LEAP derives its value from processes that create trust and accountability among a diverse community of peers and a wider network of mentors and stakeholders.
“Above all, LEAP is preeminent in developing the thought leaders and future policy makers who not only understand the technology and promise of synthetic biology, but also the complexity of guiding its governance and rational use for a safer, more equitable and scientifically enhanced future.”
An ethnographer and journalist embedded in the Fellowship captured the experience and provided reflections on the program design and outcomes.
The Program is an Experiment
Sam Weiss Evans, Ethnographer-in-Residence
Privileging Interdisciplinarity to Forge Synthetic Biology Leadership
Daniel Grushkin, Journalist-in-Residence
“The Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program (LEAP) provides science-based and policy-guided skillsets for researchers to develop a socially responsible future for synthetic biology, which in turn will accelerate the development of new advancements in industrial biotechnology, agriculture, food and healthcare.”
“Most of biotechnology has yet to be imagined, let alone made true. LEAP uniquely enables the world’s best and brightest to reflect on what might be done and whether to proceed. The LEAP Fellowship is the key leadership community for shaping and realizing a future in which all people and nature flourish in partnership via biology.”
“I think LEAP came at the perfect time in my career, when I was just starting out as a PI. It made me think more strategically about the research direction of my lab and that it was my job to ensure I trained my students to think beyond the bench.”
“The thought exercises crystallized great actionable plans around an ambitious goal that I was personally excited about. Being in the same space with other big thinkers and doers was inspiring, an experience unlike any I’ve had before.”