Julie Shapiro has 15 years of experience as a facilitator, mediator, and educator. Julie directs the emerging technologies and natural resources programs at Keystone Policy Center, where she creates, facilitates, and sustains strategic partnerships and collaborations, enabling common understanding and forging shared solutions to complex problems. Julie creates and facilitates pathways for diverse government, business, academic, and NGO leaders to reach common higher ground on challenging natural resource and societal issues, helping to move stakeholders from contention to collaboration. Substantive focus areas include gene editing and other emerging technologies, sustainable agriculture production, pollinator health, and natural resource management including water resources, biodiversity, oil and gas development, and recreation. Julie has designed and facilitated stakeholder dialogues, public engagement processes, strategic planning processes, and summits on international, national, regional, state, and local scales. Julie holds a master’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder and bachelor’s degrees in geosciences and English from Williams College.

Michelle Berg rejoined Aldevron in May 2019, serving in the newly formed role of president of the GMP nucleic acids business unit where she oversees company strategy to provide GMP plasmids and mRNA for gene editing, gene therapy, and cell therapy applications. Previous tenure with Aldevron began as the company’s first hire in 1998, helping to develop the services and client-focused approach the company is known for through numerous roles with increasing reach and responsibility. From June 2015 to early May 2019, Michelle served as vice president of patient affairs and community engagement for Abeona Therapeutics, a now clinical-stage gene and cell therapy company focused on patients with rare diseases, where she was a driving member of the company’s growth and translation into the clinic. She is a contributing author and speaker on patient-focused programming, rare disease advocacy, and accessible education on genetic medicines. In addition to her roles with Abeona and Aldevron, she has performed research on behalf of the Department of Plant Sciences at North Dakota State University where she also received her B.S. in biotechnology in 1997.

Aviva Glaser serves as the director of agriculture policy for the National Wildlife Federation, leading the federation’s work on the Farm Bill and on other policy efforts to protect and enhance wildlife habitat on working landscapes. She joined the National Wildlife Federation in 2010, and she represents the organization in multiple coalitions and serves on a federal advisory committee on biomass research and development. Aviva holds dual master’s degrees from the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and School of Public Health. Prior to joining National Wildlife Federation, Aviva worked for Beyond Pesticides, Michigan League of Conservation Voters, and the Ecology Center. She hails from Baltimore, Maryland, and completed her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College in biology and environmental studies.

Craig A. Hassel, Ph.D., is a University of Minnesota associate professor and extension specialist in food and nutrition and a graduate faculty member at the university’s Center for Spirituality & Healing. He is also a fellow and elder with the Cultural Wellness Center and elder with Healing Roots Community. His work is grounded in long-term relationships with cultural communities experiencing the most severe diet-related health inequities. He attempts to fill a void within food and nutrition sciences by interfacing with systems of thought carried by older, non-EuroAmerican cultures. Interfacing attempts not to impose or intervene but rather to learn through reciprocal understanding built upon trust and mutual respect. His cross-cultural engagement methodology creates paths to more open and informed intercultural sharing, interaction, and knowledge production. He teaches through experiential micro-immersion, critical thinking, and cultural self-reflection. The goal is to disrupt colonizing patterns deeply embedded within academic thought and behavior and to better recognize and protect the integrity of all forms of human knowledge amidst daunting power asymmetries.

Joseph Yracheta is an Indigenous American and a working researcher at the Lakota community-based company called Missouri Breaks Industries Research, Inc. (MBIRI). Currently enrolled in the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, he studies the intersection of environmental health and genomics. He graduated from the University of Washington with a master’s of pharmaceutics in 2014. He also graduated with a B.S. from Loyola University Chicago and began his science career at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the School of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Comparative Biosciences and the School of Medicine and Public Health’s Surgery-Transplant Department. Joseph feels that in the burgeoning field of precision health and genomics, all Amerindigenous people must engage to ensure return of economic, educational, and health benefit. He feels that the most important outcome of his work would be to encourage and support the sustainability of Indigenous culture and sovereignty via the STEM fields. Joseph’s origins are from Mexico (P’urhepecha and Tarahumara Indians). His wife and children are enrolled members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (CRST).

