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COMMITTEE BIOGRAPHIES
Dr. Thomas M. Connelly, Jr. (NAE), Chair, is the executive director and the chief executive officer of the American Chemical Society. He also currently serves as the chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Division on Earth and Life Studies. Dr. Connelly retired in December 2014 from DuPont, where he was the executive vice president, the chief innovation officer, and a member of the company’s Office of the Chief Executive. At DuPont, he was responsible for science and technology and geographic regions outside the United States, as well as integrated operations, which include operations, sourcing and logistics, and engineering. Also at DuPont, he led businesses and research and development organizations while based in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Dr. Connelly graduated with highest honors from Princeton University with degrees in chemical engineering and economics. As a Winston Churchill Scholar, he received his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Cambridge. He is a director of Grasim Industries, an Indian-listed company. He has served in advisory roles to the U.S. government and the Republic of Singapore.
Dr. Steven M. Bellovin (NAE) is the Percy K. and Vida L.W. Hudson Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University, a member of the Cybersecurity and Privacy Center of the university’s Data Science Institute, and an affiliate faculty member at the Columbia Law School. He performs research on security and privacy and on related public policy issues. Dr. Bellovin received a B.A. from Columbia University and an M.S. and a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill. He has served as the chief technologist of the Federal Trade Commission and as a technology scholar at the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and is serving on the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In the past, he has been a member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Advisory Committee and the Technical Guidelines Development Committee of the Election Assistance Commission.
Dr. Patrick M. Boyle is the head of Codebase at Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based synthetic biology company that makes and sells engineered organisms. He is responsible for Ginkgo’s Codebase, the company’s complete portfolio of reusable biological assets. Codebase includes novel strains, enzymes, genetic parts, and diverse genetic repositories, including millions of engineered DNA sequences. It is being developed, maintained, and leveraged by Ginkgo’s organism engineers via dozens of strain-engineering projects. Prior to leading Codebase, Dr. Boyle founded the Design group at Ginkgo, which now produces hundreds of millions of base pairs of DNA designs each year to support Ginkgo’s projects. He received an S.B. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2006. He then received his Ph.D. from the Harvard Medical School in 2012, studying synthetic biology applications in bacteria, yeast, and plants.
Ms. Katherine Charlet was the inaugural director of Carnegie’s Technology and International Affairs Program. She works primarily on the security and international implications of evolving technologies, with a focus on cybersecurity and cyber conflict, biotechnology, and artificial intelligence. Ms. Charlet most recently served as the acting deputy assistant secretary of defense for cyber policy, where she managed the development of the U.S. Department of Defense’s cyber policy and strategy, the development of cyber capabilities, and the expansion of international cyber relationships. Ms. Charlet is the recipient of the Secretary of Defense Meritorious Civilian Service Award and has served in senior advisory roles on the Defense Science Board Task Forces on Cyber Deterrence, on Cyber as a Strategic Capability, and on the Presidential Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. Prior to working on cyberspace issues, Ms. Charlet served as the director for strategic planning at the National Security Council, led teams at the U.S. Department of Defense working on Afghanistan strategy and policy, and conducted research on issues at the nexus of science and security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Dr. Carol Corrado is the distinguished principal research fellow in economics at The Conference Board and a senior policy scholar at the Center for Business and Public Policy, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University. Her primary research focus is measuring intangible capital and digital innovation and analyzing their role in economic growth. Dr. Corrado has authored multiple papers on the role of intangible investment and capital in modern economies, including a paper that won the International Association of Research on Income and Wealth’s 2010 Kendrick Prize (“Intangible Capital and U.S. Economic Growth”). Her recent work also addresses the measurement of prices for information technology investment goods, consumer digital services, and education services, and an essay on reimagining gross domestic product that she co-authored won the inaugural Indigo Prize in 2017. She received the American Statistical Association’s prestigious Julius Shiskin Award for Economic Statistics in 2003 and a Special Achievement Award from the Federal Reserve Board in 1998 for her contributions to measuring high-tech prices and industrial capacity. Dr. Corrado holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in management science from Carnegie Mellon University.
Dr. J. Bradley Dickerson leads the Global Chemical and Biological Security group at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The GCBS group develops and applies systems-based solutions to reduce the risk of accidental release or intentional misuse of dangerous biological and chemical materials globally. Dr. Dickerson has held numerous leadership positions within the U.S. government, with responsibilities for chemical and biological security. Prior to joining SNL, he served as the principal scientific officer in the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ’s) National Security Division. Specifically, he served as DOJ’s principal science and technical advisor to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. Prior to that, Dr. Dickerson served as the senior biodefense advisor in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Office of Health Affairs and as the director of chemical security policy in DHS’s Office of Policy. At DHS he was responsible for the development and implementation of policies associated with biodefense, chemical defense, pandemic preparedness, and infectious disease–related border issues. Dr. Dickerson completed a detail at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where he led the policy and strategy component of the Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, which comprises the CDC Division of Emergency Operations, Division of State and Local Readiness, Division of Select Agents and Toxins, and Division of the Strategic National Stockpile. He was awarded a Legis Congressional Fellowship from the Brookings Institution and the American Association for the
Advancement of Science’s National Defense and Global Security Policy Fellowship. Dr. Dickerson holds a B.S. in chemistry, an M.S. in biomedical engineering, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry.
