Stanford University

Stanford Health Policy Forum: Engineered Threats to Global Health

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Illustration of global health and viruses

 

In 2024, a group of esteemed scientists publicly warned that a bacteria created entirely with mirror-image biomolecules ("mirror bacteria")—though still years away—could potentially wipe out all life on earth. Gene editing techniques open possibilities of other risks that might be intentionally generated by bad actors, such as bacteria that are immune to all antibiotics and viruses which are engineered to be highly transmissible and deadly. What policies will protect global health from these serious threats while also preserving the potential therapeutic value of manipulated molecules? Please join two leading Stanford experts for a fascinating discussion of a rapidly emerging set of high-stakes scientific, ethical, and regulatory challenges.

Speakers: 

David Relman, MD, the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in Medicine, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System. Relman was an early pioneer in the identification of previously unrecognized microbial pathogens, in the development of molecular methods for microbial diagnosis, and in the modern study of the human microbiome.

Henry T. (Hank) Greely, JD, is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law; Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics; and Director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University.  He specializes in ethical, legal, and social issues arising from the biosciences, particularly genetics, neuroscience, stem cell research, and assisted reproduction.  He is a founder and a past president of the International Neuroethics Society and chairs the California Advisory Committee on Human Stem Cell Research. 

Clark Center Auditorium (Stanford University Campus)
318 Discovery Walk
Palo Alto, CA 94304

Space is limited. Boxed lunches will be served to registered guests following the event, on a first-come, first-served basis.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED

David Relman

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E209
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor
Professor of Medicine
Professor of Microbiology and Immunology
1-RSD13_085_0052a-001.jpg MD

David A. Relman, M.D., is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University, and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System in Palo Alto, California. He is also Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford, and served as science co-director at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford from 2013-2017. He is currently director of a new Biosecurity Initiative at FSI.

Relman was an early pioneer in the modern study of the human indigenous microbiota. Most recently, his work has focused on human microbial community assembly, and community stability and resilience in the face of disturbance. Ecological theory and predictions are tested in clinical studies with multiple approaches for characterizing the human microbiome. Previous work included the development of molecular methods for identifying novel microbial pathogens, and the subsequent identification of several historically important microbial disease agents. One of his papers was selected as “one of the 50 most important publications of the past century” by the American Society for Microbiology.

Dr. Relman received an S.B. (Biology) from MIT, M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and joined the faculty at Stanford in 1994. He served as vice-chair of the NAS Committee that reviewed the science performed as part of the FBI investigation of the 2001 Anthrax Letters, as a member of the National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity, and as President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is currently a member of the Intelligence Community Studies Board and the Committee on Science, Technology and the Law, both at the National Academies of Science. He has received an NIH Pioneer Award, an NIH Transformative Research Award, and was elected a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2011.

Stanford Health Policy Affiliate
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GRIP Info Session

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GRIP Info Session

The Europe Center, with support of the Stanford Club of Germany, sponsors summer research visits and internships with German companies and research institutions. Selected graduate students spend 8-12 weeks in Germany pursuing projects such as lab exchanges, artists-in-residence, and collaborative research.

  • Students identify target institutions based on curricular expertise and career goals; GRIP provides support in negotiating hosting arrangements.
  • While not required, priority is given to students who have identified an internship/research host prior to applying.
  • Applicants are encouraged to consider the full range of potential hosts, from startups to established industry players to research institutions.
  • Exact start and end dates are determined by the host and student.
  • Grants of $8000-$9,000 (prorated by length of travel) are awarded with each internship/research visit.
Anna Grzymała-Busse

Online via Zoom

Anna Grzymała-Busse

Encina Hall
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA  94305

 

(650) 723-4270
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Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies
Professor of Political Science
Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution
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Anna Grzymała-Busse is a professor in the Department of Political Science, the Michelle and Kevin Douglas Professor of International Studies, senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the director of The Europe Center. Her research interests include political parties, state development and transformation, informal political institutions, religion and politics, and post-communist politics.

In her first book, Redeeming the Communist Past, she examined the paradox of the communist successor parties in East Central Europe: incompetent as authoritarian rulers of the communist party-state, several then succeeded as democratic competitors after the collapse of these communist regimes in 1989.

Rebuilding Leviathan, her second book project, investigated the role of political parties and party competition in the reconstruction of the post-communist state. Unless checked by a robust competition, democratic governing parties simultaneously rebuilt the state and ensured their own survival by building in enormous discretion into new state institutions.

Anna's third book, Nations Under God, examines why some churches have been able to wield enormous policy influence. Others have failed to do so, even in very religious countries. Where religious and national identities have historically fused, churches gained great moral authority, and subsequently covert and direct access to state institutions. It was this institutional access, rather than either partisan coalitions or electoral mobilization, that allowed some churches to become so powerful.