Kelly Tyrrell covers everything from anthropology to zoology as a science writer in University Communications. She writes stories for the UW–Madison news site, campus magazines, and more and is always on the lookout for science outreach opportunities. She organizes a monthly public event called Science on Tap-Madison. Kelly trained as a molecular biologist at UW–Madison and bridged from bench to newsroom in 2011 as an AAAS Mass Media Fellow at the Chicago Tribune. Before returning to UW–Madison in 2014, she was working as a health and science reporter in Delaware and Pennsylvania.

Krishanu Saha is an associate professor of biomedical engineering and medical history and bioethics. His lab is at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), and he is a member of the McPherson Eye Research Institute and Carbone Cancer Center. He participates on the executive committees of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, Robert F. Holtz Center on Science and Technologies Studies, and Forward Bio Institute. Prior to his arrival in Madison, Krishanu studied chemical engineering and biotechnology at Cornell University, University of Cambridge, and University of California, Berkeley. In 2007 he became a Society in Science: Branco Weiss Fellow in the laboratory of Professor Rudolf Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and in the Science and Technology Studies program at Harvard University with Professor Sheila Jasanoff in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At UW–Madison, major thrusts of his lab involve gene editing and cell engineering of human cells found in the retina, central nervous system, and blood. He has published more than 50 scientific manuscripts, filed over that many patents, and received awards that include the National Science Foundation Career Award, Biomedical Engineering Society’s Rising Star Award, and Gund Harrington Scholar Award. He is a member of the National Academies’ Forum on Regenerative Medicine and co-chair of the steering committee of the National Institutes for Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing Consortium.

Dietram A. Scheufele is the Taylor-Bascom Chair in Science Communication and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in the Morgridge Institute for Research. His research focuses on public attitudes and policy dynamics surrounding emerging science. He is an elected member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the International Communication Association, and the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters. His consulting experience includes work for DeepMind, Porter Novelli, PBS, WHO, and the World Bank.

Jo Handelsman is the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Vilas Research Professor, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor. She previously served as a science advisor to President Barack Obama as the Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where she served for three years until January 2017, and was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin and Yale University before that. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in molecular biology and has since authored over 200 scientific research publications, 30 editorials, and 29 essays. She has authored numerous articles about classroom methods and mentoring, and she is co-author of six books about teaching. She is responsible for groundbreaking studies in microbial communication and work in the field of metagenomics. She is also widely recognized for her contributions to science education and diversity in science. Notably, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Obama in 2011, and in 2012, Nature named her one of “10 people who mattered this year” for her research on gender bias in science.

Ben Steyer was raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, and completed his undergraduate degree in bioengineering at Oregon State University. After two years in biotech in the San Francisco Bay Area, he joined the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2012. Ben completed his Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology under the guidance of professors Krishanu Saha and David Gamm. His thesis was entitled: “Developing precision medicine for Best vitelliform macular dystrophy with genome edited human pluripotent stem cells.” Ben is in the final year of his M.D. training, and his research interests lie at the intersection of technology and policy as it pertains to the development of precision medicines.

Dr. Mark Behlke has directed R&D at IDT since 1995. He is also a scientific co-founder of Dicerna Pharmaceuticals in Boston. Before joining IDT, he was a physician postdoctoral fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the Whitehead Institute, MIT, and a resident physician in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Mark received his M.D/Ph.D. degrees from Washington University in 1988 and his B.S. degree from MIT in 1981. Mark is an inventor on over 50 issued U.S. patents and is an author on over 135 scientific publications and book chapters. He is a recognized expert on oligonucleotide-based technologies.

