Scientists and Engineers for America operates under the leadership of an all-volunteer Board of Directors. Members of SEA’s Board of Directors are responsible for the fulfillment of the organization’s mission and the legal accountability for its operations. They set the strategic direction of SEA and promote the organization in a formal capacity. SEA is committed to the ongoing development of a diverse board that represents all communities who benefit from the organization. SEA’s Board of Directors includes:

Henry Kelly – Chairman

Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists, has worked in science and public policy in a variety of positions including the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Assistant Director of the Solar Energy Research Institute, Senior Associate at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and Assistant Director at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He has a Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University.

James H. Turner Jr. – Treasurer

James Turner Jr. spent most of his professional career working as the Technology Staff Director, Chief Counsel, and senior energy staff member of the Committee on Science and Technology of the US House of Representatives. He currently is Director of Energy Policy for the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities. He served on both the Obama and Clinton Presidential Transition Teams for the Department of Commerce. Jim is a Member of the Board of Directors of American National Standards Institute and Oak Ridge Associated Universities. He is a Trustee of the engineering school at the University of Virginia (UVA) and the Academic Co-Chair of the President’s Advisory Committee for Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University and on the Board of Advisors for MIT Press’s journal Innovation. He chairs UVA’s Advisory Board for the Science, Technology, and Society program. He is Washington Coordinator for the joint MIT/UVA Washington Summer Internship program. Mr. Turner has received standards medals from ASME, ANSI, and ASTM, and was the 2008 honoree at World Standards Day. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Civil Engineers and has received awards from the Virginia Engineering Foundation, the Federal Patent Lawyer Association, Association of University Technology Managers, the American Society for Standards Education, the Technology Transfer Society, the National Institute of Building Sciences, the Federal Laboratory Consortium, the Semiconductor Industry Association, and the U.S. Metric Association. He graduated from Georgetown, Yale, and Westminster College.

Brian Athey

Brian Athey, Professor of Biomedical Informatics in the Departments of Psychiatry and Internal Medicine, and founding Associate Director of the Center for Computational Medicine and Biology, at the University of Michigan Medical School. Trained as a biophysicist, Athey is now recognized as one of the nation’s experts in the new field of ‘Translational Bioinformatics’. Brian established the first nationwide Internet2 Visible Human Project demonstration under contract with the National Library of Medicine, was Principal Investigator of the DARPA Virtual Soldier Project, and he currently heads the NIH National Center for Integrative Biomedical Informatics (NCIBI.org), one of seven NIH Roadmap Centers for Biomedical Computing. Brian is Director of the Biomedical Informatics Program in the Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research, and is national co-chair of the Clinical and Translational Sciences Award (CTSA) informatics consortium of the NIH. He currently serves as a special advisor to the Director of Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives (OPASI), in the office of the Director of the NIH. In 2000, Brian was named a Peace Fellow of the Federation of American Scientists for his work in the 1990s to combat biological warfare and terrorism.

Nancy Bekavac

Nancy Bekavac, now retired, was the President of Scripps College from 1990 to 2007, where she held the W.M. Keck Foundation Presidential Chair. Prior to Scripps, she served as counselor to the president of Dartmouth College, executive director of and consultant to the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, and full partner at the law firm of Munger, Tolles and Olson, Los Angeles. Bekavac has also served on the faculty at Occidental College, Southwestern School of Law, UCLA Law School, and Claremont McKenna College. Bekavac earned her B.A. with Phi Beta Kappa honors from Swarthmore College, and her J.D. from Yale Law School. She is also a recipient of both a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship.

Kathryn Clay

Dr. Kathryn Clay is the Director of Research for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Previously, she served as a member of the professional staff of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. While on the Committee, Dr. Clay worked to develop the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the Energy Policy Act of 2005. She was also centrally involved in the development and passage of legislation (the America COMPETES Act of 2007) to promote federal investment in science and the development of innovative technologies. Dr. Clay has also served in positions with the staff of the Energy Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, at the Massachusetts Division of Energy Resources, and as a research fellow in the Alternate Fuels Vehicle Division of Ford Motor Company. Kathryn received her Ph.D. in physics and her M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Daniel Goroff

Daniel Goroff is a Program Director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation while on leave from his position as Professor of Mathematics and Economics at Harvey Mudd College in the Claremont University Consortium, where he previously served as Dean of the Faculty and Vice President for Academic Affairs. He taught at Harvard for over twenty years, specializing in the study of dynamical systems, optimization over time, probability, and decision theory. He has also worked for Bell Laboratories as a researcher, for the National Research Council as a Division Director, and for the President’s Science Advisor in the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Goroff is a former chair of the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction and co-director of the Scientific and Engineering Workforce Project based at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Robert O. Hunter Jr.

