and PhD in zoology from the University of California, Davis. She served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Environmental Science and Engineering Fellow at the Environmental Protection Agency during the summer of 1981 and as an AAAS Congressional Science and Engineering Fellow in the office of Senator Albert Gore in 1984-1985. She was a member of the National Institutes of Health’s Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee in the middle 1980s and was elected a Fellow of AAAS in 1992.

Richard E. Bissell is executive director of the Policy and Global Affairs Division of the National Research Council and director of the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. He took up his positions in 1998, having served as coordinator of the Interim Secretariat of the World Commission on Dams (1997-1998) and as a member and chairman of the Inspection Panel at the World Bank (1994-1997). He worked closely with the National Academy of Sciences during his tenure in senior positions at the US Agency for International Development (1986-1993) as head of the Bureau of Science and Technology and head of the Bureau of Program and Policy Coordination. He has published widely in political economy, and he taught at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania. He received his BA from Stanford University (1968) and his MA and PhD from Tufts University (in 1970 and 1973).