Melinda Kliegman

Melinda Kliegman leads the Public Impact team at the IGI, which works to align IGI’s genome-engineering innovations with societal values by engaging in public dialogue, original research, and policy creation through outreach to key stakeholders to ensure that genome-editing technology benefits everyone equitably.

Melinda holds a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University. Before joining the IGI, she worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest philanthropic organization. For the Gates Foundation, Melinda was a scientific advisor focused on implementing new areas of work, which included developing a policy and advocacy strategy for the use of genome editing in agriculture and for human health applications. 

Prior to her time at the Gates Foundation, Melinda served as a Science Advisor to the Foreign Agricultural Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture where she worked with farmer groups, government officials, the agricultural industry, and trade organizations to design and fund international trade programs and worked with the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on international policy around plant biotechnology.