Michael Stebbins

Michael Stebbins is a geneticist, and public policy expert who served as the Assistant Director for Biotechnology in the Obama White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. He is the President of Science Advisors, a science and health consulting firm he founded in 2018 to provide science, technology, and public policy guidance to private companies, philanthropies, and non-profit organizations.

While at the White House, Dr. Stebbins developed eight Executive Orders and other Federal directives addressing issues ranging from the antibiotic resistance crisis in the US to restoring pollinator health. His work led to broad changes in practice across the Federal government regarding the purchasing of bio-based products, improving veterans’ mental health, increasing access to federally funded scientific research publications and data, improving scientific reproducibility, evaluating and addressing the preferential purchasing of antibiotic free meats, reforming the regulatory system for biotechnology products, and improving the management of scientific collections.

Dr. Stebbins served as the Vice President of Science and Technology for the Laura and John Arnold Foundation where he was responsible for identifying and pursuing opportunities for philanthropic investment in Science and Technology and as a science advisor to the Obama and Biden Presidential campaigns and on the Obama White House Transition Team focusing on the Executive Office of the President. He is the former director of biology policy for the Federation of American Scientists (FAS). He co-founded, and served on the board of directors for, Scientists and Engineers for America, and served as President of Scientists and Engineers for America Action Fund. Dr. Stebbins worked as a legislative fellow for U.S. Senator Harry Reid and a public policy fellow for the National Human Genome Research Institute. Before coming to Washington, he was a senior editor at Nature Genetics. He received his B.S. in biology at SUNY Stony Brook and his Ph.D. in genetics while working at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.