Staff can be contacted via email, using the first letter of the first name and the full last name, at geneticsandsociety.org. Thus, John Doe would be jdoe[AT]geneticsandsociety[DOT]org.

Click on the name of each program staff member to see their talks, articles, news and blog posts.

Richard Hayes, PhD, Executive Director, has served as a political organizer for a wide range of environmental and social and economic justice organizations. In the 1970's he worked as lead organizer with the Citizens Action League and other organizations in Northern Cailfornia and Los Angeles. In the early 1980's he served as Executive Director of the San Francisco Democratic Party and ran the electoral field operations for the late Congressmembers Phil Burton and Sala Burton. From 1983 through 1992 he was Associate Political Director and then National Director of Volunteer Development for the Sierra Club. In the late '80's he was Chair of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Campaign Committee. He has written and spoken widely concerning the democratic governance of science and technology, and the need for social oversight of the new human genetic technologies. His PhD is in  Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley.

Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, Associate Executive Director, speaks and writes widely on the politics of human biotechnology, focusing on their social justice and public interest implications. She has appeared on national television news and been cited in hundreds of news and magazine articles. She has worked as an organizer and advocate in a range of environmental and progressive political movements, and taught courses at Sonoma State University and at California State University East Bay. Her Ph.D. is from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz..

Charles Garzón, Director of Finance and Administration, has over 15 years of experience working with public policy and advocacy organizations. Most recent, he has been associated with a progressive policy think-tank and legal defense fund located in New York City. He holds a Bachelor's in Politics and Sociology as well as a Master's degree in Political Science with emphasis in international relations.

Jesse Reynolds, MS, Project Director on Biotechnology Accountability, has been on the staff of the Center since its creation in 2001. In this role, he has spoken and written widely on the social implications and policy aspects of biotechnologies, particularly stem cell research and the implementation of California's Proposition 71. His work has been published in many of the state's major newspapers, and he has been cited by media outlets such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and the Associated Press. He has a MS in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied as a US Environmental Protection Agency Fellow. While there, he was a co-founder of Students for Responsible Research, which monitored the impact of large-scale corporate funding for research on genetically modified crops.

Fellows

Osagie K. Obasogie, JD, PhD, is Senior Fellow at the Center for Genetics and Society; Associate Professor of Law at the University of California, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco; and Visiting Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco. His writings have spanned both academic and public audiences, with journal articles in the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics, and Trends in Pharmacological Sciences along with commentaries in outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and New Scientist. He is a regular contributor to CGS’s blog Biopolitical Times and former director of CGS’s Project on Bioethics, Law, and Society. Obasogie received his B.A. with distinction from Yale University, was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an editor for the National Black Law Journal at Columbia Law School, and received his Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Blog contributors

Pete Shanks MA, attended Oxford University, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, and moved to California in the mid-1970s. He has been active in a range of local and international political movements, while mostly making his living in the publishing industry, especially on the production side; he enjoys the craft of bookmaking. Appalled by the eugenic possibilities of biotechnology, he has worked with the Center for Genetics and Society since its earliest days. He is the author of Human Genetic Engineering: A Guide for Activists, Skeptics, and the Very Perplexed (Nation Books) and a regular contributor to Biopolitical Times.

Summer Staff Associates

Molly Maguire graduated from St Andrews University in 2006, where she studied Modern History. Her focus was primarily on the American history of science, and completed her thesis on the 1925 Scopes “Monkey” Trial. In particular, her thesis chronicled the religion vs. science paradigm that crystallized at the trial and its modern implications. She worked on the 2008 Democratic presidential and senate races before starting graduate school at the University of Michigan in 2009. As a graduate student at University of Michigan’s Ford School of Public Policy and a candidate in the Science, Technology and Public Policy program, Molly has worked on bioethics issues, including informed consent, governance in stem cell technology, access to IVF, and the place of the public interest in American patent policy. She plans to pursue a PhD in this area following completion of her Masters in 2011. 

Brendan Parent is currently a law student at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, DC, where he expects his JD in May 2012. He plans a career in bioethics policy. He was the first to design a major in Bioethics at UC Santa Cruz, exploring ethical issues in genetic engineering, national security, health care, medicine and animal research, which culminated with a pharmacogenomics research project at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics. Throughout this time he worked with Rape Prevention Education facilitating workshops and presentations for high schools and colleges. After graduation he spent several years designing and executing graphics and effects for live television. He is currently assistant master electrician and an actor with the Georgetown Gilbert and Sullivan Society, where he played Romeo in Romeo and Juliet. He is also involved with the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund, Human Rights Action, a football team, softball team, and salsa dance club.

Douglas Pet graduated in December of 2009 from a double-bachelor’s degree program at Tufts University and the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) in Boston. He received a B.A. with majors in Anthropology and Community Health (focusing on biomedical and evolutionary issues) from Tufts and a B.M. in Jazz Performance from NEC. Having worked many years in group-homes for the Department of Children and Family Services, Doug has a background in social and legal issues affecting marginalized youth. Studying global public health and evolutionary medicine in college, Doug developed a passionate interest in the cultural and bioethical implications of evolving medical technologies—both in the nature of their usage and how they are distributed.

Jillian Theil graduated June, 2010 from UCLA with a BA in Political Science,  with a concentration in International Relations and a minor in Society and Genetics. As part of her work as an undergraduate student researcher for the UCLA Center for Society and Genetics, she helped to develop a curriculum and team-teach genetic concepts and the social implications of biotechnology to high school students in Watts, California. She is also the co-president and co-founder of the Society and Genetics Undergraduate Organization, which explores the implications of biotechnologies for society through discussions, philanthropic activities, and workshops. In 2009, she spent a semester abroad in Bilbao, Spain studying Spanish and international relations. She has also worked as a research assistant on the 2010 annual symposium at UCLA, Outlaw Biology?: Public Participation in the Age of Big Bio.