2011 LECTURE:
Science and Democracy: Meeting the Challenge

Monday, 11 July 2011
Lecture: 6:00 - 7:00 p.m.
Reception: 7:00 - 8:30 p.m

Dr. Francesca Grifo
Senior Scientist and Director
Scientific Integrity Program
Union of Concerned Scientists

About Francesca Grifo

Francesca Grifo is the senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concern Scientists (UCS) where she works to mobilize scientists and citizens to defend the integrity of government science from political interference. Prior to working at UCS, Dr. Grifo worked at Columbia University where she directed the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation graduate policy workshop and ran the Science Teachers Environmental Education Program. She has also served as the director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation and a curator of the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

Dr. Grifo received her undergraduate degree in biology from Smith College, and her PhD in botany from Cornell University. She has edited and contributed to the books Biodiversity and Human Health and The Living Planet in Crisis: Biodiversity Science and Policy. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Grifo was the manager of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups Program at the National Institutes of Health. She was also a senior program officer for Central and Eastern Europe for the Biodiversity Support Program, a consortium of the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. From 1990-91 she was a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development in the Bureau for Research and Development, Office of Research.