GLOBAL CITIZENS' ASSEMBLY
ON GENOME EDITING
GLOBAL PARTNERS
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Australia
Collaborator, Deakin University
Baogang He
Professor Baogang He is Alfred Deakin Professor and Chair in International Relations since 2005, at Deakin University, Australia. Graduated with PhD in Political Science from Australian National University in 1994, Professor He has become widely
known for his work in Chinese democratization and politics, in particular the deliberative politics in China.
Professor He has published 7 single-authored books, 63 international refereed journal articles resulting in total Google citation count of 3075 (as of 20 Nov 2016) and Hirsch index of 27. His publications are found in top journals including British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Peace Research, Political Theory, and Perspectives on Politics. In addition, he published 3 books, 15 book chapters and 63 journal papers in Chinese.
Professor He has also held several honorary appointments and research fellowships at renowned universities including Stanford University, University of Cambridge, Columbia University, Leiden and Sussex University.
Creative Director, December Media
Tony Wright
Tony Wright is the founder of December Media. He is also an award-winning and highly experienced producer and executive producer of documentary, drama and children’s television. His numerous credits include the acclaimed docudrama Captain
Cook: Obsession and Discovery, hit children’s series Li’l Horrors and Emmy Award winning science documentary Immortal.
Tony produced the BAFTA nominated UK coproduction Mrs Biggs and executive produced five seasons of the top rating The Doctor Blake Mysteries, and the sequel The Blake Mysteries as well as the Australian produced 3D IMAX films Hidden Universe, The Search for Life in Space, The Story of Earth, and Great Barrier Reef. Tony is very proud of December’s most recent production The Cry.
Tony has come onboard as the co-Executive Producer of the documentary series that is part of the Global Citizens' Assembly on Genome Editing.
Belgium
Collaborator, KU Leuven
Ine Van Hoyweghen
Ine Van Hoyweghen is Research Professor at KU Leuven (Belgium), where she directs the Life Sciences & Society Lab. She is leading various Flemish Research Council and EU-funded projects which examine the legal, ethical and social issues associated
with genomic medicine and the governance of innovative health technologies. She is a recognized expert in the field of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), working on the science-society nexus (e.g., citizen science, citizen panels), especially regarding the responsible translation of new technologies in genomics from the lab to society.
Ine is Alumnus Member of the Young Academy of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB), Member of the Belgian Consultative Committee on Bioethics (2019-2023), and founding Chair of the Belgian Science, Technology & Society Network.
Collaborator, KU Leuven
Hilde Van Esch, MD, PhD
Hilde Van Esch is a paediatrician and clinical geneticist from training and staff member at the Centre for Human Genetics at the University Hospitals UZ Leuven, where she covers a broad field of medical genetics, with specific interest in
intellectual disability, neurology and syndromology As Assistant Professor at KU Leuven, she heads the Laboratory for the Genetics of Cognition.
Hilde's research is focussed on neurodevelopmental disorders and congenital brain malformations, for which she has implemented the induced stem cell and CrispR-Cas technologies in the lab. She is board member of the Department of Human Genetics KU Leuven, and elected board member of the European Society for Human Genetics. She is equally member of the Leuven Institute for Genome and Society (LIGAS) and scientific counsellor in several rare disease and family associations.
Brazil
Collaborator, KU Leuven
Andrea Felicetti
Andrea is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Political Research, KU Leuven. He previously held research positions at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Center on Social Movement Studies), European University Institute, University of Lille 3,
University of Louvain (Hoover Chair of Economic and Social Ethics) and University of Canberra (Center for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance). He obtained his PhD (2014) from the School of Politics and International Relations at the Australian National University.
Previously, Andrea held visiting positions at University of Bologna, Warwick University and University of Washington. He works on democracy and governance innovation, public sphere and social movements. He is the author of Deliberative Democracy and Social Movements (Rowman and Littlefield International) and his work is published in several international journals including Science, European Journal of Political Research, Social Movement Studies, Journal of Business Ethics.
Collaborator, Federal University of Minas Gerais
Ricardo Fabrino
Ricardo Fabrino Mendonça is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Democracy,
University of California Irvine, USA. He is a researcher at MARGEM – Research Group on Democracy and Justice, holding a CNPq and a Fapemig fellowships. He is also the director of international cooperation of the Brazilian Political Science Association (ABCP) and of the Brazilian National Institute for Digital Democracy (INCT.DD).
Professor Mendonça studies democratic theory, contentious politics and political communication. He has recently published in Representation, Policy Studies, Constellations, Political Studies, Critical Policy Studies, Policy & Society, Brazilian Political Science Review and Democratic Theory. He is one of the editors of: Deliberative Systems in Theory and Practice (with S. Ercan and S. Elstub, Routledge, 2018); Introdução à Teoria Democrática (with E. Cunha, Editora UFMG, 2018); and Deliberação online no Brasil (with R. Sampaio and S. Barros).
