Morris Series Lecture: Crawl, Walk, Run, Edit: Understanding CRISPR’s Impact on Humankind
Join us for this conversation featuring Jennifer Doudna, Jennifer Doudna, Professor of Chemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley in conversation with Peggy Clark, Vice President of Policy Programs at the Aspen Institute, on the unthinkable power to control evolution.”
Biographies:
Jennifer Doudna is the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences at UC Berkeley and an investigator at Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research seeks to understand how RNA molecules control the expression of genetic information, leading to insights about CRISPR-mediated bacterial immunity that showed how this system can be harnessed for efficient genome editing in animals and plants. Doudna has received many honors for her work, including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the Gruber Prize in Genetics, as well as being named to the 2015 TIME 100 list of most influential people and runner-up for TIME Person of the Year alongside other CRISPR researchers.
Peggy Clark is the Vice President of Policy Programs, Executive Director of Aspen Global Innovators Group, and Director of the Alliance for Artisan Enterprise. Peggy has had a 30 year career working on issues of poverty alleviation, global health, social enterprise and development finance. Serving in founding and leadership roles at the Aspen Institute, the Ford Foundation, Save the Children, Realizing Rights, and on numerous boards, Peggy has been a leading figure in identifying and building industries, movements, and creative advocacy on key issues of our times. Currently, Peggy provides strategic oversight and guidance to the Institute’s 30 policy programs and directs programs promoting breakthrough solutions to global development including artisan enterprise, reproductive health, new voices leadership development, health workforce sustainability, diaspora investing, and food security. Previously, Peggy served as founding Managing Director of Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, and as the Executive Vice President for Programs of the Aspen Institute.
Peggy founded the Self-Employment Learning Project at the Aspen Institute, later named the Economic Opportunities Program in 1991 and in this role, Peggy helped to establish the field of sectoral, or industry-targeted, workforce development with the publication Jobs and the Urban Poor and crafted new legislation to support industry led workforce development. She also led efforts to establish the field of microenterprise development in the US, drafting the first legislation to support microenterprise out of the SBA, leading the first national evaluation of the microenterprise field, and producing the first Directory of US Microenterprise Programs. Prior to that, Peggy was a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation managing a portfolio of women’s development, employment, and social enterprise grants in the US and the developing world, and she served as the first Director of Small Scale Enterprise and Credit at Save the Children Federation. Peggy was a leader in founding and shaping the microfinance field internationally, helping to draft the first microenterprise legislation for USAID and serving on the first Microenterprise Advisory Council to the Administrator of USAID. In 1995, Peggy received the inaugural Presidential Award for Excellence in Microenterprise Development from President Bill Clinton.