Staff can be contacted via email, using the first letter of the first name and the full last name, at geneticsandsociety.org. Thus, John Doe would be jdoe[AT]geneticsandsociety[DOT]org.

Click on the name of each program staff member to see their talks, articles, news and blog posts.

Richard Hayes, PhD, Executive Director, has served as a political organizer for a wide range of environmental and social and economic justice organizations. In the 1970's he worked as lead organizer with the Citizens Action League and other organizations in Northern Cailfornia and Los Angeles. In the early 1980's he served as Executive Director of the San Francisco Democratic Party and ran the electoral field operations for the late Congressmembers Phil Burton and Sala Burton. From 1983 through 1992 he was Associate Political Director and then National Director of Volunteer Development for the Sierra Club. In the late '80's he was Chair of the Sierra Club's Global Warming Campaign Committee. He has written and spoken widely concerning the democratic governance of science and technology, and the need for social oversight of the new human genetic technologies. Mr. Hayes holds a PhD in Energy and Resources from the University of California at Berkeley.

Marcy Darnovsky, PhD, Associate Executive Director, speaks and writes widely on the politics of human biotechnology, focusing on their social justice and public interest implications. She has worked as an organizer and advocate in a range of environmental and progressive political movements, and has taught courses in the politics of science, technology, and the environment in the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at Sonoma State University, and in the sociology of gender at California State University Hayward. Her Ph.D. is from the History of Consciousness program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Charles Garzón, Director of Finance and Administration, has over 15 years of experience working with public policy and advocacy organizations. Most recent, he has been associated with a progressive policy think-tank and legal defense fund located in New York City. He holds a Bachelor's in Politics and Sociology as well as a Master's degree in Political Science with emphasis in international relations.

Jenna Burton, Administrative Assistant for the Center for Genetics and Society, graduated with a BA in Anthropology from Howard University, where she was the founder of Vox: Voices for Planned Parenthood, the first student pro-choice group of its kind at an Historically Black University. Right after college, she went to Guatemala as an MSI Intern with the University of Michigan Population Fellows Programs to educate women in rural areas on reproductive health and family planning. Jenna has organized around issues including healthcare, education, affordable housing and reproductive rights. She is currently completing her post baccalaureate in pre-medicine at the UC Berkeley Extension. She is also a proud member of the Berkeley Free Clinic..

Osagie K. Obasogie, JD, directs the project on Bioethics, Law, and Society. His work looks at the ethical, social, and legal implications of human biotechnologies, with a particular focus on their impact on communities of color. His writings have been published in numerous outlets, including the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, and Bioethics Forum, as well as a forthcoming piece in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. He is also a regular contributor to the blog Biopolitical Times. Obasogie is a graduate of Yale University and Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and an editor for the National Black Law Journal. He is also a member of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics and the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities.

Jesse Reynolds, MS, Project Director on Biotechnology in the Public Interest, has been on the staff of the Center since its creation in 2001. Since the 2004 campaign of California's Proposition 71, he has been a public interest advocate concerning the funding and regulation of stem cell research. In this role, he has spoken and written widely on the social and policy implications of human biotechnologies, and has been cited by media outlets such as the Los Angeles Times, the Associated Press, the San Francisco Chronicle and the American Medical News. He has a MS in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied as a US EPA Fellow. While there, he was a co-founder of Students for Responsible Research, which monitored the impact of large-scale corporate funding for research on genetically modified crop.