Francesca Grifo
Senior Scientist and Director of Scientific Integrity Program
Statement “Our health, safety, and environment depend heavily on public policies developed with independent scientific advice. The federal government's irreplaceable role in nurturing scientific research has brought America sustained economic progress and unparalleled worldwide scientific leadership. To protect all Americans, we must act now to protect the integrity of science.”
Expertise
Biodiversity Conservation
Environmental Education
Scientific Integrity Profile
As the Senior Scientist and Director of the Scientific Integrity Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Dr. Grifo will act to mobilize scientists and citizens to defend the integrity of government science from political interference. Dr. Grifo came to UCS in 2005 from Columbia University where she directed the Center for Environmental Research and Conservation graduate policy workshop and ran the Science Teachers Environmental Education Program. Prior to that, she was director of the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation and a curator of the Hall of Biodiversity at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Dr. Grifo edited and contributed to the books Biodiversity and Human Health and The Living Planet in Crisis; biodiversity science and policy. In addition to her scholarly work, Dr. Grifo was the manager of the International Cooperative Biodiversity Groups Program at the National Institutes of Health. She was also a senior program officer for Central and Eastern European for the Biodiversity Support Program, a consortium of the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy, and the World Wildlife Fund; and an AAAS Fellow in the Office of Research at the Agency for International Development. Francesca earned her PhD in botany from Cornell, and a BA in biology from Smith College. She currently holds adjunct appointments at Columbia and Georgetown. | 
