[Infowarrior] - WH S&T Advisory Council Announced

[Richard Forno]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-Members-of-Science-and-Technology-Advisory-Council/

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

____________________________________________________________________________

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                    April 27, 2009



  President Obama Announces Members of Science and Technology Advisory  
Council



WASHINGTON – Today, during remarks at the National Academy of  
Sciences, President Barack Obama announced the President’s Council of  
Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST).  The full membership of  
PCAST is below.

PCAST is an advisory group of the nation’s leading scientists and  
engineers who will advise the President and Vice President and  
formulate policy in the many areas where understanding of science,  
technology, and innovation is key to strengthening our economy and  
forming policy that works for the American people.

President Barack Obama said, "This council represents leaders from  
many scientific disciplines who will bring a diversity of experience  
and views. I will charge PCAST with advising me about national  
strategies to nurture and sustain a culture of scientific innovation."

PCAST will be co-chaired by John Holdren, Assistant to the President  
for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of  
Science and Technology Policy; Eric Lander, Director of the Broad  
Institute of MIT and Harvard and one of the principal leaders of the  
Human Genome Project; and Harold Varmus, President and CEO of Memorial  
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, former head of the National Institutes  
of Health and a Nobel laureate.

Dr. John Holdren, the Director of the Office of Science and Technology  
Policy said, "This PCAST is a group of exceptional caliber as well as  
diversity, covering a wide range of expertise and backgrounds across  
the relevant science, engineering and innovation fields and sectors.   
The President and I expect to make major use of this extraordinary  
group as we work to strengthen our country’s capabilities in science  
and technology and bring them more effectively to bear on the national  
challenges we face."

The membership of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and  
Technology is below:

Rosina Bierbaum, a widely-recognized expert in climate-change science  
and ecology, is Dean of the School of Natural Resources and  
Environment at the University of Michigan. Her PhD is in evolutionary  
biology and ecology. She served as Associate Director for Environment  
in OSTP in the Clinton Administration, as well as Acting Director of  
OSTP in 2000-2001. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and  
Sciences.

Christine Cassel is President and CEO of the American Board of  
Internal Medicine and previously served as Dean of the School of  
Medicine and Vice President for Medical Affairs at Oregon Health &  
Science University. A member of the US Institute of Medicine, she is a  
leading expert in geriatric medicine and quality of care.

Christopher Chyba is Professor of Astrophysical Sciences and  
International Affairs at Princeton University and a member of the  
Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National  
Academy of Sciences. His scientific work focuses on solar system  
exploration and his security-related research emphasizes nuclear and  
biological weapons policy, proliferation, and terrorism. He served on  
the White House staff from 1993 to 1995 at the National Security  
Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy and was  
awarded a MacArthur Prize Fellowship (2001) for his work in both  
planetary science and international security.

S. James Gates Jr. is the John S. Toll Professor of Physics and  
Director of the Center for String and Particle Theory at the  
University of Maryland, College Park. He is the first African American  
to hold an endowed chair in physics at a major research university. He  
has served as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the  
U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense, and the Educational Testing  
Service and held appointments at MIT, Harvard, California Institute of  
Technology and Howard University.

John Holdren is serving as co-chair of PCAST in addition to his duties  
as Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the  
Executive Office of the President and Assistant to the President for  
Science and Technology. Prior to this appointment Dr. Holdren was a  
Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on  
Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy  
School of Government. He also served concurrently as Professor of  
Environmental Science and Policy in Harvard’s Department of Earth and  
Planetary Sciences and as Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods  
Hole Research Center. 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 a former President of the  
American Association for the Advancement of Science and recipient of  
the MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship.

Shirley Ann Jackson is the President of Rensselaer Polytechnic  
Institute and former Chair of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission  
(1995-1999). She is the University Vice Chairman of the U.S. Council  
on Competitiveness, a member of the National Academy of Engineering,  
fellow of the Academy of Arts and Sciences, and past President of the  
American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Jackson was  
the first African American woman to earn a doctorate from MIT and  
chairs the New York Stock Exchange Regulation Board.

Eric Lander is serving as a co-chair of PCAST. He is the Director of  
the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Professor of Biology at  
MIT, Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School and member  
of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He was one of the  
principal leaders of the Human Genome Project, recipient of the  
MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship and is a member of both the  
National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine.

