Bioethics@

Bioethics Retreat Speakers

Carl Cranor, Keynote Speaker
Carl Cranor, Professor of Philosophy, at the University of California, Riverside, did his undergraduate work at the University of Colorado with a major in mathematics and a minor in physics, (1966) and his graduate work at UCLA in Philosophy (1971). He has done postdoctoral work in law at Yale Law School receiving the Master of Studies in Law in 1981.

Specializing in legal and moral philosophy, his recent work has been on philosophical issues that arise in the legal and scientific adjudication risks from toxic substances and genetically modified organisms. This has led to NSF-supported research on theoretical issues in risk assessment, and on the philosophic issues concerning the use science in the regulatory and tort law. He has published numerous articles in these fields as well as being the author of Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law (Oxford University Press, 1993, paperback 1997), the editor of Are Genes Us? The Social Consequences of the New Genetics (Rutgers University Press, 1994) and a co-author of the U.S. Congress' Office of Technology Assessment report, Identifying and Regulating Carcinogens (1987). His articles have appeared in such diverse journals as The American Philosophical Quarterly; Ethics, Law and Philosophy; The Yale Law Journal; The Industrial Relations Law Journal; Risk Analysis, Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology; Risk, the Virginia Environmental Law Journal; Jurimetrics and Law and Contemporary Problems. He has served on the State of California's Proposition 65 Science Advisory Panel (1989-1992), a National Academy of Sciences Panel to Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences (1990), several NSF peer review panels and California's Science Advisory Panel on Electric and Magnetic Fields (1999-2002). In 1998 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Laura Krause
Laura Krouse is a famer near Mt. Vernon, and a biology teacher at Cornell College. She operates a CSA and grows produce for weekly pickup for about 70 families in the Mt. Vernon area. The farm is 72 acres, and is in transition to be certified organic. She purchased the farm in 1988 from the Neal family, who had maintained their own open-pollinated corn variety since 1903. She continues to select and improve this population, and sells seeds to farmers in the upper Midwest under the name of Abbe Hills OP Corn. Her education is in agronomy. She has been a commissioner of the Linn Soil and Water Conservation District since 1992 and is active in the work of her church.

GianCarlo Moschini
GianCarlo Moschini is professor of economics at Iowa State University, where he also holds the Pioneer Hi-Bred International Chair in Science and Technology Policy. Moschini has published extensively in a variety of economics areas, including the specification and estimation of demand and production systems, the study of decisions under risk with emphasis on producers' hedging problems using futures and options, the analysis of agricultural and trade policies, and the study of the economics of innovation. He was Editor of the American Journal of Agricultural Economics for the period 1998-2000. Moschini's current research focuses on the economics of R&D activities and the impact of new technologies, including the economic assessment of biotechnology in agriculture, the analysis of intellectual property rights, and the role of public policy and market institutions in fostering innovation and economic growth.

Carolyn Raffensperger
Carolyn Raffensperger is the Executive Director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, a consortium of environmental organizations dedicated to using science to protect public health and the environment. Raffensperger holds a master's degree in archaeology and a law degree and is a member of the Illinois Bar. She is the co-editor of Protecting Public Health and the Environment: Implementing the Precautionary Principle, published by Island Press. This volume provides the history of and methods for applying the precautionary principle. Raffensperger writes the Science for Lawyers column for the Environmental Law Institute's journal "Environmental Forum". In addition she serves on editorial review boards for several environmental and sustainable agriculture journals. Over the past 15 years she has been a member of various USEPA and the National Research Council committees. Committee topics included risk assessment, pesticides, radioactive waste, and clean-up of the Department of Energy facilities. In the past two years Raffensperger has been featured in Gourmet magazine, the Utne Reader, and Scientific American.

Kan Wang
Dr. Kan Wang is the Director of Plant Transformation Facility at Iowa State University and Associate Professor in the Department of Agronomy. Her primary research interests include the development of advanced technology for genetic transformation of corn and soybean, as well as the utilization of plant biotechnology for crop improvement and for production of vaccine in transgenic plants. Dr. Wang received her B.S. in Biochemistry at Fudan University in China and Ph.D. in Plant Biology from Ghent University, Belgium. Prior to joining in ISU, she was a Project Leader in Zeneca/ICI Seeds leading corn and soybean transformation projects.

Published by: Office of Biotechnology, Bioethics Outreach
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Last Update 05/23/03