Over the past five years, Joan Fujimura has led an interdisciplinary team based at UW-Madison in the collection and analysis of data from five research sites that use or develop human genetic variation categories. The project aims to examine where, when, and how group categories are used in genomics as well as whether, and if so how, these group categories overlap with social race categories. The sites recruit human subjects for DNA studies, genotype DNA samples, and analyze the samples for disease risk, response to medication, or studies of genetic variation. Recent findings – on human genetics and the use of concepts of race and ancestry, on the impact of genomics on personalized medicine and the transfer of genomics knowledge “from bench to bedside,” on work organization in large genomic interdisciplinary studies, and on other impacts of new genetic technologies – have been presented at numerous conferences and published in leading journals and anthologies of socio-historical studies of race and genomics. The team is also writing two books – one oriented to policy formation, the other oriented to socio-historical studies of science, technology, and medicine. Joan has also led a second team over the past three years exploring interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation in life sciences research and its impact on the development of knowledge in biology and medicine. The research on interdisciplinarity incorporates fields such as engineering, computation, education, and also the social sciences, arts, and humanities. Joan was recently elected to a four-year term as president of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4S).

James Griffin is a native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia as a child and since then has fought hard to stay healthy. James has never let his health define him or stop him from pursuing his goals. In 2015, while living in Phoenix, Arizona, he wrote a memoir about his life titled “Breaking Silence: Living with Sickle Cell Anemia.” James continues to spread awareness through public speaking engagements and is focused on enriching the lives of others through advocacy. Currently James works in the medical field as a medical assistant.

Hille Haker, Ph.D., has held the Richard McCormick S.J. Endowed Chair of Catholic Ethics at Loyola University Chicago since 2010, after holding professorships at Frankfurt University in Germany and Harvard Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She served on several bioethics committees, including the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies to the European Commission, the German Ethics Committee of the Federal Physicians Chamber, and the Bioethics Committee of the German Catholic Bishops Conference. Her research focuses on questions of moral identity and narrative ethics, social ethics, bioethics, and feminist ethics. Her books in the area of medical ethics and bioethics include “Ethik der genetischen Frühdiagnostik” (2002) and “Hauptsache gesund?” (2011) and her co-edited books include “The Ethics of Genetics in Human Procreation” (2000), “Ethik-Geschlecht-Wissenschaften” (2006), “Medical Ethics in Health Care Chaplaincy” (2009), and “Religiöser Pluralismus in der Klinikseelsorge” (2014). In 2019, she co-edited with Molly Greening the book “Unaccompanied Migrant Children: Social, Legal, and Ethical Perspectives.”

Brad Swail started The Deletion Duplication Alliance with his wife, Laura, as part of their mission to find new and emerging technologies to help their son, who was diagnosed with 8p inverted deletion duplication syndrome. While an ultra-rare diagnosis like that one felt like a punch to the gut at first, Brad is highly motivated to fight back with permanent solutions for his son, and all others who have been told that all they can do is a lifetime of physical and occupational therapy.

Ryan Cross is an award-winning science journalist based in Boston, where he covers the biotech industry and CRISPR for C&EN, the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. He is particularly interested in agriculture, bioethics, genetic engineering, neuroscience, and emerging scientific fields. Ryan grew up in Indiana and tapped his agricultural roots through heavy involvement in agricultural youth organizations including his local 4-H and FFA chapters. He later studied neuroscience and genetics at Purdue University and earned an M.S. in science journalism at Boston University.

Chuck Klosterman is the best-selling author of eight nonfiction books (most notably “Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” and “But What If We’re Wrong?”) and three works of fiction (most recently the short story collection “Raised in Captivity”). He has written for the Washington Post, The New York Times, SPIN, Esquire, GQ, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The Onion’s A.V. Club, and ESPN. He served as The Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary “Shut Up and Play the Hits,” and created the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. He is a native of North Dakota and currently lives in Portland with his wife and two kids.

