September 2021

On September 22, President Biden announced 26 appointments to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). Established in 1957, PCAST advises the president on matters related to STEM and innovation. Eric Lander, the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) chairs PCAST, with Frances Arnold and Maria Zuber serving as co-chairs.

The PCAST member appointments cover the breadth of scientific disciplines, including Jennifer Richeson, a social psychologist whose research focuses on interracial interactions, racial identity, bias and prejudice, cultural diversity, social inequality, and injustice, and Jonathan Levin, an applied economist whose expertise is in industrial organization. Several other members of PCAST have a background in technology, reflecting interest in key priorities that include artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

The full list of PCAST members includes:

• Marvin Adams, HTRI Professor of Nuclear Engineering, Regents Fellow, and Director of National Laboratories Mission Support, Texas A&M University System
• Dan E. Arvizu, Chancellor, New Mexico State University System
• John Banovetz, Executive Vice President, Chief Technology Officer and Environmental Responsibility, 3M Company
• Ashton Carter, Director, Harvard Kennedy School  Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and Belfer Professor of Technology and Global Affairs, Harvard University
• Frances Colón, Senior Director for International Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress
• Lisa A. Cooper, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Equity in Health and Healthcare, Johns Hopkins University, and Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity
• John O. Dabiri, Centennial Professor of Aeronautics and Mechanical Engineering, California Institute of Technology
• Sue Desmond-Hellmann, former CEO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
• Inez Fung, Professor of Atmospheric Science at the University of California, Berkeley
• Andrea Goldsmith, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Arthur LeGrand Doty Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Princeton University
• Laura H. Greene, Chief Scientist, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, and the Marie Krafft Professor of Physics, Florida State University
• Paula Hammond, Head, Department of Chemical Engineering,  and Institute Professor and member of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
• Eric Horvitz, Chief Scientific Officer, Microsoft
• Joe Kiani, CEO, Masimo Corporation
• Jonathan Levin, Philip H. Knight Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University
• Steve Pacala, Frederick D. Petrie Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University
• Saul Perlmutter, Franklin W. and Karen Weber Dabby Professor of Physics and Director of the Berkeley Institute for Data Science, University of California, Berkeley, and Senior Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
• William Press, Leslie Surginer Professor of Computer Science and Integrative Biology, The University of Texas at Austin
• Penny Pritzker, Chairman and Founder of PSP Partners and Chairman of the Board of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
• Jennifer Richeson, Philip R. Allen Professor of Psychology and Director of the Social Perception and Communication Lab, Yale University
• Vicki Sato, former Professor of the Practice in the department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Harvard University, and former Professor of Management Practice, Harvard Business School
• Lisa T. Su, President and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices
• Kathryn Sullivan, prior Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• Terence Tao, Professor of Mathematics and the James and Carol Collins Chair, College of Letters and Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles
• Phil Venables, Chief Information Security Officer, Google Cloud
• Catherine Woteki, Visiting Distinguished Institute Professor , Biocomplexity Institute, University of Virginia, and Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Iowa State University