Innovating The Future: Critical Perspectives in Science & Technology - April 9-11, 2010

Hosted by the National Academies of Science, AAAS, the ST Global Consortium in Washington, DC

We are very proud to announce our keynote speakers for 2010:

Dr. John P. Holdren, OSTP
Dr. Vicky Seyfert-Margolis, FDA Office of the Chief Scientist
Mohamed El-Ashry, UN Foundation
Vinton G. Cerf, Ph.D., Google, Inc.

Dr. John P. Holdren is Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Co-Chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Prior to joining the Obama administration Dr. Holdren was Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co-founded and co-led the interdisciplinary graduate-degree program in energy and resources.

Dr. Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and is highly regarded for his work on energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. 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 foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. He served from 1991 until 2005 as a member of the MacArthur Foundation's board of trustees.

During the Clinton administration Dr. Holdren served as a member of PCAST through both terms and in that capacity chaired studies requested by President Clinton on preventing theft of nuclear materials, disposition of surplus weapon plutonium, the prospects of fusion energy, U.S. energy R&D strategy, and international cooperation on energy-technology innovation. In December 1995 he gave the acceptance lecture for the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization of scientists and public figures in which he held leadership positions from 1982 to 1997.

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Vicky Seifert-Margolis is an Advisor to FDA Acting Chief Scientist Jesse Goodman, with a focus on bioinformatics. Previously, she served as Chief Scientific Officer at Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), a non-profit consortium of researchers seeking new treatments for diseases of the immune system. At ITN, she oversaw the development of 10 core facilities and construction of a primer library of 1,000 genes that may be involved in establishing and maintaining immunologic tolerance. Dr. Seyfert-Margolis was also an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. Prior to this, she served as Director of the Office of Innovative Scientific Research Technologies at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, where she worked to integrate emerging technologies into existing immunology and infectious disease programs. Dr. Seyfert-Margolis completed her PhD in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine.

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Mohamed El-Ashry is senior fellow with the UN Foundation. He served as chief executive officer and chairman of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) from July 1994 to July 2003. He also served as chairman of the GEF during its Pilot Phase (1991-1994). Prior to joining the GEF he served as the chief environmental advisor to the president and director of the Environment Department at the World Bank, as senior vice president of the World Resources Institute (WRI) and as director of environmental quality with the Tennessee Valley Authority. He has held teaching and research positions at Cairo University, Pan-American-U.A.R. Oil Company, Illinois Geological Survey, Wilkes University and the Environmental Defense Fund. He has also served as senior environmental advisor to the UN Development Programme (UNDP), as special advisor to the secretary-general of the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) and as a member of the World Water Commission.

Dr. El-Ashry received his B.S. degree with honors in 1959 from the University of Cairo and Ph.D. degree in Geology in 1966 from the University of Illinois. He is the author of three books and more than 200 papers and articles.

Dr. El-Ashry is a member of the International Task Force on Global Public Goods and is a fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a member of the Third World and African Academies of Sciences and is listed in American Men and Women of Science and Men of Achievement. He has received numerous international awards and honors and serves on the boards of a number of not-for-profit organizations.

Vinton G. Cerf is vice president and Chief Internet Evangelist for Google. He is responsible for identifying new enabling technologies and applications on the Internet and other platforms for the company.

Widely known as a "Father of the Internet," Vint is the co-designer with Robert Kahn of TCP/IP protocols and basic architecture of the Internet. In 1997, President Clinton recognized their work with the U.S. National Medal of Technology. In 2005, Vint and Bob received the highest civilian honor bestowed in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It recognizes the fact that their work on the software code used to transmit data across the Internet has put them "at the forefront of a digital revolution that has transformed global commerce, communication, and entertainment."

From 1994-2005, Vint served as Senior Vice President at MCI. Prior to that, he was Vice President of the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI), and from 1982-86 he served as Vice President of MCI. During his tenure with the U.S. Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) from 1976-1982, Vint played a key role leading the development of Internet and Internet-related data packet and security technologies.

Since 2000, Vint has served as chairman of the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and he has been a Visiting Scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory since 1998. He served as founding president of the Internet Society (ISOC) from 1992-1995 and was on the ISOC board until 2000. Vint is a Fellow of the IEEE, ACM, AAAS, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the International Engineering Consortium, the Computer History Museum and the National Academy of Engineering.

Vint has received numerous awards and commendations in connection with his work on the Internet, including the Marconi Fellowship, Charles Stark Draper award of the National Academy of Engineering, the Prince of Asturias award for science and technology, the Alexander Graham Bell Award presented by the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf, the A.M. Turing Award from the Association for Computer Machinery, the Silver Medal of the International Telecommunications Union, and the IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal, among many others.

He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from UCLA and more than a dozen honorary degrees.

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