Richard Levin has served as President of Yale University since 1993  
and is a distinguished economist with interests in industrial  
organization, the patent system, and the competitiveness of American  
manufacturing industries, including industrial research and  
development, intellectual property, and productivity. He is a leader  
in US-China cooperation, in research and education, and is a member of  
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Chad Mirkin is Professor of Materials Science and Engineering,  
Chemistry, and Medicine at Northwestern University, as well as  
Director of Northwestern's International Institute of Nanotechnology.  
He is a leading expert on nanotechnology, including nano-scale  
manufacturing and applications to medicine. Awarded the Feynman Prize  
in Nanotechnology in 2002, he is one of the top-cited researchers in  
nano-medicine, as well as one of the most widely cited chemists.

Mario Molina is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the  
University of California, San Diego and the Center for Atmospheric  
Sciences at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, as well as  
Director of the Mario Molina Center for Energy and Environment in  
Mexico City. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1995 for his  
role in elucidating the threat to the Earth's ozone layer of  
chlorofluorocarbon gases. The only Mexican-born Nobel laureate in  
science, he served on PCAST for both Clinton terms. He is a member of  
both the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine.

Ernest J. Moniz is a Professor of Physics and Engineering Systems,  
Director of the Energy Initiative, and Director of the Laboratory for  
Energy and the Environment at MIT. His research centers on energy  
technology and policy, including the future of nuclear power, coal,  
natural gas, and solar energy in a low-carbon world. He served as  
Under Secretary of the Department of Energy (1997-2001) and Associate  
Director for Science in the White House Office of Science and  
Technology Policy (1995-1997).

Craig Mundie is Chief Research and Strategy Officer at Microsoft  
Corporation. He has 39 years of experience in the computer industry,  
beginning as a developer of operating systems. Dr. Mundie co-founded  
and served as CEO of Alliant Computer Systems.

William Press is Professor of Computer Sciences at the University of  
Texas at Austin, has wide-ranging expertise in computer science,  
astrophysics, and international security. A member of the US National  
Academy of Sciences, he previously served as Deputy Laboratory  
Director for Science and Technology at the Los Alamos National  
Laboratory from 1998 to 2004. He is a Professor of Astronomy and  
Physics at Harvard University and a former member of the Harvard- 
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (1982-1998).

Maxine Savitz is retired general manager of Technology Partnerships at  
Honeywell, Inc and has more than 30 years of experience managing  
research, development and implementation programs for the public and  
private sectors, including in the aerospace, transportation, and  
industrial sectors. From 1979 to 1983 she served as Deputy Assistant  
Secretary for Conservation in the US Department of Energy. She  
currently serves as vice-president of the National Academy of  
Engineering.

Barbara Schaal is Professor of Biology at Washington University in St  
Louis. She is a renowned plant geneticist who has used molecular  
genetics to understand the evolution and ecology of plants, ranging  
from the US Midwest to the tropics. Dr Schaal serves as Vice President  
of the National Academy of Sciences, the first woman ever elected to  
that role.

Eric Schmidt is Chairman and CEO of Google Inc. and a member of the  
Board of Directors of Apple Inc. Before joining Google, Dr. Schmidt  
served as Chief Technology Officer for Sun Microsystems and later as  
CEO of Novell Inc.

Daniel Schrag is the Sturgis Hooper Professor of Geology in the  
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard University and  
Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering in the School of  
Engineering and Applied Sciences.  He is also Director of the Harvard  
University-wide Center for Environment. He was trained as a marine  
geochemist and has employed a variety of methods to study the carbon  
cycle and climate over a wide range of Earth’s history. Awarded a  
MacArthur Prize Fellowship in 2000, he has recently been working on  
technological approaches to mitigating future climate change.

David E. Shaw is the chief scientist of D. E. Shaw Research, LLC,  
where he leads an interdisciplinary research group in the field of  
computational biochemistry. He is the founder of D. E. Shaw & Co., a  
hedge fund company. Dr. Shaw is a former member of PCAST under  
President Clinton and a member of the executive committee of the  
Council on Competitiveness, where he co-chairs the steering committee  
for the Council’s federally funded High-Performance Computing  
Initiative. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and  
Sciences and serves on the Computer Science and Telecommunications  
Board of the National Academies.

Harold Varmus is the President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering  
Cancer Center and co-chair of PCAST. Dr. Varmus served as the Director  
of the National Institutes of Health from 1993 to 1999 and in 1989 was  
the co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his  
pioneering studies of the genetic basis of cancer. He is a member of  
the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine and  
recipient of the National Medal of Science.

Ahmed Zewail is Professor of Chemistry and Physics at Caltech and  
Director of the Physical Biology Center. Dr. Zewail was awarded the  
Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1999 for his pioneering work that allowed  
observation of exceedingly rapid molecular transformations.  He is an  
Egyptian-American, widely respected not only for his science but also  
for his efforts in the Middle East as a voice of reason. Dr. Zewail is  
a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and postage stamps have  
been issued to honor his contributions to science and humanity.