Dr. Diane DiEuliis is a senior research fellow at the National Defense University (NDU). Her research focuses on emerging biological technologies, biodefense, and preparedness for biothreats. Dr. DiEuliis also studies issues related to dual-use research; disaster recovery; and behavioral, cognitive, and social science as it relates to important aspects of deterrence and preparedness. Prior to joining NDU, Dr. DiEuliis was the deputy director for policy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She also previously served in the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House and was a program director at the National Institutes of Health. She has broad knowledge of the policy implications of emerging technologies, as well as the intricacies that accompany the institution of new policies to regulate such technologies. Dr. DiEuliis received her Ph.D. in biological sciences from the University of Delaware.
Dr. Gerald Epstein is a distinguished research fellow with the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University. He works at the intersection of science, technology, and security policy, particularly concerning the governance and security implications of advanced life sciences, biotechnologies, and other emerging and converging technologies. Previously, he served at the White House Office of Science and Technology (OSTP) as the assistant director for biosecurity and emerging technologies, a position he held on detail from his U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appointment as deputy assistant secretary for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear policy. Before joining DHS, Dr. Epstein held positions with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Institute for Defense Analyses, and the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. He directed a project on the relationship between military and commercial technologies at Harvard University, and he has taught at Princeton University and Georgetown University. In a prior White House appointment, he served jointly as the assistant OSTP director for national security and the senior director for science and technology on the National Security Council staff. He holds S.B. degrees in physics and electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Steven L. Evans is a recently retired research fellow from Dow Agro-Sciences, which is now part of Corteva Agriscience. He has 30 years of experience in discovery research and development, biotechnology regulation, and commercialization of crop traits and biological and biochemical pesticides. For the past 10 years, he has worked to advance the field of synthetic biology in public–private partnerships. He served in industrial leadership on the National Science Foundation’s Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center and is currently on the executive leadership team of the successor nonprofit Engineering Biology Research Consortium in Emeryville, California. He co-chaired the BIO Synthetic Biology working group until 2018 and is involved in technology and policy implications of advanced technologies applied to agriculture, including environmental release, biosafety, and biosecurity, and the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity’s assessment of synthetic biology. As part of Dow AgroSciences, Dr. Evans has been involved in the development of several plant traits leading to the Herculex™ product line, in capability development in bioanalytical sciences, and in enabling the EXZACT™ Zinc Finger technology. He served on the 2016 National Academies’ Committee on Future Biotechnology Products and Opportunities to Enhance Capabilities of the Biotechnology Regulatory System.
Dr. George B. Frisvold is currently a professor and an extension specialist in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the University of Arizona. He has been a visiting scholar at the National Institute of Rural Development in Hyderabad, India; a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University; and the chief of the Resource and Environmental Policy Branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. His research interests include domestic and international environmental policy, as well as the causes and consequences of technological change in agriculture. In 1995–1996, Dr. Frisvold served on the senior staff of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, with responsibility for agricultural, natural resource, and international trade issues. He is an associate editor for the journals Pest Management Science and Water Economics and Policy. Dr. Frisvold earned his B.S. in political economy of natural resources in 1983 and his Ph.D. in agricultural and resources economics in 1989, both from the University of California, Berkeley.
Dr. Jeffrey L. Furman is an associate professor of strategy and innovation at Boston University and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). His research addresses issues in innovation, science policy, and the strategic management of science-based firms. His research has been published in a range of leading academic journals, including the American Economic Review, the Review of Economics
and Statistics, Organization Science, Research Policy, and Nature. Recent projects involve investigating the impact of institutions on cumulative innovation, the strategic management of science-based enterprises, and science and innovation policy. Dr. Furman co-organizes NBER’s Productivity Seminar, and recently completed separate terms as a member of the Executive Committee of the Academy of Management’s Strategy Division and Technology & Innovation Division and a 6-year term as the academic director of the undergraduate program at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. Dr. Furman received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management and completed undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania’s College of Arts and Science and Wharton School of Business.
Dr. Linda Kahl is a dedicated and experienced advocate for biotechnology in the public interest. She is the founder and principal of SciScript Communications, a consulting firm providing strategic planning and scientific writing services to biotechnology companies, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, universities, and research institutes in the areas of biomarker discovery, cancer research, genomics, infectious and chronic disease, medical economics, molecular diagnostics, and synthetic biology. Dr. Kahl also maintains a law practice as counsel with Perspectives Law Group and is a licensed patent attorney with bar admission to practice law in California and before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. She formerly served as the senior counsel for the BioBricks Foundation, where she led development of the Open Material Transfer Agreement. Dr. Kahl has been appointed as a Herbert Smith Freehills Visiting Scholar at the University of Cambridge Faculty of Law, a policy fellow at the University of Cambridge Centre for Science and Policy, and a visiting research fellow at Stanford University. Originally trained as a research scientist, she received her B.S. in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in cell biology and biochemistry from Princeton University. Dr. Kahl received her J.D. magna cum laude from the Santa Clara University School of Law, earning the High Tech Law Certificate with an emphasis in intellectual property law.