Anna's most recent book, Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State argues that the medieval church was a fundamental force in European state formation.

Other areas of interest include informal institutions, the impact of European Union membership on politics in newer member countries, and the role of temporality and causal mechanisms in social science explanations.

Global Populisms

A new project examining the global surge in populist movements and what it means for established democratic rules and institutions.
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Alyssa Goya

616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

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RSD23_078_0771a-fotor-2023120883918_1.jpg M.A. International Comparative Education

Alyssa received her M.A. in International Comparative Education at Stanford University where she explored the educational challenges she encountered while teaching English First Additional Language as a Peace Corps Volunteer in rural South Africa. She also received a B.S. in Global Studies and a B.A. in Spanish and Portuguese from the University of Arizona. Prior to joining the team at The Europe Center, Alyssa worked at Stanford Pre-Collegiate Studies, bringing high quality enrichment opportunities to academically talented pre-college students around the world and at the Utah Valley University Women's Success Center where she assisted woman identifying students towards degree completion. Alyssa speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and (some) Setswana and loves to do the Sunday crossword or get outside for a hike with her dog, Cooper. 

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December 2 | Early Descriptive Evidence on School Smartphone Bans in the United States

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opening presentation slide for seminar

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on December 2nd from 12PM–1PM Pacific for Early Descriptive Evidence on School Smartphone Bans in the United States, a seminar with Hunt Allcott.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

Abstract to be announced.

About the Speaker:

Hunt Allcott is a Professor in the Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University. He is the co-director of the Stanford Environmental and Energy Policy Analysis Center, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, an affiliate of ideas42 and Poverty Action Lab, and a member of the board of editors of the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. 

Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 119
615 Crothers Way Stanford, CA 94305

Hunt Allcott Professor Doerr School of Sustainability at Stanford University
Seminars
2025 Fall Seminar Series
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November 18 | The Social Media Trap

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Leonardo Bursztyn talk

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on November 18th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for The Social Media Trap, a seminar with Leonardo Bursztyn.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

This talk will focus on recent work by Professor Bursztyn showing that many social media users are stuck in a social trap: they would prefer not to use social media but could only do it if others also stopped using it. Combining simple economic theory with large-scale experiments, the talk will show that many social media platforms might actually generate negative value to most of its users. The talk will also discuss how these results might extend to other markets and present tools to address the social media trap problem. 

About the Speaker:

Leonardo Bursztyn is the Saieh Family Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago. He is also an Editor of the Journal of Political Economy, the co-director of the Becker Friedman Institute Political Economics Initiative and Program of the Program in Behavioral Economics Research, and the founder and director of the Normal Lab. His research examines how individuals' main economic decisions are shaped by their social environments. His work has examined educational, labor market, financial, consumption, and political decisions, both in developing and developed countries, and has been published in all leading economics journals and featured extensively in major media outlets. Leonardo is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), a fellow at the Bureau for Research and Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD), and an affiliate at the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and at the Pearson Institute. He is also the recipient of a 2016 Sloan Research Fellowship. He received his PhD in economics at Harvard University in 2010.

Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 119
615 Crothers Way Stanford, CA 94305

Leonardo Bursztyn Saieh Family Professor of Economics University of Chicago
Seminars
2025 Fall Seminar Series
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November 11 | The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance

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Aram Sinnreich talk

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on November 11th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for The Secret Life of Data: Navigating Hype and Uncertainty in the Age of Algorithmic Surveillance, a seminar with Aram Sinnreich.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

In The Secret Life of Data, Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert explore the many unpredictable, and often surprising, ways in which data surveillance, AI, and the constant presence of algorithms impact our culture and society in the age of global networks. The authors build on this basic premise: no matter what form data takes, and what purpose we think it’s being used for, data will always have a secret life. How this data will be used, by other people in other times and places, has profound implications for every aspect of our lives — from our intimate relationships to our professional lives to our political systems.

Based on interviews with dozens of experts across a broad range of scenarios and contexts, from the playful to the profound to the problematic, The Secret Life of Data focuses primarily on the long-term consequences of humanity’s recent rush toward digitizing, storing, and analyzing every piece of data about ourselves and the world we live in. The book advocates for “slow fixes” regarding our relationship to data, such as creating new laws and regulations, new ethics and aesthetics, and new models of production for our datafied society.

Cutting through the hype and hopelessness that so often inform discussions of tech and society, The Secret Life of Data clearly and straightforwardly demonstrates how readers can play an active part in shaping how digital technology influences their lives and the world at large.
 

