Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Use of Gene Drives in Agriculture and Values that Drive Them

Dr. Alan Pearson

Assistant Deputy Administrator, Biotechnology Regulatory Services, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)

Dr. Alan Pearson is a molecular and cellular biologist with extensive experience leading U.S. biotechnology policy and program development, implementation, and management related to the regulation of genetically engineered organisms and national and global biosecurity. He currently serves as the Assistant Deputy Administrator at the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA-APHIS) Biotechnology Regulatory Services, where he has worked for over a decade. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Mike Mendelsohn


Chief – Emerging Technologies Branch, United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Dr. Mike Mendelsohn is the Chief of the Emerging Technologies Branch in the Biopesticides and Pollution Prevention Division, Office of Pesticide Programs, at the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). His work encompasses agricultural biotechnology, biopesticides, and antimicrobial pesticides, as well as regulatory frameworks including the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). He has published on topics including EPA oversight of plant-incorporated protectants and the safety of Bt crops, and has contributed to U.S. interagency efforts to modernize the regulatory framework for biotechnology products.

Prof. John M. Marshall

Professor in Residence–Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley

Prof. John Marshall is a Professor in Residence of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. in biomathematics from UCLA in 2008, writing his dissertation on the use of GM mosquitoes to control malaria transmission. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, he worked on several aspects of this project as a PostDoc – social, cultural and regulatory issues at the UCLA Center for Society & Genetics, ecological fieldwork at the Malaria Research and Training Center in Mali, molecular biology and population genetics at Caltech, and infectious disease modeling and epidemiological fieldwork at Imperial College London. At UC Berkeley, he teaches two courses on mathematical modeling of infectious diseases and consults on this field generally. His own research focuses on the use of mathematical models to inform novel genetics-based strategies for mosquito control and to support efforts to control and eliminate mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, and Zika virus broadly.

Dr. Leah W. Buchman

North American Lead for Regulatory Policy, Novonesis

Dr. Leah Buchman serves as the North American lead for Regulatory Policy at Novonesis, a global biotechnology company, developing biosolutions for numerous sectors including human health, food and beverages, and agriculture. Prior to Novonesis, Dr. Buchman led, managed and advocated for regulatory polices of importance to the agriculture and environment biotech industry at Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). Dr. Buchman is an entomologist and comes from a strong analytical and research background. Her dissertation work focused on plant-insect-microbe interactions and how beneficial fungi might be used to reduce insect pest pressures in agricultural systems. Concurrent to her dissertation, Dr. Buchman spent time researching public perceptions of emerging technologies in agriculture to better understand knowledge and trust of relevant stakeholders within this scope.

Dr. Buchman is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy at The Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. She also is an Entomology Society of America Science Policy Fellow, Class of 2021. Dr. Buchman has published in numerous scientific journals including Health Security, Science and Public Policy, Journal of Applied Microbiology, Frontiers in Plant Science and Nature Biotechnology. She holds her Ph.D. from Texas A&M University in Entomology and her B.S. from Cornell University in Entomology.

Prof. William Hallman

Distinguished Professor, Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University

Dr. William K. Hallman is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Human Ecology and a member of the graduate faculty of the Department of Nutritional Sciences and the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He is a 1983 graduate of Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and earned his PhD. in Experimental Psychology from the University of South Carolina in 1989, joining the Rutgers faculty later that year.

His scholarship focuses on numerous issues concerning food, health, technology, and the environment. These include studies of perceptions, communications, and behavior change strategies regarding food safety, foodborne illness outbreaks, food recalls, food insecurity, food labeling and nutrition, exposure to environmental contaminants, infectious and non-infectious diseases, unexplained symptom syndromes, coastal storm warnings, and preventive health behaviors. He has also extensively studied consumer perceptions and acceptance of new food technologies, including genetic modification, gene editing, nanotechnology, animal cloning, aquaculture, and cell-based meat, poultry, and seafood.

He has published more than 250 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, abstracts, and monographs, including contributing to Communicating Science Effectively, A Research Agenda, published by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), the Handbook of the Science of Science Communication, published by Oxford University Press, the Risk Communication Applied to Food Safety Handbook, and Food Safety Aspects of Cell-based Food, both published by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations.

Dr. Hallman has also given over 600 presentations on risk perception and communication issues in over 35 countries. He conducts workshops worldwide, helping scientists, regulators, and policymakers to become better communicators. He has also served as an expert witness in several court cases in the US involving food and environmental contamination issues.