Dr. Isaac S. Kohane (NAM) is currently the chair of the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard University. Over the past 30 years, his research agenda has been driven by the vision of what biomedical researchers could do to find new cures, provide new diagnoses, and deliver the best care available if data could be converted more rapidly to knowledge and knowledge to practice. Dr. Kohane has designed and led multiple internationally adopted efforts to “instrument” the health care enterprise for discovery and to enable innovative decision-making tools
to be applied to the point of care. He has worked on recharacterizing and reclassifying such diseases as autism, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancers. In many of these studies, the developmental trajectories of thousands of genes have been a powerful tool in unraveling complex diseases.
Dr. Kelvin H. Lee is the Gore Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. He currently serves as the director of the National Institute for Innovation in Manufacturing Biopharmaceuticals (a Manufacturing USA Institute) and he previously served as the director of the Delaware Biotechnology Institute. Dr. Lee received a B.S.E. in chemical engineering from Princeton University and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Caltech. He also completed a postdoc in Caltech’s Biology Division and spent several years at the Biotechnology Institute at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland. Previously, he was on the faculty at Cornell University where he held the titles of Samuel C. and Nancy M. Fleming Chair Professor, professor in the School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, director of the Cornell Institute for Biotechnology, and director of the New York State Center for Life Science Enterprise. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers. His research expertise is in systems and synthetic biology applied to biopharmaceutical manufacturing as well as in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr. Mary E. Maxon is the associate laboratory director for biosciences at the Berkeley National Laboratory. She oversees the laboratory’s biological systems and engineering, environmental genomics and systems biology, and molecular biophysics and integrated bioimaging divisions and the Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute. Dr. Maxon earned her B.S. in biology and chemistry from the State University of New York, Albany, and her Ph.D. in molecular cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley. She has worked in the private sector in both the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, as well as in the public sector. Her public-sector service was highlighted by her tenure as the assistant director for biological research at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, where she developed the National Bioeconomy Blueprint.
Dr. Maureen McCann is a professor of biological sciences at Purdue University, the president-elect of the American Society of Plant Biology, and the director of Purdue’s NEPTUNE Center for Power and Energy, funded by the Office of Naval Research. The goal of her research is to understand how the molecular machinery of the plant cell wall contributes to
cell growth and specialization, and thus to the final stature and form of plants. She currently serves on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Biological and Environmental Remediation Advisory Committee and has previously served on the U.S. Department of Agriculture–DOE Biomass Research and Development Technical Advisory Committee and the DOE Office of Science, Council for Chemical and Biochemical Sciences. In 2018–2019, Dr. McCann participated, as 1 of 14 nominated individuals, in DOE’s Oppenheimer Science and Energy Leadership Program to provide future leaders with an overview of DOE and the National Laboratory system. From 2009 to 2018, she was the director of the Center for Direct Catalytic Conversion of Biomass to Biofuels (C3Bio), an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by DOE’s Office of Science. Within C3Bio, Dr. McCann’s lab explored synthetic biology and genetic engineering approaches to optimize cell wall and biomass structure for chemical conversion processes. She also served as the director of Purdue University’s Energy Center, representing more than 200 affiliated faculty with energy-related research interests. Prior to joining the faculty at Purdue, she was a project leader at the John Innes Centre Norwich in the United Kingdom, a government-funded research institute for plant and microbial sciences, funded by The Royal Society with a University Research Fellowship. She received her undergraduate degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in botany from the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
Dr. Piers D. Millett is the director of safety and security at iGEM and co-chairs iGEM’s Safety Committee. He is a certified biorisk management professional, with a specialization in biosecurity. Until June 2014, Dr. Millett was the deputy head of the Implementation Support Unit for the Biological Weapons Convention, a treaty for which he worked for more than a decade. Trained originally as a microbiologist, he is a chartered biologist and works closely with the citizen science movement, synthetic biologists, and the biotechnology industry, as well as governments. He has collaborated with a range of intergovernmental organizations spanning health (human and animal), humanitarian law, disarmament, security, border control, law enforcement, and weapons of mass destruction—both inside and outside of the United Nations system. Dr. Millett also co-founded a consultancy firm that works with government, industry, and academia to ensure the safe, secure, and sustainable exploitation of biology as a manufacturing technology. He holds fellowships with the Future of Humanity Institute at the University of Oxford and the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC, where he researches pandemic and deliberate disease and the implications of biotechnology. He also consults for the World Health Organization, supporting its research and development efforts.