Mark Cigan is the trait development director at Genus R&D leading gene editing efforts to improve disease resistance in pigs and cattle. Genus’ mission is to use the latest technology to provide farmers with superior livestock genetics that enable them to produce higher-quality animal protein more efficiently, in the form of meat and milk. Prior to joining Genus in 2016, Mark was at DuPont Pioneer for 24 years focusing early in his industry career on plant reproduction to generate hybrid seed. Later as a senior research manager, Mark’s genome modification group at Pioneer advanced gene editing technologies for commercial applications in maize, sorghum, wheat, and soybean and authored several papers on the use of gene editing in crop plants and the biochemical characterization of novel CRISPR-Cas systems. Mark earned his doctorate in yeast genetics and molecular biology at Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago. As a National Research Council Fellow at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland, Mark studied the biochemical regulation of protein synthesis during amino acid starvation in the yeast Saccharomyces.

Jim Goodman is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville with a bachelor’s degree in animal science. He also holds a master’s degree in reproductive physiology from South Dakota State University. He and his wife, Rebecca, ran a 45-cow organic dairy and direct-market beef farm in southwest Wisconsin for 40 years. Jim was a 2008-2009 Kellogg Foundation Food and Society Policy Fellow and is a past chair of USDA’s North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program Administrative Council as well as a past member of the USDA National Research, Extension, Education and Economics Advisory Board. His farming roots trace back to his great-grandparents’ immigration from Ireland during the famine and the farm’s original purchase in 1848. A farm activist, Jim credits more than 150 years of failed farm and social policy as his motivation to advocate for a farmer-controlled consumer-oriented food system. Jim currently serves on the policy advisory boards for the Center for Food Safety and the Organic Consumers Association and is a board member of Midwest Environmental Advocates and the Family Farm Defenders. He is the current board president of the National Family Farm Coalition. He has also been a Rural Electric Cooperative board member for the past 35 years. Jim spends much of his time working, speaking, and writing to promote fair farm prices, a safe food supply, and a society that respects and includes everyone.

Mike Paustian and his family have a farrow-to-finish hog farm near Walcott, Iowa, and market 28,000 head annually. His family also grows 1,400 acres of corn and soybeans. He received a B.S in microbiology at Iowa State University and a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Minnesota after which he worked as a research scientist before returning to the family farm.

Lynn Rohrscheib is the former chairwoman of the Illinois Soybean Association (ISA) and current Illinois director for the United Soybean Board. She is a ninth-generation farmer and farms near Fairmount, Illinois, as part of a family operation that also includes a custom application business. She has a bachelor’s degree in plant and soil sciences from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. Rohrscheib was a 2013 member of the American Soybean Association DuPont Young Leader class and has held leadership positions with the Illinois FFA Alumni Council. She is active with the Vermilion County Farm Bureau and is a county election judge. She was the recipient of the 2017 Young Leader Achievement Award.

Lea Zeise, of the Oneida Nation of Indians of Wisconsin, has had an interest in Indigenous agriculture and foodways since childhood. Her first job was at Tsyunhehkwa (Oneida for “She sustains life”) Farm, a community-oriented organic farm on the Oneida reservation. In 2011 she graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison with a B.S. in mechanical engineering. Lea has worked for Intertribal Agriculture Council since 2013 where she has supported the development and growth of Tribal food, seed, and land projects.

Maywa Montenegro, a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California-Davis, draws on political ecology, science and technology studies, and rural sociology to address issues of seed diversity and access to it. Her research spans the development of gene editing technologies to the emergence of social movement-scientist partnerships advancing agroecology, food and seed sovereignty, and alternatives to intellectual property. She holds a B.A. in molecular biology from Williams College, an M.S. in science writing from M.I.T., and a Ph.D. in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California-Berkeley.

