Home
About the Foundation
Program Impacts
US Initiatives
Lemelson-MIT Program
MIT International Development Initiative
The Lemelson Center at the Smithsonian
LATDC-Hampshire College
Hands on Science Center
Cooper-Hewitt
National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance
University of Nevada, Reno
Minority Introduction to Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Science
A-MAN
Oregon Grantmaking
International Initiatives
Innovation Exploration
News and Events
Contact Information

Advisory Committee

The Foundation's International Advisory Committee provides ongoing strategic advice on the development and implementation of its Invention for Sustainable Development Program. The Advisors 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, Dr. Seti Sastrapradja, and Prof. Judi Wakhungu. Emeritus committee members are 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).

Michael Free

Michael J. 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).

Ashok Gadgil

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.

Francisco Sagasti

Francisco Sagasti Dr. Francisco Sagasti is President 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.

Seti Sastrapradja

Seti Sastrapradja Dr. Setijati D. Sastrapradja serves as the chair of NATURINDO (Naturae Indonesiana), an advisor in the field of biodiversity to the Indonesian Institute of Sciences, and is a manager of Children's Library. Her interest in plant genetic resources leads her involvement in global plant gentic resources conservation. She has been engaged in activities with FAO, IPGRI, CIP of the CGIAR, UNESCO and UNEP. She was the Director of the National Biological Institute before she was transferred to the newly established center of biotechnology as Director.

Dr. Sastrapradja was appointed as the first Director of the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation - she later became a board member. She also joined the Ministry of Environment's activities on biodiversity management and was appointed as a Special Staff to the Minister.

Judi Wangalwa Wakhungu

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.