Dr. Vicki Chandler is the chief program officer for the Foundation's Science Program, investing in the development of new technologies, supporting top research scientists and bringing together new, often groundbreaking, scientific partnerships. The program’s portfolio—designed to advance scientific innovation and discovery—includes the Marine Microbiology Initiative, a plant science collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a new Data-Driven Discovery Initiative and commitments to the California Institute of Technology and Thirty Meter Telescope.
Prior to coming to the Foundation, Vicki served as director of the BIO5 Institute at the University of Arizona, a prominent interdisciplinary research center that addresses leading edge research and translates that research to applications in medicine and agriculture. At UA, she was a Regents’ Professor in the departments of Plant Sciences and Molecular and Cellular Biology and held the Carl E. and Patricia Weiler Endowed Chair for Excellence in Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her pioneering research investigated the regulation of gene expression in plants and animals.
Vicki serves as president-elect for the Genetics Society of America, and has been honored with the Presidential Young Investigator Award, the National Science Foundation Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers, the National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award, and was named a Searle Scholar. Vicki is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and has served on national advisory boards and panels for the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She served on the National Science Foundation Biological Directorate Advisory Committee from 2001-2004, the National Research Council Committee on Defining and Advancing the Conceptual Basis of Biological Science and was elected to the governing council of the National Academy of Sciences in 2007. Vicki has chaired or co-chaired several national conferences, and has served in an editorial capacity for journals including Plant Physiology, Genetics, Science, and the Annual Review of Plant Biology. She is a member of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society of Plant Biologists, the Genetics Society of America, the International Society of Plant Molecular Biology, and the Rosalind Franklin Society. She has served on the Board of Directors of the Genetics Society and the International Society Plant Molecular Biology, and was President of the American Society of Plant Biologists.
Vicki has a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and a B. A . in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jasan Zimmerman is a program associate for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s Science Program.
Prior to coming to the Foundation, Jasan worked at Genencor, conductingresearch in molecular biology and helping with report writing and science project management. Since 2007, Jasan has been an active nonprofit volunteer in many different capacities and has also participated in the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program as a peer reviewer regarding clinical trials and research grants.
Jasan received an M.S. in microbiology from Loma Linda University and a B.A. in biology from Whittier College. He is about to complete his Masters in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco.