The Lemelson Foundation's Advisory Committee provides ongoing strategic advice on the development and implementation of its programs. The Advisory Committee possess a diversity of expertise across geographical regions and public, private and non-profit sectors. Current committee members are Dr. Michael Free, Dr. Ashok Gadgil, Dr. Francisco Sagasti, and Prof. Judi Wakhungu. Emeritus committee members are Dr. Seti Sastrapradja (biodiversity expert and Chair of NATURINDO), Prof. M.S. Swaminathan (geneticist and leader of the Green Revolution), Julia Marton-Lefevre (Director General of the World Conservation Union), and Iqbal Quadir (Founder of GrameenPhone and lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

Ashok Gadgil

Dr. Gadgil is a senior staff scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Water-borne diseases are one of the most significant agents of death and disease in the developing world. Dr. Gadgil's invention, UV Waterworks, is a water disinfection system that employs ultraviolet light from a modified fluorescent lamp to eliminate 99.9999 percent of pathogenic bacteria and 99.99 percent of pathogenic viruses. The units can disinfect water at a rate of four gallons per minute and, perhaps most critically, are inexpensive and require nominal maintenance. Dr. Gadgil earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in physics in India, and his doctorate in physics at the University of California Berkeley.

Michael Free

Dr. Michael J. Free is Vice President and Senior Advisor for Technologies Program Leader, Technology Solutions, for Program for Appropriate Technologies in Health (PATH). Dr. Free has been associated with PATH since the organization’s inception, and has led its technology-related activities for more than 20 years. Currently, he oversees PATH’s Technology Solutions Program in addition to providing advice, facilitation, and oversight of PATH’s other technology activities. Before joining PATH, Dr. Free spent seven years at Battelle Northwest, developing technologies to improve reproductive health. He is a British citizen and received his doctorate in physiology from Ohio State University (1968).

Francisco Sagasti

Dr. Francisco Sagasti is President Emeritus of FORO Nacional/Internacional, an institution aimed at promoting dialogue, debate and consensus on critical development issues. He also chairs the board of a program on Science, Technology and Innovation at the Office of the Prime Minister in Peru, is Visiting Professor at the University for Peace in Costa Rica, and advises several international organizations. In 1999 Sagasti joined the Board of Governors of the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Among other posts, he has been Chief of Strategic Planning and Senior Advisor at the World Bank, a visiting professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, chairman of the UN Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for Development, and member of UNESCO's Science Policy Advisory Council. Sagasti earned a PhD in operations research and social systems sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, an MSc in industrial engineering at Pennsylvania State University, and an industrial engineering degree at the National Engineering University in Lima, Peru

Judi Wangalwa Wakhungu

Prof. Wakhungu is the Executive Director of the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS) in Nairobi, Kenya, one of the world's leading centres on science, technology and sustainable development policies.   Prof. Wakhungu was previously Professor of Science, Technology, & Society at Penn State University where she also served as Director of the Women in the Sciences and Engineering (WISE) Institute. She received a B.S. in geology from St. Lawrence University in New York, an M.S. degree in petroleum geology from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada, and a Ph.D. in energy resources management from Penn State University. Prof. Wakhungu serves on several International Boards and Committees

Additional Advisors

Denis J. Prager

Denis J. Prager is president of Strategic Consulting Services, a private consulting practice established in 1994 to help a wide range of organizations think, plan and act more strategically. From 1983 to 1994, he was Associate Director then Director of the Health Program at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Prior to that, from 1978 to 1983, he was a senior staff member then Associate Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Dr. Prager began his career in 1960 as a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH); from 1965 1968, he was a U.S. Public Health Service Fellow at Stanford University; in 1969 he was named chief of the Contraceptive Development Branch at NIH. From there he moved to the Battelle Memorial Institute, as the Director of the Battelle Population Research Center. Dr. Prager received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Cincinnati and his Ph.D. in physiology from Stanford University.