Jennifer Kuzma

Jennifer Kuzma is the Goodnight-NCGSK Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Public and International Affairs at NC State University, where she also co-founded and co-directs the Genetic Engineering and Society (GES) Center. She holds leadership roles in global initiatives such as the World Economic Forum Council on Technology, Values and Policy, and has served on committees for the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). Her career spans academia, policy research, and media engagement, with expertise in anticipatory governance of biotechnology, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology. She has over 150 scholarly publications and has been cited widely in media outlets like the New York Times and Nature.

Education: Kuzma earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado-Boulder (1995), followed by a postdoc in Plant Molecular Biology at Rockefeller University. She transitioned to policy studies after roles as an AAAS Risk Policy Fellow at USDA and associate professor at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs (2003–2013).

Research Interests: Her work focuses on governance frameworks for emerging technologies, including gene editing, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology in food systems. She emphasizes procedural robustness in risk analysis, public deliberation, and aligning innovation with societal values. Her recent efforts include analyzing gene drive applications in agriculture and wildlife, regulatory challenges in CRISPR-based technologies, and ethical dimensions of precision microbiome engineering.

Publications Trends: Recent articles address microbiome engineering, transmissible vaccines for animals, regulatory strategies for gene drives, and comparative studies of risk governance in China and the U.S. She frequently collaborates on interdisciplinary projects linking risk analysis, ethics, and policy design.

• SRA Sigma Xi Distinguished Lecturer Award (2014)
• Fulbright Canada Research Chair (2017–2018)
• AAAS Fellow (2019)

Grants and Collaborations: Kuzma has led/co-led over $4 million in funded research since 2018, including NSF projects on AgBioFEWS systems, USDA-NIFA initiatives on gene editing in cover crops, and Inter-American Development Bank assessments of CRISPR regulation in Latin America. She also collaborates on dynamic oversight frameworks for nanobiotechnology and climate intervention strategies like solar radiation management.

Labs and Teams: She directs the GES Center at NC State, which integrates policy, ethics, and science to address challenges in genetic engineering and nanotechnology. Her work involves partnerships with the Society for Risk Analysis, NASEM, and global development banks to ensure equitable technology governance.