CRG Board
Sheldon Krimsky, PhD, is the Chair of CRG. He is professor of Urban & Environmental Policy & Planning in the School of Arts & Sciences and Adjunct Professor in Public Health and Family Medicine in the School of Medicine at Tufts University. He received his bachelors and masters degrees in physics from Brooklyn College, CUNY and Purdue University respectively, and a masters and doctorate in philosophy at Boston University. Professor Krimsky's research has focused on the linkages between science/technology, ethics/values and public policy. He is the author of eight books including Genetic Alchemy: The Social History of the Recombinant DNA Controversy (MIT Press) and Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age: Why We Need a Genetic Bill of Rights (Rowman & Littlefield Pub.) Professor Krimsky has published over 175 essays and reviews that have appeared in many books and journals. He is currently completing a book under contract with Columbia University Press titled Genetic Justice: DNA Databanking, Civil Liberties and Criminal Investigation. Professor Krimsky has served on a number of national and international advisory committees.
Jeremy Gruber, JD, is President and Executive Director of CRG. Jeremy has worked for over a decade on genetic non-discrimination legislation at the state and Federal level. He helped author and pass numerous state laws on genetic non-discrimination. He is a founder and executive committee member of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, a group of 500 organizations that advocated for genetic non-discrimination legislation on Capitol Hill and played a major role in the recently passed Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act (GINA) by Congress. Jeremy worked closely with members of Congress and staff on GINA language as well as strategy and support. He is a prolific writer on privacy issues and is often consulted by state legislatures. He is regularly featured in print, radio and television. Previously he served as the legal director of the National Workrights Institute, a human rights organization dedicated to the rights of American workers. Prior to that he served as the field director for the ACLU's National Taskforce on Civil Liberties in the Workplace.
Paul Billings, MD, PhD, FACP, FACMG, is the Vice Chair of CRG. Billings is the Director and Chief Science Officer of the Genomic Medicine Institute at El Camino Hospital. He is also President and CEO of CELLective Dx Corporation, a company seeking to improve cancer management with novel tests. He has been Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and is a member of the HHS Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genomics, Health and society. For many years, he conducted investigations on the impact of genetic information and technology on society. He has been on the faculties of Harvard, UCSF, and Stanford Universities, and served as the Chief Medical Officer of the Heart of Texas Veteran's Integrated Health Care System. Dr. Billings is on the boards of several for-profit and not-for-profit organizations seeking to improve health care.
Peter Shorett is the Treasurer of CRG. Peter is a former program director of CRG, co-editor of Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005), and a graduate of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Peter monitors the budget and works with the President to manage and report on CRG's finances. Currently, he works for a health management/research consulting company.
Evan Balaban, PhD, is associate professor of psychology at McGill University and former head of the Neurosciences Program at CUNY College of Staten Island and the New York State Institute for Basic Research on Developmental Disabilities. Dr. Balaban has lectured around the world on the relationship between genetics and behavior, co-edited The Differences Between the Sexes, and is currently working on a book titled Moral Biology: Genetics and the Complex Human Phenotype. While a senior fellow in experimental neurobiology at the Neurosciences Institute, Professor Balaban's research was cited by Discover Magazine in 1998 in their coverage of Most Important Scientific Discoveries of the Year. He has a Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in animal behavior, genetics, and neurobiology and was a postdoctoral fellow at C.N.R.S. et College de France Institut d'Embryologie.
Sujatha Byravan, PhD, Senior Fellow, CDF, IFMR, Chennai, received her doctorate in molecular biology, University of South Carolina, 1989. Sujatha served as Executive Director of CRG from 2002-2007. After completing her post-doctoral training (1993 -1995) at UCLA, she moved out of basic biological research because of various ethical concerns and moved back to India, where she worked as a science writer and freelance journalist writing on topics that include science policy, gender issues and environment and politics in India. From 1995 - 1997 she was selected as a Fellow of Rockefeller Foundation's LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) Program. Sujatha served as Director of the Fellows Program at LEAD International in their Secretariat in New York and later in London from 1999 - 2003. As chief architect of the Program that was delivered to over 1,000 Fellows all over the world, she was responsible for all aspects of program development and activities. Dr. Byravan currently lives in India.
Andrew J. Imparato, JD, is President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Prior to joining AAPD, Imparato was general counsel and director of policy for the National Council on Disability (NCD), an independent federal agency advising the President and the Congress on public policy issues affecting people with disabilities. Imparato has also worked as a special assistant to Commissioner Paul Steven Miller at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; as Counsel to the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Disability Policy, chaired by Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa; and as a Skadden fellow/staff attorney at the Disability Law Center in Boston, Massachusetts.
Rayna Rapp, PhD, is Professor of Anthropology at New York University. Her interests include gender, reproduction, science and technology, the social impact of genome research, and kinship and disabilities. Her prize winning book Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: the Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America (1999) explored the social impacts and meanings of amniocentesis, illuminating how communication problems between practitioners and patients were the result of profound differences in beliefs about what makes a good parent, what risk means, the proper balance between personal autonomy and commitments to family, the nature of disability, and the moral status of the fetus. Her new collaborative research is on genetic knowledge. She has also been active in an international research group tracking the impact of new medical technologies; and two bioethics projects concerned with the re-inscription of race as a medical category through genomic research.
Patricia J. Williams, JD, is the James L. Dohr Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, and writes a column for The Nation magazine titled "Diary of a Mad Law Professor." She is a prominent law critic and a proponent of critical race theory, an offshoot of 1960s social movements that emphasizes race as a fundamental determinant of the American legal system. Williams received her bachelor's degree from Wellesley College in 1972, and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1975. She was a fellow in the School of Criticism and Theory at Dartmouth College and has been an associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School and its department of women's studies. Williams also worked as a consumer advocate in the office of the City Attorney in Los Angeles. Williams is a member of the State Bar of California and the Bar of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Williams has served on the advisory council for the Medgar Evers College for Law and Social Justice of the City University of New York and on the board of governors for the Society of American Law Teachers, among others. She was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, which she held from June 2000 until June 2005 and is the author of many books including: The Alchemy of Race and Rights: A Diary of a Law Professor (1991), The Rooster's Egg (1995), Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race (1997), Open House: Of Family, Friends, Food, Piano Lessons, and the Search for a Room of My Own (2004).
CRG Board Emeriti
George Annas, JD, MPH
Boston University
Adrienne Asch, PhD
Yeshiva University
Philip Bereano, PhD, JD
University of Washington
Dr. Liebe Cavalieri. MD
Soan Kettering Institute/SUNY-Purchase
Terri Goldberg, M.S.
Northeast Waste Management Officials' Association (NEWMOA)
Rev. Colin Gracey DMin
Northeastern University
Evelyn Hammonds, PhD
Harvard University
Debra Harry, M.S.
Indigenous Peoples Council on Bio-colonialism
Martha R. Herbert, MD, PhD
Massachusetts General Hospital
Ruth Hubbard, PhD
Harvard University
Jonathan King, PhD
MIT
Anthony Mazzocchi
Oil, Chemical and Atomic Worker's International Union
Claire Nader, PhD (past Board chair)
Dr. Stuart Newman, MD
New York Medical College
Devon Pena, PhD
Colorado College
Ruth Ricker
Little People of America
Dr. Barbara Rosenberg, MD
Sloan Kettering Institute/SUNY-Purchase
Doreeen Stabinsky, PhD
University of California, Davis
Lola Vollen, MD, MPH
University of California, Berkeley, Institute for International Studies.
Susan Wright, PhD
University of Pennsylvanina