About the Speaker:

Dr. Aram Sinnreich is an author, musician, and Professor of Communication Studies at American University. His books include Mashed Up, The Piracy Crusade, The Essential Guide to Intellectual Property, The Secret Life of Data, and sci-fi novel A Second Chance for Yesterday (coauthored with Rachel Hope Cleves as R.A. Sinn). He has written articles about culture, law, and technology for outlets including The New York Times, Billboard, Wired, The Daily Beast, Time Magazine, and Rolling Stone, and has appeared as an expert commentator on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and elsewhere. 

Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 119
615 Crothers Way Stanford, CA 94305

Aram Sinnreich Professor of Communication Studies American University
Seminars
2025 Fall Seminar Series
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November 4 | Dubious News and the Aging American: Understanding Discernment and Engagement Among Older Adults

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Ben Lyons talk

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on November 4th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for Dubious News and the Aging American: Understanding Discernment and Engagement Among Older Adults, a seminar with Ben Lyons.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

Why do older adults engage more with misinformation online, even when they often identify falsehoods correctly in surveys? In this talk, I investigate that paradox using a host of survey experiments and behavioral trace data. Analyses across multiple nationally representative samples show that older Americans disproportionately consume and share low-credibility political and health content -- but not due to simple cognitive decline or inability to detect false claims. Rather, this gap emerges from contextual and motivational factors. Older adults possess relatively high news literacy and cognitive reflectiveness, yet these traits do not reliably predict real-world sharing behavior. Instead, high political interest and strong partisan identity contribute to a heightened tendency to trust and share politically congruent misinformation among this group, and smaller, more like-minded social networks incentivize sharing it. Importantly, the media ecosystem older adults inhabit is asymmetrically skewed: most dubious online content leans right, intensifying engagement especially among older conservatives. This asymmetry helps explain why discernment ability appears high in controlled experiments with balanced content but breaks down in naturalistic settings. I extend these findings to health misinformation and video-based platforms to show that engagement patterns mostly generalize across domains and modalities, suggesting an underlying preference for clickbait among these consumers. Ultimately, I argue that the age–misinformation relationship is less about cognitive vulnerability than about interactions between identity, social context, and the media environment. 

About the Speaker:

Ben Lyons is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Utah studying the intersection of media, politics, and public understanding of science. His research centers on misinformation and misperceptions—their origins, effects, and how to address them—using surveys, experiments, digital trace data, and spatial data. His work has been published in journals such as Science, PNAS, Nature Human Behaviour, Journal of Communication, Public Opinion Quarterly, Risk Analysis, and Vaccine, and featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN, and Der Spiegel, among other outlets.


 

Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 119
615 Crothers Way Stanford, CA 94305

Ben Lyons Associate Professor, Communications University of Utah
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2025 Fall Seminar Series
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October 28 | Phones and Busses and AI, Oh My!: The Threats, Distractions, and Missing Opportunities of Educational Technology in Today’s K-12 Classrooms

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Antero Garcia

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on October 28th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for Phones and Busses and AI, Oh My!: The Threats, Distractions, and Missing Opportunities of Educational Technology in Today’s K-12 Classrooms, a seminar with Antero Garcia.

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

Building from a decade and a half of school-based ethnographic research, Antero Garcia’s research takes a student-centered approach to understanding the tensions and possibilities of educational technologies. In this presentation, Garcia offers a linked exploration at the enduring policy-based decision making of three different forms of educational technology: school buses, cell phones, and generative AI. By looking at the overlooked, enduring, and emerging questions of ed-tech policy through these examples, Garcia suggests that student expertise and civic interests are often discarded in contemporary ed tech decision policy making. 

About the Speaker:

Antero Garcia is a professor in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. His research explores the possibilities of speculative imagination and healing in educational research. Prior to completing his Ph.D., Garcia was an English teacher at a public high school in South Central Los Angeles. He has authored or edited more than two dozen books about the possibilities of literacies, play, and civics in transforming schooling in America. Antero currently co-edits La Cuenta, an online publication centering the voices and perspectives of individuals labeled undocumented in the U.S. Antero received his Ph.D. in the Urban Schooling division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.


 

Encina Commons, Moghadam Room 119
615 Crothers Way Stanford, CA 94305

Antero Garcia Professor, Graduate School of Education Stanford University
Seminars
2025 Fall Seminar Series
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When Rule of Law Promotion Builds Authoritarianism: Lessons from Taiwan, South Korea, and China

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Flyer for the seminar "When Rule of Law Promotion Builds Authoritarianism" with headshot of the presenter, Weitseng Chen.

This event is co-sponsored by the Korea Program and Taiwan Program at Shorenstein APARC.

