Victor Rabinowitch Memorial Symposium Webinar 2: "Science and Technology for Development: Where We Are Now and Where We Need to Go" Speaker Biographies

Cathy Campbell retired as President and CEO of CRDF Global, which she led for ten years. Previously, Cathy managed international cooperation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the Departments of Commerce and State, and conducted research at the Library of Congress and the Rand Corporation. She was a Visiting Scholar at the AAAS Center for Science Diplomacy in 2017- 2018. Recently she co-chaired the Planning Committee for a September 2020 National Academy of Sciences workshop on science, technology and health capabilities within the Department of State and USAID. Cathy has a Master’s degree from George Washington University in Russian and East European Studies and a B.S. in Russian from Georgetown University. She is a member of the Board of Governors of the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation; the Board of Directors, BalletNova; the External Advisory Board, Pennsylvania State University’s School of International Affairs; and the Advisory Council, Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). Cathy is an AAAS Fellow and a Virginia Master Gardener.

Dr. E. William Colglazier is Editor-in-Chief of Science & Diplomacy and Senior Scholar in the Center for Science Diplomacy at the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS). He works there to advance knowledge and practice on science policy and science diplomacy and to support international collaboration and cooperation in science and technology. His editorials in Science & Diplomacy cover a wide range of issues associated with science, policy, and society. From 2016 to 2018 he co-chaired the 10-Member Group appointed by the UN Secretary General to advise on science, technology, and innovation for achieving the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. He served as the Science and Technology Adviser to the U. S. Secretary of State from 2011 to 2014. For seventeen years beginning in 1994, he served as Executive Officer of the National Academy of Sciences and National Research Council overseeing the studies that provide independent, objective, and expert scientific advice on public policy issues. He received his Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1971, and subsequently worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and the University of Tennessee. While at Harvard, he also served as Associate Director of the Program in Science, Technology, and Humanism of the Aspen Institute. As Professor of Physics at the University of Tennessee, he directed several research centers dealing with environmental, energy, and waste management issues. In 1976-77, he was an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow working for Congressman George Brown. He is past chair and current chair of the Forum on Physics and Society and chair of the Committee on International Scientific Affairs of the American Physical Society. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and APS. In 2015 he received the Joseph A. Burton Forum Award of the American Physical Society that recognizing “outstanding contributions to the public understanding or resolution of issues involving the interface of physics and society” and the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for “contributing to science and technology exchange and mutual understanding between Japan and the United States.” He is a board member of CRDF Global and incoming chair of the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. At the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, he is co-chair of the Science Diplomacy Roundtable, a member of the Science and Technology for Sustainability Roundtable, a member of the Innovation Policy Forum, a member of the Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology, and a member of the U.S. Liaison Committee for the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

Dr. Katherine Himes directs the University of Idaho McClure Center for Public Policy Research and the Idaho Science and Technology Policy Fellowship (ISTPF). Her expertise includes international development, science diplomacy, and science policy. As an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science & Technology Policy Fellow (STPF), Dr. Himes served as regional science advisor at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Mission to Central Asia, where she supported science and technology in five countries of the former Soviet Union. She also served as an AAAS SPTF based at USAID Washington, and worked across USAID and the U.S. Department of State to integrate science-based approaches into development and diplomacy, both bilaterally and multilaterally. Her innovative approaches were recognized with multiple USAID awards.

Dr. Himes serves on grant review panels for the U.S. National Science Foundation, National Academy of Sciences, and Department of State, and as associate editor of the journal Science & Diplomacy. She has been an invited speaker at international meetings, including the World Water Forum, The World Bank Climate Change Conference, AAAS Annual Meeting, and annual consultations between the U.S. and Brazil, New Zealand, and Uzbekistan. Dr. Himes also served on the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Committee on Science & Technology for Development. Dr. Himes is vice chair of the University Network on Collaborative Governance (UNCG) and a member of the Boise Committee on Foreign Relations (BCFR) board of directors, City Club of Boise board of directors and forum committee, and the Sun Valley Institute advisory board. She earned her Ph.D. and B.S. in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota, and her MBA in Entrepreneurship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

