Distinguished University Professor, George Mason University · retiring January 2027
Former NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences · Science Policy Insider
In January 2027 I retire from George Mason University after 29 years, where I am Distinguished University Professor of Neuroscience and Public Policy in the Schar School of Policy and Government. At Mason I directed the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, spent sixteen years as a dean, and most recently have taught courses on governing a future Mars settlement and on managing large U.S. government crises.
From 2014 to 2018 I served as NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, where I led NSF's role in President Obama's BRAIN Initiative, helped put the NEON observatory on a sustainable footing, and co-chaired the White House Life Sciences Subcommittee. Earlier in my career I studied the cellular mechanisms of learning and memory in the marine mollusk Hermissenda crassicornis, publishing findings in Science in 1983 and 1989.
Retirement will not mean stopping. I am spending more of my time writing — about how American science is funded, governed, and occasionally broken — and on the one project I am keeping: serving as Chief Risk Officer for the NSF SAGE Grande Testbed.
My full scholarly record — four decades of research and policy writing — remains indexed and verified on ORCID.
ORCID iD · orcid.org/0000-0003-3214-946X