As the senior scientist and director of the Scientific Integrity Program at UCS, Francesca Grifo acts 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 Europe for the Biodiversity Support Program, a consortium of the World Resources Institute, the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund. She also served as an AAAS Fellow in the Office of Research at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Dr. Grifo earned a doctorate in botany from Cornell and a bachelor’s degree in biology from Smith College.

Dr. Grifo has testified before Congress on the subject of scientific integrity in federal policy making and is widely quoted on the topic in media outlets such as The New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio’s Science Friday.