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Dr. Nazish Jeffery
Dr. Nazish Jeffery is Bioeconomy Policy Manager for the Federation of American Scientists, a non-profit organization that conducts evidence-based policy research and advocacy across disciplines. Nazish will be joining Connecting Genetics to Climate on Wednesday October 16 at 1 PM ET for a webinar discussing the landscape of climate biotechnology. We talked to Nazish to learn more about what the bioeconomy is and how she got interested in the potential of the bioeconomy to have impacts related to climate change and sustainability, alongside expansion of workforce opportunities.
This interview is edited for length and clarity.
Connecting Genetics to Climate
What is your role at Federation of American Scientists (FAS)?
Nazish Jeffery
I serve as Bioeconomy Policy Manager with FAS where I focus on developing tools to advance and measure the US biotechnology economy (bioeconomy).
Connecting Genetics to Climate
What is your background/what interested you in working in this space?
Nazish Jeffery
I have a PhD in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine. I was interested in this space because of how the bioeconomy allows for STEM innovation and creates opportunities for a lot of people at different skill levels.
Connecting Genetics to Climate
What is the bioeconomy?
Nazish Jeffery
The bioeconomy is the part of the economy driven by the life sciences and biotechnology, and enabled by engineering, computing, and information science. The bioeconomy is a relatively new sector of the economy that is still being defined. With a shared definition, the next step is finding meaningful ways to measure and track the state of the bioeconomy.
Connecting Genetics to Climate
What are some areas you have been working on?
Nazish Jeffery
Environmental sustainability, financing biotechnology, biotechnology regulation.
Connecting Genetics to Climate
What do you think is the potential for biotechnology to play a role in addressing climate challenges?
Nazish Jeffery
Biotechnology is a tool that can be used to help address climate change by providing different avenues and innovations to tackle issues that cause climate change, like greenhouse gases.
Connecting Genetics to Climate
What do you think are some of the challenges in the field?
Nazish Jeffery
Scaling technology is a significant challenge that biotechnology faces and will require investment and innovation.
Connecting Genetics to Climate
Looking at the whole field of climate technology, what are the most exciting trends that you are seeing?
Nazish Jeffery
Carbon capture technologies and carbon sequestration technologies are really interesting. In addition, finding environmentally sustainable bio-substitutes for products is a really promising area in development and something the bioeconomy is poised to address.
Hear more from Nazish during our webinar conversation on Wednesday October 16 at 1 PM ET. Click here to register!
