Megan Palmer

Dr. Megan J. Palmer is a Senior Research Scholar at CISAC. She was a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC for 2013-2015. She is also a research scientist UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Labs, and serves on the advisory board for the synthetic biology program at the Joint Genomics Institute (JGI). Dr. Palmer is an investigator for the NSF Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc) and serves as its Deputy Director of Policy & Practices. She was previously a postdoctoral scholar in the Bioengineering Department at Stanford, where she first joined CISAC as an affiliate in 2012.

Dr. Palmer’s work seeks to develop and advise on best practices and policies for responsibly advancing biotechnology. She has directed projects in biological safety and security, property rights, and governance. She has also launched many programs on the societal aspects of biotechnology.

Dr. Palmer holds a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from MIT. She received a B.Sc.E. in Engineering Chemistry from Queen’s University, Canada.