a professor of physics and applied physics at Stanford University, where he helped launch Bio-X, a multi-disciplinary institute combining the physical and biological sciences with medicine and engineering. Previously he was head of the Quantum Electronics Research Department at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Dr. Chu is the co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to laser cooling and atom trapping, and has received numerous other awards. He received an A.B. degree in mathematics and a B.S. in physics from the University of Rochester, and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Donald E. Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., is the Founding Director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a professor of bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Dr. Ingber is a pioneer in the field of biologically inspired engineering. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Inventors, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He has received numerous honors in a broad range of disciplines. In 2015, Dr. Ingber’s Organs-on-Chips technology was named Design of the Year by the London Design Museum and was also acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City for its permanent design collection. He received his B.A., M.A., M.Phil., M.D., and Ph.D. from Yale University.
Cato T. Laurencin, M.D., Ph.D., is a university professor at the University of Connecticut (UConn); the chief executive officer at the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science; the director of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering; Endowed Chair Professor in the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at UConn Health; and a tenured professor in the School of Engineering. Dr. Laurencin is an expert in shoulder and knee surgery and an international leader in tissue engineering research. He is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. He previously served as the UConn Health Center’s vice president for Health Affairs and the dean of the UConn School of Medicine. Prior to his arrival at the UConn Health Center, he was the Lillian T. Pratt Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Orthopedic Surgery at the University of Virginia, as well as the orthopedic surgeon-in-chief at the University of Virginia Health System.
Peter Lee, Ph.D., is the corporate vice president, Artificial Intelligence and Research, at Microsoft Research. He is responsible for incubating research projects that lead to new products and services. Before Microsoft, Dr. Lee held executive positions in both government and academia. At the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, he founded a technology office focused on research and development programs in computing and related areas in the social and physical sciences. Dr. Lee also served as the head of Carnegie Mellon University’s computer science department and briefly as the university’s vice provost for Research. In 2016, he was appointed to the president’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. He is a member of the founding Board of the new Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. Dr. Lee has testified on the importance of research to the nation’s economy, global competitiveness, and national security before both the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology and the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Technology. Dr. Lee is an alumnus of the University of Michigan.
Gene E. Robinson, Ph.D., joined the faculty of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. He holds a University Swanlund Chair and Center for Advanced Study Professorship, is the director (since 2011) of the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, the director (since 1990) of the Bee Research Facility, and is a former director of the campus Neuroscience Program (2001–2011). Dr. Robinson pioneered the application of genomics to the study of social behavior. He serves on the National Institute of Mental Health Advisory Council and has past and current appointments on scientific advisory boards for companies with significant interests in genomics. Dr. Robinson’s honors include Fellow and Founders Memorial Award, Entomological Society of America; Fellow and Distinguished Behaviorist, Animal Behavior Society; Guggenheim Fellowship; Fulbright Fellowship; National Institutes of Health Pioneer Award; Honorary Doctorate, Hebrew University; Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences; member, U.S. National Academy of Sciences; and member, U.S. National Academy of Medicine. He obtained his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Daniel Stokols, Ph.D., is the Chancellor’s Professor emeritus with the School of Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). His research, classroom teaching, and graduate mentorship span the fields of social ecology, environmental psychology, urban planning, epidemiology, and public health. Areas of current work include the “science of team science” and factors that affect the collaborative success of transdisciplinary
research and training programs. He served as the director of the Social Ecology Program (1988–1992) and as the founding dean of the School of Social Ecology at UCI (1992–1998). He co-authored Behavior, Health, and Environmental Stress and co-edited the Handbook of Environmental Psychology; Environmental Simulation; and Promoting Human Wellness. He has also served as a team science consultant for the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative and as a committee member of the 2015 National Research Council report Enhancing the Effectiveness of Team Science. He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Michael Witherell, Ph.D., is the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a professor of physics. Previously he was vice chancellor for research and held the presidential chair in physics at the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara, and before that he was the director of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Dr. Witherell received his B.S. from the University of Michigan and his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics from the University of Wisconsin. He then served on the faculty at Princeton and at UC Santa Barbara. He won the W.K.H. Panofsky Prize in Experimental Particle Physics from the American Physical Society in 1990 and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1998.
