BESC-CoFARM Hill Event 2007 > Biographies of Briefing Speakers

BESC-CoFARM Hill Event
April 18-19, 2007

Biographies of Briefing Speakers

James P. Collins, Ph.D., Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, NSF

As Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, James (Jim) Collins oversees NSF's nearly $600 million annual investment in fundamental biological research and serves on the Foundation's senior management team. As Professor of Natural History and Environment, and Faculty Leader of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Sciences in Arizona State University 's School of Life Sciences , Collins has focused on how subgroups within a species physically change in response to ecological and evolutionary pressures, and, most recently, the role of pathogens in the global decline of amphibians. Collins has substantial prior experience with NSF in his roles as program director, a research awardee, and as chairman of the external Advisory Committee for the biological sciences directorate ( BIO AC). He also represented BIO AC on NSF's Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education. Collins received his B.S. degree from Manhattan College and his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan . He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served on the editorial board of Evolution and Ecology/Ecological Monographs .

Kei Koizumi, Program Director, R&D Budget and Policy Program, AAAS

Koizumi is known as a leading authority on the federal budget, federal support for research and development, science policy issues, and R&D funding data. He is the principal budget analyst, editor, and writer for the annual AAAS reports on federal R&D and for the continually updated analysis of federal R&D on the AAAS R&D website. He is widely quoted in the general and trade press on federal science funding issues and speaks on R&D funding trends and federal budget policy toward R&D to numerous public groups and seminars. Koizumi received his M.A. from the Center for International Science, Technology, and Public Policy program at the George Washington University and received his B.A. from Boston University in Political Science and Economics.

Anna Palmisano, Ph.D., Deputy Administrator for Competitive Programs at the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), USDA

Prior to joining CSREES in 2004, she was a Program Manager for environmental microbiology in the Office of Biological and Environmental Research at the U.S. Department of Energy since 1998. She has developed and managed a wide range of basic research programs including bioremediation, carbon cycling and sequestration, and microbial community genomics. Dr. Palmisano chaired the Microbe Project Interagency Working Group from 2004-2006 and has chaired the Working Group on Biotechnology for the Environment of the U.S.-European Commission Biotechnology Task Force since 1995. She also worked as a staff microbiologist in the Environmental Safety Division of the Procter & Gamble Co. Her research interests have included sea ice microbial communities, stream ecology, microbial mats, bioremediation of organic pollutants, and landfill microbiology. She has led five research expeditions to Antarctica and published over 40 research papers in the field of microbial ecology. Dr. Palmisano received her B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Maryland and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Biology from the University of Southern California . She was an Allan Hancock Fellow at the University of Southern California and a National Research Council Fellow in planetary biology at NASA-Ames Research Center .

Jane Silverthorne, Ph.D., Senior Policy Analyst – Life Sciences, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Before joining OSTP on detail, Jane served as lead Program Director for the Plant Genome Research Program at the National Science Foundation (NSF), where she coordinated overall program activities in proposal solicitation, review and management. She has responsibility for managing the large projects supported through cooperative agreements, including current efforts to sequence the genomes of maize (corn), tomato, Medicago (a model legume) and potato. She also represents NSF at the International Sequencing Consortium meetings and on the US Agency for International Development - Department of Biotechnology (USAID-DBT) Joint Working Group, which coordinates support for research in agricultural biotechnology within India . Prior to her position at NSF, Jane was Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California , Santa Cruz , where she studied photobiology in gymnosperms, from the photoreceptors themselves to the genes and processes under light regulation. Jane earned a B. Sc. in biology from the University of Sussex , and a Ph.D. in plant biochemistry from the University of Warwick .