Robert O. Hunter, Jr. is Founder and Chairman of Directors of Litel Instruments. Dr. Hunter holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Plasma Physics from the University of California Irvine and a B.S. in Physics from Stanford University. From 1988 to 1989, Dr. Hunter was Director of the Office of Energy Research at the U.S. Department of Energy, with the rank of Assistant Secretary. In this position, he was responsible for the Superconducting Super Collider project, as well as major scientific facilities including oversight of several national laboratories for the Energy Department, including Oak Ridge, Argonne, and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. He also served as a member of the National Advisory Committee for Semiconductors and Head of Delegation for the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy with the U.S.S.R. From 1982 to 1985, Dr. Hunter was a Member of the White House Science Council. His focus was on nuclear weapons material production and the evaluation of advanced technologies for new weapons systems.

Burton Richter

Burton Richter was born in 1931 in New York. He received his B.S. and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1952 and 1956, respectively. He began as a post doc at Stanford University in 1956, became a professor in 1967, and was Director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center from 1984 through 1999. His research has centered on experimental particle physics with high-energy electrons and electron-positron colliding beams. Since 1999 he has been devoting an increasing amount of time to issues relating to energy and sustainable development. In 2005, Richter was named Senior Fellow, Center for Environmental Science and Policy at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. Richter received the Nobel Prize in Physics (1976) and the E.O. Lawrence Medal of the Department of Energy (1976). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society; a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (1999-2002).

Michael Stebbins

Michael Stebbins is the Assisstant Director for Biotechnology in the Science Division of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). From 2005 to 2008, Dr. Stebbins ran the Biosecurity Project at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). Prior to joining FAS, Dr. Stebbins was a congressional fellow working for US Senator Harry Reid through the National Human Genome Research Institute and the American Society for Human Genetics. Before coming to Washington, Dr. Stebbins was a senior editor at Nature Genetics where he coordinated the peer-review of research papers and wrote content for the magazine. He has worked as a journalist writing for Reuters and as a science advisor to ScienCentral, a television production company that produces stories for ABC and NBC. He has a B.S. in Biology from SUNY at Stony Brook and received his Ph.D. in genetics while working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory where he built genetic systems to artificially control the expression of genes in the brain.

Robert M. White

Robert M. White is University Professor Emeritus of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). From 1993 until 1999, Dr. White served as Head of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department and from 1999 until 2004 as Director of the Data Storage Systems Center at CMU. Prior to joining CMU, he served during the first Bush administration as the first Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology. In this role, Dr. White was responsible for overseeing the activities of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, and the National Technical Information Service. During his tenure in Washington, Dr. White established new programs to enhance U.S. competitiveness in critical technologies, such as the Advanced Technology Program. In 1993, he received the IEEE Public Service award for his leadership in this role. The author of four books—among them the classic Quantum Theory of Magnetism—Dr. White has also published over 150 technical articles on condensed matter physics, magnetic recording, and technology policy. Dr. White received his B.S. in Physics from MIT in 1960, and his Ph.D.—also in Physics—from Stanford in 1964. He is a Member of the National Academy of Engineering, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the IEEE, and the AAAS. Dr. White was awarded the American Physical Society’s George E. Pake Prize for 2004 for his original research contributions and his role in promoting technology development. Dr. White serves on the Board of Directors of ENSCO, Inc., a private engineering and technical services company, and the National Science and Technology Medals Foundation, and previously served on the boards of STMicroelectronics, Silicon Graphics, Zilog, Read-Rite, and Ontrack Data. He is a Consulting Professor in Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University, and as advisor to Pacific Enterprise Capital—a China venture fund.

Susan Wood

Susan Wood, Research Professor at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services, has experience leading programs and designing policy in two branches of government and academia. Dr. Wood served as Assistant Commissioner for Women’s Health and Director of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Women’s Health for five years. She resigned on principle over the continued delay of approval of over-the-counter emergency contraception by the FDA. Prior to her work with the Executive Branch, Dr. Wood was the Deputy Director to the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues.