James L. Olds

I am a Distinguished University Professor at George Mason University's Schar School of Policy and Government, where I teach courses on future governance, crisis management, and science policy. My work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, federal science administration, and the study of how institutions shape and are shaped by scientific knowledge.

From 2014 to 2018 I served as NSF Assistant Director for Biological Sciences, where I led NSF's role in President Obama's BRAIN Initiative and co-chaired the White House Life Sciences Subcommittee. Earlier in my career I conducted foundational research on cellular mechanisms of learning and memory using the marine mollusk Hermissenda crassicornis, publishing findings in Science in 1983 and 1989.

I currently serve as Chief Risk Officer on the NSF SAGE Grande Testbed project — a large-scale edge AI infrastructure initiative for environmental monitoring and wildfire detection.