Biden selects Eric Lander as White House science advisor
January 17, 2021
Eric Lander, a geneticist with a PhD in mathematics, has been chosen by President-elect Biden to lead the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and additionally serve as Presidential Science Advisor. Biden plans to make the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy a Cabinet-level agency, a move that elevates the role of science in government. Biden announced the selection of Lander and other key members of his White House science team on January 15.
Lander earned his PhD at Oxford University in 1981 with a dissertation titled “Topics in algebraic coding theory.” He has represented the US on the International Mathematical Olympiad team (in the German Democratic Republic in 1974), given a Gibbs Lecture at the Joint Mathematics Meetings (Phoenix, 2004), and given an invited talk at the National Mathematics Festival (at the Library of Congress in 2015).
Though Lander was trained as a mathematician, he is best known for his work in genetics and was a leader of the Human Genome Project. He is founding director of the Broad Institute, which brings together researchers from across medicine, biology, chemistry, computation, engineering, and mathematics to meet the most critical challenges in biology and medicine.
Lander served in the Obama White House as co-chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). He served in this position for eight years, working closely with Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren.
In his new position, Lander will lead a strong team of scientists. The team has been charged with confronting "some of the biggest crises and challenges of our time, from climate change and the impact of technology on society to pandemics, racial inequity and the current historic economic downturn.” Read more about the science nominees and appointments on the Biden-Harris transition website.