John Hurley has had a career in international work, much of it with developing countries. He was an early Peace Corps Volunteer and staff member in Malaysia, Washington, D.C., and Fiji. For two decades he worked with the Board on Science and Technology for International Development (BOSTID) at the National Research Council, and was BOSTID Director from 1982-1991. For the succeeding 16 years he was with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, including serving as Vice President for International Programs. Hurley retired in 2008 but later came back to active international work as Senior Vice President of CRDF Global from 2012-2017. Hurley again retired and divides the year between Wisconsin and California. He worked closely with Victor Rabinowitch from 1970 – 2000.

Ticora Jones is currently the Director of the Center for Development Research and the Division Chief of the Higher Education Solutions Network in the U.S. Global Development Lab at USAID. Dr. Jones manages this university engagement program that was established in 2012 to build bridges between development professionals and universities through a multidisciplinary lens on science, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship. Beginning in 2009 as a AAAS Diplomacy, Security, and Development Fellow, she helped manage the establishment of an Agency-wide agenda for science and technology through policy and programming designed to elevate USAID’s presence in this area.

Prior to joining USAID, Dr. Jones served as the 2008-2009 Materials Societies Congressional Fellow for Senator Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) where she worked on energy and environment issues. Before beginning her congressional fellowship, Dr. Jones conducted post-doctoral research focused on creating and characterizing nanoparticle/composite-based functional materials at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Dr. Jones earned her BS degree in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and her PhD in Polymer Science and Engineering from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Dr. Tho Nguyen is a Senior Scientist in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Virginia. His expertise and research interests include advanced cyberinfrastructure, computer system architecture, cyber-physical systems, and smart cities. His work has been funded by NSF, USAID, and multiple private foundations. Dr. Nguyen maintains extensive international engagements. He serves as a Subject Matter Expert advising the U.S. Department of State (DOS) on matters related to transboundary data collaborations in the Lower Mekong region (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam). Nguyen is the chief architect of MekongWater.org, a region-scale cyberinfrastructure developed by DOS to support collaborations for sustainable development in the Mekong region.

Tho Nguyen earned his PhD from the University of Washington (Seattle, WA) in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering (ECE) in 2009, where specialized in Controls & Robotics. Prior to joining UVA, Nguyen served as a Science and Technology Policy Fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) where he was appointed to the National Science Foundation (2013- 2015). He is also a former J. William Fulbright Fellow to Vietnam (2006-2007).

Alfred Watkins is Founder and Chairman of the Global Solutions Summit (GSS) which focuses on strategies to promote the large-scale deployment in emerging markets of commercially viable, financially-sustainable development solutions for potable water, renewable energy, ICT, health care, housing, sustainable agriculture and food processing. In March 2017, UN Secretary General António Guterres appointed him to a three-year term on the Governing Council of the Technology Bank for the Least Developed Countries (LDCs). In January 2020, the Secretary General reappointed him to a second three year term. The main objective of the Technology Bank, which was formally established by the UN General Assembly in December 2016, is to help LDCs identify and deploy the technology they need to (i) foster inclusive sustainable growth and (ii) achieve the SDGs.

Prior to founding the Global Solutions Summit, he worked for more than 23 years at the World Bank and served for more than six years as the World Bank’s Science and Technology Program Coordinator and head of the World Bank’s Science, Technology and Innovation Global Expert Team. He has extensive on- the-ground experience leading science, technology, and innovation capacity building programs and projects in Rwanda, Ghana, Vietnam, Malaysia, and various countries in the Former Soviet Union including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Latvia. He organized two World Bank Global Forums on Science, Technology and Innovation Capacity Building for Sustainable Development (one in 2007 and another in 2009). Before joining the World Bank, he also served as a legislative assistant/staff economist in the US Congress and was an assistant professor at the University of Texas.