Alta Charo

Alta Charo (B.A. biology, Harvard 1979; J.D. Columbia, 1982) is the Warren P. Knowles Professor Emerita of Law & Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin. Prior to her 1989 arrival at UW, Charo served as Associate Director of the Legislative Drafting Research Fund of Columbia University; Fulbright Lecturer in American Law at the Sorbonne in Paris; a legal analyst at the congressional Office of Technology Assessment; and AAAS Diplomacy Fellow at USAID. Professor Charo took leave from UW for 2009-2011 to serve as a senior policy advisor on emerging technology issues in the FDA Office of the Commissioner. Other government service includes membership on President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission (1996-2001).

At present, Charo is serving as the inaugural David A. Hamburg Distinguished Fellow at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, where she is focused primarily on the Biosecurity Innovation and Risk Reduction Initiative. She is also the lead co-chair of the 4S (safety, security, sustainability, and social responsibility) team for BioMADE, a DoD-led Manufacturing USA Institute with a vision to build a sustainable, domestic end-to-end bioindustrial manufacturing ecosystem.