For decades, Taiwan and South Korea have been celebrated as proof that strengthening the rule of law can move authoritarian regimes toward democracy. This talk challenges that view by revisiting the legal histories of Taiwan, South Korea, and China. It identifies two paradigms of rule-of-law promotion: the Cold War “state-first” approach and the post–Cold War “democracy-first” approach. Different in style but similar in outcome, both shared the same flaw: foreign legal aid often reinforced authoritarianism. Taiwan and South Korea’s democratization was not evidence of legal modernization theory, but an outlier. Law is a neutral infrastructural power, and future rule-of-law promotion must be recalibrated to prevent authoritarian capture.

Speaker:

Headshot of Weitseng Chen

Weitseng Chen teaches at the National University of Singapore, specializing in comparative studies of law, politics and economic development in Asia. His published books include Regime Type and Beyond: The Transformation of Police in Asia (CUP 2023), Authoritarian Legality in Asia (CUP 2019), The Beijing Consensus? How China Has Changed the Western Ideas of Law and Economic Development (CUP 2017), Property and Trust Law in Taiwan (Kluwer 2017), and Law and Economic Miracle: Interaction Between Taiwan’s Development and Economic Laws After WWII (in Chinese, 2000). Chen was a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford’s Center for Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, and practiced as a lawyer at Davis Polk & Wardwell. He was also a fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin. Chen earned his JSD from Yale Law School.

Directions and Parking > 

Philippines Conference Room (C330)
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Weitseng Chen, Associate Professor of Law, National University of Singapore
Seminars
Korean Studies Colloquium Series
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Global Development Finance Cooperation: Current Issues and Implications for Korea

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Flyer for the seminar "Global Development Finance Cooperation." Portrait of speaker Dr. Sung Sup Ra.

The world is facing urgent challenges such as climate change, pandemics, and food insecurity, while global development finance is projected to decline as major donors cut official development assistance (ODA). South Korea, uniquely positioned as a former aid recipient turned donor, is one of the few countries expanding its ODA, with priorities in digital development, health, and green growth. This seminar will discuss current issues in global development finance and explore Korea’s role as a rising donor in the evolving aid landscape and its potential to shape a more effective and forward-looking development paradigm.

Speaker:

headshot of Sung Sup Ra

Sungsup Ra is a visiting scholar for the 2025 calendar year at Shorenstein APARC; and a Visiting Professor at the Korea Development Institute School of Public Policy and Management (KDI School). He teaches and advises on development issues and serves as advisor or board member for institutions such as the International Finance Facility for Education, the International Centre for Industrial Transformation, Nanyang Technological University, and the Global Institute of Emerging Technologies at the Education University of Hong Kong.

Before joining KDI School in April 2024, Ra was Deputy Director General and Deputy Group Chief of the Sectors Group at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) where he led strategies, innovation, and sovereign operations across all sectors. He also served as Chief Sector Officer of the Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Director of Human and Social Development for South Asia, Director of Pacific Operations, and Chair of the Education Sector Group at ADB. Prior to ADB, he worked for Samsung and the Korean National Pension Service, and held faculty appointments at leading universities in the US, Japan, and Korea. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Directions and Parking > 

Philippines Conference Room (C330)
Encina Hall, 3rd Floor
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Sung Sup Ra, Visiting Scholar, Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center, Stanford University
Seminars
Korean Studies Colloquium Series
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Jonne Kamphorst | The Left Misunderstood: How Voters' Perceptions of What Matters to the Left Benefit the Right

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Jonne Kamphorst

Why do low-income, lower-educated voters vote against their economic interests by supporting conservative and radical right parties and candidates? I propose a new explanation arguing that these voters' misperceptions of the policy priorities of economically progressive parties drive them to parties on the right. In two population surveys in the Netherlands and Unites States, I show that many low-income, lower-educated voters believe that economic issues are not a policy priority for the left, and that holding such perceptions influences vote intention for the left. Using `prior-updating' survey experiments, I test the effect of presenting voters with the actual policy priorities of the (Social) Democrats, as measured in an original survey with Dutch politicians and based on US House roll calls. The results indicate that updating misperceptions of the salience of economic issues to the left can significantly alter voting patterns.

Jonne Kamphorst is a Postdoctoral Scholar at Stanford University’s Politics and Social Change Lab and the Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from the European University Institute (EUI) in 2023. In January 2026, he will join Sciences Po in Paris as an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Quantitative Social Science Methods.

His research focuses on the politics and societies of advanced democracies, lying at the intersection of comparative politics and political behavior. Two questions guide his research agenda: (1) What are the origins of contemporary political divisions? and (2) How can democracy be strengthened by re-engaging voters and bridging political divides? He explores these questions using quantitative methods that employ an experimental logic, including field and survey experiments, causal inference, and novel computational approaches leveraging large language models. Alongside his substantive research, he studies the use of large language models in social-scientific research methods. His work has been published in PNAS, the American Political Science Review, and the Journal of Politics, among other outlets.

Anna Grzymała-Busse
Anna Grzymała-Busse
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