Denmark
United Kingdom
Collaborator, Danish Board of Technology
Bjørn Bedsted
Bjørn Bedsted (MA in Social Anthropology) is deputy director at the Danish Board of Technology. Bjørn is highly experienced in methods for participatory technology assessment and public participation. His areas of expertise cover environmental
governance, sustainable development, responsible research and innovation and policy analysis. Bjørn has coordinated different citizen participation projects on gene editing, making use of well-established mini-public methods (consensus conference and citizens jury).
As global coordinator of the World Wide Views initiative and projects (WWViews on Global Warming 2009; WWViews on Biodiversity 2012; WWViews on Climate and Energy 2015) he also has extensive experience with the organisation of global citizen participation projects. His role and interest in the project are primarily to support the introduction of a new methodology for citizen participation in global governance.
Collaborator, Keele University
Marit Hammond
Marit Hammond is Lecturer in Environmental Politics at Keele University, and Co-Investigator of the ESRC Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). Specialising in political theory, her expertise spans deliberative
democracy, critical theory, and environmental governance.
Recent work includes the book Power in Deliberative Democracy: Norms, Forums, Systems (Palgrave, 2018), co-authored with Nicole Curato and John Min, as well as numerous articles in journals such as Environmental Politics, Contemporary Political Theory, Policy Sciences, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, and Democratization.
Collaborator, Wellcome Genome Campus
Anna Middleton
Anna is Head of Society and Ethics Research, Connecting Science at the Wellcome Genome Campus (which also hosts the Wellcome Sanger Institute). She is also Professor/Affiliate Lecturer at the Faculty of Education, University of
Cambridge (see Wikipedia profile). As both a qualified genetic counsellor and academic psychologist she brings experience of the clinical application of genetic counselling as well as the social science research that underpins this. She has a history of delivering large scale academic research about the societal impact of genomics on different public audiences and leads the global Your DNA Your Say project involving 37,000 publics from 22 countries in 15 languages with gathers attitudes towards genomic data sharing - outcomes from which will be used in policy from the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health. She is also involved in writing policy, e.g. as the British author on the American Society of Human Genetics policy on human germline editing and as Chair of the Association of Genetic Nurses and Counsellors.
Anna’s work utilises skills from the film and creative industries to translate complex genomics into lay language so that people can participate in her research. She leads a team that includes social scientists, genetic counsellors and within her team there is also expertise in film production.
Collaborator, Involve
Simon Burall
Simon Burall is a Senior Associate of Involve. He has long and extensive experience in the fields of democratic reform, open government, public participation, stakeholder engagement, accountability and transparency, scientific
technology innovation and organisational change. He has worked at the local and national level in Africa, Asia and Europe as well as on related issues of global governance and democracy.
His current role will see him leading an expansion of Involve’s work on science and technology. This Citizens and Science programme will focus on developing more effective ways for citizens to be involved in the development and application of new technological innovations with a particular focus on data and artificial intelligence.
In his role with Involve, Simon has worked with and advised many organisations including Number 10, the Cabinet Office, the Scottish Government, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills, the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health, the Department for Energy and Climate Change, NHS England, the UK Civil Society Network on Open Government, UNDP, OECD, the World Bank, the European Economic and Social Council, as well as at local level with numerous local authorities and other public bodies.
United States
Collaborator, Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes
Mahmud Farooque
Mahmud’s work at ASU’s Washington Center focuses on linking science policy to better societal outcomes. He co-leads CSPO’s long-term efforts to build a community of practice among innovative
R&D program managers in the government, non-government and private sectors.These include convening informal and formal knowledge exchanges between program managers about the challenges and opportunities for innovating in path dependent institutions.
Mahmud is the principal coordinator of Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology (ECAST) – a distributive institutional network that brings together research centers, informal science education centers, citizen science programs and non-partisan policy think tanks to engage citizens on decision-making related to science and technology policy. He led large-scale public consultation projects on biodiversity, space, climate, and energy to support policy and decision-making at the national and global levels. His current public consultation projects involve Climate Change Resilience, Gene Drives, Driverless Cars, Geoengineering, and Gene Editing.
Mahmud’s expertise focuses on innovation systems, research management, knowledge co-production, policy entrepreneurship, and participatory technology assessment.
Berlin
Collaborator, ifok
Jacob Birkenhäger
Jacob Birkenhäger has been managing dialogue processes in the area of social and economic policy at ifok since 2015. He deals with political and social forms of governance and open government approaches, including those in the context
of the Bürgerrat Demokratie [German Citizens’ Assembly on Democracy], a process assessing the current state of German democracy and recommending ways to increase democratic participation, the Dialogue Forum on Free Trade which included citizens in the discussion around the drafting of the TTIP agreement and the Fair Energy Transition for All project, which enables marginalized communities to be part of the discussion on energy transition, ensuring that no one is left behind. He has experience ranging from development policy and globalisation to democracy, societal cohesion and social market economy, as well as issues of climate change, mobility and infrastructure.
Jacob studied political science, philosophy and public law in Mainz, specialising in the analysis and comparison of political systems and in civic engagement and participation.
We’re looking for regional partners, volunteers, and philanthropic organisations to support this ground-breaking project.
We have reached a singular global moment. We can now edit genes with unprecedented ease and precision. How do we apply this technology? What sort of future do we want? And who gets to decide?