SIG Board

Dr. Griffiths is a Professor in the School of Mathematics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. He served as the Institute’s Director from 1991-2003. He was formerly Provost and James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics at Duke University and Professor of Mathematics at Harvard, and he has taught at Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley. He received his PhD from Princeton University.

Dr. Griffiths is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, where he is also Distinguished Presidential Fellow for International Affairs. From 1993-1999 he chaired the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPUP), the principal science policy arm of the U.S. National Academies of Science and Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. In this role, Dr. Griffiths was active in recommending national science policy strategies, many of which have been implemented by federal agencies and the Congress. He is Senior Advisor to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Carnegie Fellow at Carnegie Corporation of New York, and a Foreign Associate of TWAS. He served on the National Science Board from 1991-1996.

Dr. Griffiths is Secretary of the International Mathematical Union. A former member of the Board of Directors of Bankers Trust New York Corporation, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Oppenheimer Funds and of GSI Group.
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Professor Mohamed H.A. Hassan is president of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and executive director of TWAS, the academy of sciences for the developing world. He is also head of the secretariats of the InterAcademy Panel (IAP) and InterAcademy Medical Panel (IAMP) and serves on a number of committees with other organizations worldwide. He holds a PhD in Plasma Physics from the University of Oxford, UK (1974), and is a former professor and dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Khartoum, Sudan. He received the order of scientific merit of Brazil and the order of merit of Italy. He is a fellow of TWAS, AAS, the World Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Islamic World Academy of Sciences; honorary member of the Colombian Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences and the Palestine Academy of Science and Technology; corresponding member of the Belgian Royal Overseas Academy of Sciences; and foreign fellow of the Pakistan Academy of Sciences. His research areas include theoretical plasma physics, physics of wind erosion and sand transport. return to top

Mr. Hexner received a BA in economics and an MBA from Harvard University. He has over thirty years’ experience in policies, projects, and institution-building in developing countries, including Pakistan, Indonesia, sub-Saharan Africa and Paraguay. He has worked with foundations, among them Ford and Rockefeller, and with bilateral and multilateral agencies (USAID, World Bank, IMF, UNDP) that assist these countries.

Mr. Hexner’s projects have included crafting an environmental action plan for sub-Saharan Africa, formulating the Agriculture and Rural Development Policy for the World Bank, privatizing enterprises in Bangladesh, and exploring the options for reinvigorating science and technology in Vietnam. He has founded several high-tech companies, including Genetics Institute and Thinking Machines, and he has been involved in industrial-academic relations at both Harvard and Duke Universities. return to top

Professor Kim is Professor Emeritus and Chairman, Advisory Board of the Korea Institute for Advanced Study (KIAS) and Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Johns Hopkins University. His primary area of expertise is particle physics. He has published numerous works on neutrinos, muon capture, nuclear decay, and other aspects of elementary particle behavior. A summa cum laude graduate of Seoul Academy of Science and Technology, he received his PhD from Indiana University.

In Korea, he has served as Chair, Physics Sub-Committee, KIAS (1997), and Member, International Science Advisory Board, Korea Science and Engineering Foundation. He also served as President of the Association of Korean Physicists in America (1989-1990) and U.S. Regional Editor, Journal of Korean Physical Society (1991-1994). Among his honorific titles are Fellow, American Physical Society; Fellow, Korean Physical Society; Fellow, Korean Academy of Sciences and Technology (Hanlim Won); and Korean national decoration, Moran Order of Merit (1998). return to top

Professor Palis is Director Emeritus and Professor at Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He is a graduate of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. His primary research area is dynamical systems.

Professor Palis is President of TWAS and former Vice President of the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU). He served as Secretary to the International Mathematical Union from 1991-1998 and as President from 1999-2002. He is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Brazilian National Research Council and of COPEA-Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, an Interdisciplinary Scientific College.

He is Chair of the Scientific Council of the International Center for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the ETH, Zurich, and the Scientific and Strategic Committee of the College de France. He is a member of several Academies of Sciences, including the Brazilian, Indian, French, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. return to top

Professor Rao is National Research Professor, Honorary President & Linus Pauling Research Professor of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research in Bangalore, India. His main research interests are solid state and materials chemistry, surface phenomena, spectroscopy and molecular structure. He received his M.Sc. from Banaras, his PhD from Purdue, and his D.Sc. from Mysore.

Professor Rao is a Founding Fellow and Past President of TWAS. He is a fellow of many Academies of Sciences, including the Indian and French, the Royal Society in London and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

He served on the Executive Board of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the International Scientific Board of UNESCO. He has served as president of the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian Academy of Sciences, and the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. He is Chairman of the Science Advisory Council of the Prime Minister of India. He recently received the Dan David Prize for materials research and is the first recipient of the India Science Prize.  return to top

Dr. Varmus is the President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Much of Dr. Varmus’ scientific work was conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, where he, Dr. J. Michael Bishop and co-workers demonstrated the cellular origins of the oncogene of a chicken retrovirus. This discovery led to the isolation of many cellular genes that normally control growth and development and are frequently mutated in human cancer. For this work, Bishop and Varmus received the 1989 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.

In 1993, Varmus was named by President Clinton to serve as the Director of the National Institutes of Health, a position he held until the end of 1999. During his tenure at the NIH, he initiated many changes in the conduct of intramural and extramural research programs and recruited new leaders for most of the important positions at the NIH.

In addition to authoring over 300 scientific papers and four books, Dr. Varmus has been an advisor to the federal government, pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, and academic institutions. He is co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Public Library of Science, and he has served on the World Health Organization’s Commission on Macroeconomics and Health, advisory committees on electronic publishing, and a National Research Council panel on genetically modified organisms. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and of the Institute of Medicine. return to top

SIG Staff

Mr. Anderson has worked for the Science Initiative Group since its inception. He also works for other organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences, where he has written reports on science policy, science education, science and the law, and other topics.

He has worked in science and medical journalism for over 25 years, serving as a reporter, writer, and foreign correspondent at Time magazine, Saturday Review, Psychology Today, and other publications; edited several newspapers; and written or edited five books on scientific topics. He holds a BA in English from Yale University and an MS in Journalism from Columbia University.  return to top

Ms. Carlisle's responsibilities include writing, research and administration projects for SIG. She has worked in management consulting, online advertising and nonprofit fundraising. Most recently, she was Director of Fundraising and Corporate Relations for Boston Cares, a nonprofit agency dedicated to volunteerism. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Politics and Environmental Studies.  return to top