Mary Maxon

Mary E. Maxon, PhD is the Executive Director of BioFutures, an effort focused on maximizing the potential of biotechnology toward a circular bioeconomy.

Previously she was Associate Laboratory Director for Biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and before that she was Assistant Director for Biological Research at the Office of Science and Technology Policy where she was the principal author of the Obama’s Administration’s National Bioeconomy Blueprint. Currently, Mary serves as a US State Department-appointed Delegate to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Biotechnology, Nanotechnology, and Converging Technologies Working Party. She is also a member of the Global Bioeconomy International Advisory Council, a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Standing Committee on Biotechnology Capabilities and National Security Needs, and a member of the Carnegie Institution for Science Board of Trustees.

She was the program lead for the Marine Microbiology Initiative at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the first Executive Director of the Science Philanthropy Alliance, and also has extensive experience in industry in a number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Mary holds a PhD in Molecular Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and did postdoctoral training in genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.