National Steering Committee

JAY CLAYTON, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Chair, Department of English, Vanderbilt University, analyzes the ethical and social issues raised by genetics as they appear in literature and films. He also studies organizational and funding interdisciplinary relationships between the humanities and the sciences. He received an NIH grant through the National Human Genome Research Institute for a three year project on “Genetics in Literature, Film, and Popular Culture.” He has lectured on genetics and literature at the National Human Genome Research Institute at the NIH, the English Institute, the MLA, the Narrative Society, the Society for Literature and Science, and medical schools around the country. See his recent article in the “Biocultures” special issue of New Literary History: “Victorian Chimeras, or, What Literature Can Contribute to Genetics Policy Today”

DAVID A. EDWARDS, Gordon McKay Professor of the Practice of Biomedical Engineering at Harvard University, is a biomedical engineer and writer who works at the intersection of art and science. He is the founder of Le Laboratoire in Paris, the first “experiment-driven art and science incubator.” Edwards, whose research is supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is also the founder of Advanced Inhalation Research, or AIR, and of the international not-for-profit Medicine in Need. Listen to an NPR story on David Edwards.

LEWIS R. GORDON is Laura H. Carnell Professor of Philosophy with affiliations in Religion and Judaic Studies at Temple University, where he also directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He has also taught at Brown, Yale, and Purdue, and is Ongoing Visiting Professor Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies. He works in areas including Africana philosophy, philosophy of human and life sciences, and theories of race and racism. He has published books on Frantz Fanon, racism, black existentialist philosophers, African American studies, and disciplinary decadence. Gordon has also served as Executive Editor of the Journal of the Radical Philosophy Association and as co-editor of the Routledge book series on Africana thought.

MARCO IACOBONI, Director of the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab and Associate Professor at the Neuropsychiatric Institute of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is a leader in mirror neuron research, which the New York Times calls “The discovery that is shaking up numerous scientific disciplines, shifting the understanding of culture, empathy, philosophy, language, imitation, autism and psychotherapy.” He is the author of the first general reader book on the significance of mirror neurons: Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect With Others (May 2008). Iacoboni's work has been featured on Good Morning America, the Early Show, and Morning Edition, among other TV and radio programs. Check out an article on the mirror neuron research of Iacoboni and his colleagues.