Steering Committee Bios

Dr. Bruce M. Alberts has served as Editor-in-Chief of Science (2008-2013) and as one of President Obama’s first three United States Science Envoys (2009-2011). He was presented the National Medal of Science by President Obama in 2014. Read more >>
Nancy C. Andrews, M.D., Ph.D., has been Dean of the School of Medicine and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at Duke University since 2007. She is also the Nanaline H. Duke Professor of Pediatrics and Professor of Pharmacology & Cancer Biology. Read more >>
Mary Beckerle, PhD, has served as CEO and Director of Huntsman Cancer Institute since 2006, and she was appointed in 2009 to an additional key health sciences leadership role as Associate Vice President for Cancer Affairs at the University of Utah. Read more >>
Jeremy Berg received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from Stanford and his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Harvard. He then became a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Biophysics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Read more >>
Daniel A. Colón-Ramos is an Associate Professor of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Yale University. Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Daniel completed his A.B. in biology at Harvard University and his PhD in molecular genetics from Duke University School of Medicine. Read more >>
Ronald J. Daniels is the 14th president of The Johns Hopkins University — America’s first research university. For 34 years, Hopkins has stood as the largest university recipient of federal research funds in the United States. He also is the chair of the Executive Committee of Johns. Read more >>
Tony Hyman is a Director and Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) in Dresden, Germany. In 1984 he received his BSc first class in Zoology from the University College in London. Read more >>
Rush D. Holt, Ph.D., became the 18th chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and executive publisher of the Science family of journals in February 2015. Read more >>
Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski has served as President of UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) since 1992 and is a consultant on science and math education to national agencies, universities, and school systems. Read more >>
Judith Kimble is Vilas Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Read more >>
Marc W. Kirschner, Ph.D. graduated from Northwestern University in 1966 and received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley in 1971. Read more >>
Jessica Polka is a postdoctoral research fellow in the department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, mentored by Pamela Silver and co-mentored by Timothy Mitchison. Read more >>
Joan Y. Reede, MD, MPH, MS, MBA is the Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership and an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Read more >>
A native of Canada, Shirley M. Tilghman received her Honors B.Sc. in chemistry from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Following two years teaching secondary school in Sierra Leone, Tilghman completed her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Temple University with Richard W. Hanson. Read more >>
Ronald D. Vale is Professor of the Dept. of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco and is an Investigator in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Read More >>
Harold Varmus, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for studies of the genetic basis of cancer, served as Director of the National Cancer Institute from 2010 to 2015, after 10 years as President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and six years as Director of the NIH. Read more >>

Rescuing Biomedical Research Staff

Christopher L. Pickett, Ph.D. is the director of Rescuing Biomedical Research and conducts the day-to-day work of the organization. Read more >>