Claire Luby is a faculty associate in the Department of Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is a plant scientist who focuses on seed systems to address agricultural challenges ranging from the broader effects of intellectual property rights on plant varieties to supporting Indigenous food and seed sovereignty efforts. Her research seeks to enable more diverse peoples to work with more kinds of seeds in more places using plant breeding to uniquely diversify agricultural systems. Her Ph.D. research examined the effect of intellectual property rights (IPR) on plant breeders’ and farmers’ freedom to use carrots for various purposes. This work found that IPR affects plant diversity through a “chilling effect” on the use of protected material in further breeding or seed-saving; the uncertainty surrounding whether one has the ability to use a specific cultivar is its own type of restriction. While this project focused on carrots specifically, the broader goal was to develop a robust model for open-source seeds and plant breeding. To mobilize the knowledge generated from this research, Claire was a founding member of the Open Source Seed Initiative (OSSI), an international organization devoted to maintaining fair and open access to seeds worldwide to ensure that people can maintain the freedom to adapt seeds to their own environmental and cultural needs. Since OSSI’s founding in 2014, 40 plant breeders have released nearly 500 varieties through OSSI that are sold by 62 seed companies in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., and Australia, and OSSI has served as a model for sister organizations around the world.

Mat Müller leads the Open Innovation, Technology Acquisition & Licensing groups at Corteva Agriscience, supporting R&D teams companywide with the adoption of external innovation. Prior to his current role, Mat occupied leadership positions in science, operations, and business strategy with DuPont, Pioneer Hi-Bred International, Verdia, Inc., Maxygen, Inc., the University of California, the Swiss National Foundation for Scientific Research, and the University of Lausanne. Mat’s education comprises a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Lausanne, and an MBA from the California State University at Hayward.

Sandra Park is a senior staff attorney in the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. At the ACLU, Sandra engages in litigation, policy advocacy, and public education at the federal, state, and local levels to advance gender equality and the rights of women and girls. Among other topics, Sandra is responsible for the ACLU’s work strengthening patients’ genetic privacy rights and addressing the intersection of patent regulation and civil liberties. She represented 20 medical organizations, geneticists, and patients in a groundbreaking lawsuit challenging patents granted on two human genes related to breast and ovarian cancer, resulting in a unanimous 2013 U.S. Supreme Court ruling invalidating gene patents (Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics). She currently serves as board chair of Girls for Gender Equity and is on the executive committee of the New York City Bar Association. Before joining the ACLU, she worked as a Skadden Fellow at the Legal Aid Society of New York and clerked for U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and NYU School of Law.

Dr. Beth Werner graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2001 with a Ph.D. in biochemistry. Shortly after graduation, she accepted a position as licensing manager at a small biotechnology company in Madison called PanVera. While at PanVera, she licensed technologies into the company for commercial development, assisted in product development, and facilitated patent filings and patent management. Invitrogen Corporation purchased PanVera, and she subsequently became a corporate development manager tasked with identifying and licensing technologies for the Madison business unit of Invitrogen. In 2005, she decided to pursue an intellectual property manager position at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation focusing on identifying commercially valuable technologies developed on the UW–Madison campus and securing intellectual property protection for those technologies.

Julie Shapiro has 15 years of experience as a facilitator, mediator, and educator. Julie directs the emerging technologies and natural resources programs at Keystone Policy Center, where she creates, facilitates, and sustains strategic partnerships and collaborations, enabling common understanding and forging shared solutions to complex problems. Julie creates and facilitates pathways for diverse government, business, academic, and NGO leaders to reach common higher ground on challenging natural resource and societal issues, helping to move stakeholders from contention to collaboration. Substantive focus areas include gene editing and other emerging technologies, sustainable agriculture production, pollinator health, and natural resource management including water resources, biodiversity, oil and gas development, and recreation. Julie has designed and facilitated stakeholder dialogues, public engagement processes, strategic planning processes, and summits on international, national, regional, state, and local scales. Julie holds a master’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Colorado at Boulder and bachelor’s degrees in geosciences and English from Williams College.