Prof. Cymie Payne, J.D.

Professor, Department of Human Ecology and School of Law, Rutgers University

Prof. Cymie R. Payne teaches in the Department of Human Ecology and the School of Law at Rutgers University. She studies global governance of the environment and natural resources and the evolution of international law, with a focus on the ocean, climate change, and protection of the environment in relation to armed conflict.

She has represented the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (in advisory cases addressing climate change, seabed mining, and illegal/unreported and unregulated fishing); acted as expert on environmental reparations in the International Court of Justice case Certain Activities (Costa Rica v. Nicaragua); and participated in the UN negotiation of the High Seas Biodiversity Treaty. She previously practiced natural resource and environmental law with the UN Security Council, the U.S. Department of the Interior and the law firm of Goodwin, Procter. As Director of the Global Commons Project at University of California Berkeley’s Center for Law, Energy and the Environment, she focused on the linkage of state and international climate policy, particularly with respect to emissions trading systems; conflicts of state law with international trade; and regulating risks of new technologies such as carbon sequestration.

Prof. Payne is the Chair of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL) Ocean Law Specialist Group. Her other professional affiliations include the International Law Association, Committee on Sustainable Resources Management; and the International Council of Environmental Law. She is a Fellow of the American College of Environmental Lawyers.

She holds a Master’s degree in international relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and a Juris Doctor from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Bhavneet Bajaj, PMP

Senior Manager–Scientific Programs, Agriculture & Food Systems Institute (AFSI), USA

Dr. Bhavneet Bajaj is an experienced scientist working at the intersection of science and policy at the Agriculture & Food Systems Institute (AFSI). She has led an extensive portfolio of projects on genetically modified (GM) food and feed safety assessment, environmental risk assessment, agricultural biotechnology, and is the lead for implementing technical programs for the United States government for the APEC High Level Policy Dialogue on Agricultural Biotechnology (APEC HLPDAB).

In her current position as Senior Manager, Scientific Programs, Dr. Bajaj has led international training workshops for risk assessors and regulators in South and Southeast Asia, including projects in South Asia for regulatory harmonization of safety assessment of GM foods and supporting an enabling environment for genome editing in Bangladesh and the Republic of Korea. She serves as part of AFSI’s delegation to OECD’s Working Party on Harmonisation of Regulatory Oversight in Biotechnology and the Working Party on the Safety of Novel Foods and Feeds. She is the curator and administrator of AFSI’s highly acclaimed Crop Composition Database (CCDB).

She has expertise working as a developer, utilizing biotechnology for the creation of improved plant varieties at (the then) DuPont Agricultural Biotechnology. Her research includes expression analysis of tomato carotenoid biosynthesis at the USDA Agricultural Research Service and metabolic profiling of secondary metabolites in medicinal plants at the Institute for Biotechnology Research, University of Maryland. Dr. Bajaj is a certified Project Management Professional by the Project Management Institute.

Dr. Lina Moe

Department of Human Ecology, Rutgers University

Dr. Lina Moe is a graduate student at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, where her research focuses on emergent technology, energy development, and community-focused planning. She has published on the experiences of energy host communities, fossil fuel wind-down, as well as the gig economy. Forthcoming articles focus on the effects of technology shocks in urban governance.

Prof. Lynn J. Frewer

Professor of Food & Society, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University

Prof. Lynn Frewer is Professor of Food and Society in the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University, a position she has held since January 2011. Her research focuses on inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to agri-food systems, with particular interests in stakeholder and end-user adoption of emerging agri-food technologies, public attitudes and behaviors related to food security, and scientific foresight for research agenda setting and policy.

Prior to joining Newcastle, Professor Frewer served as Professor of Food Safety and Consumer Behaviour at Wageningen University in the Netherlands and held positions as Head of the Consumer Science Group and Senior Research Scientist at the Institute of Food Research in the United Kingdom.

She has led or contributed to large-scale research projects funded by the European Commission, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the Natural Environment Research Council, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), and others. She is widely sought after as a reviewer and evaluator for international funding bodies, having chaired or served on panels for UKRI, FORMAS (Sweden), PRIMA (Horizon Europe), the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (Germany), and the European Commission, among others.

Prof. Frewer holds a Ph.D. in Applied Psychology from the University of Leeds, an M.Sc. in Ergonomics from University College London, and a BSc in Psychology from the University of Bristol.