Tania Simoncelli is vice president of science in society at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, which she joined in 2017 with a vision to build a program committed to centering patients in the biomedical research ecosystem. In 2019, she launched the Rare As One Project, a first-of-its-kind program that supports patient communities in their quest to accelerate research.

With 20 years of experience in science policy and advocacy, Simoncelli previously held roles at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, US Food and Drug Administration, and American Civil Liberties Union. In 2013, the journal Nature named her “one of 10 people who mattered” for spearheading the ACLU’s successful Supreme Court case challenging the patenting of human genes.

She holds a B.A. in Biology and Society from Cornell University and an M.S. in Energy and Resources from UC Berkeley.

Technology, Science, Innovation, Genetics, Medicine, Researcher, MIT, Harvard, Law, Ethics & Integrity, Health, Research scientist