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Jane Rissler
Deputy Director/Senior Scientist
Food and Environment Program

Expertise
antibiotics in livestock and food
biotechnology
genetically engineered foods

Profile
Jane Rissler is one of the nation's leading authorities on the environmental risks of genetic engineering. She provides firm scientific grounding for UCS's policy positions on agriculture, biotechnology and the environment, and also works to ensure that the public has opportunities to participate in regulatory decision making on biotechnology applications.


Rissler's passion for science meshes perfectly with her deep love of the natural world, gained from a childhood in rural West Virginia. She received her PhD in plant pathology from Cornell's College of Agriculture and taught in the Department of Botany at the University of Maryland. But she always wanted to use science "in ways that were more directly relevant to public policy." She spent four years at the Environmental Protection Agency helping to formulate biotechnology regulatory policies before moving to the National Wildlife Federation. In 1993, Rissler and her colleague at the foundation, Margaret Mellon, were invited to join UCS to establish our Agriculture and Biotechnology Program.

Rissler has published major reports on the environmental risks of transgenic crops and on crop-management plans to delay insect resistance to the Bt toxin, a valuable natural pesticide. She is a widely cited authority on biotechnology and frequently appears on NPR, CNN, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ABC World News Tonight, and many other media outlets.

For info on this release call:

Energy, Food, Scientific Integrity
MEGHAN CROSBY
Assistant Press Secretary
202-331-6943
mcrosby@ucsusa.org

Climate, Global Security, Vehicles, Invasives
AARON HUERTAS
Assistant Press Secretary
202-331-5458
ahuertas@ucsusa.org

Climate, Scientific Integrity
LISA NURNBERGER
Press Secretary
202-331-6959
lnurnberger@ucsusa.org

Energy, Food
EMILY ROBINSON
Press Secretary
202-331-5427
erobinson@ucsusa.org
ELLIOTT NEGIN
Media Director
202-331-5439
enegin@ucsusa.org




 



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