Panelist Bios

George Annas

George J. Annas is the Edward R. Utley Professor of Health Law, Chairman of Health Law Department at the Boston University School of Public Health. He holds a degree in law from Harvard Law School and an M.P.H. from the Harvard School of Public Health. He is a widely published national expert in the field of law and medicine, whose books include The Rights of Patients and Some Choice: Law, Medicine and the Market. Professor Annas is the cofounder of Global Lawyers & Physicians and the Patients Rights Project. Professor Annas has appeared on 60 Minutes, Nightline, Frontline, Today, and Good Morning America as well as the nightly news programs of NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox. For five years, he was the director of the Boston University School of Law’s Center for Law and Health Sciences. Professor Annas teaches bioethics.

Katherine Albrecht

Katherine Albrecht is the director of CASPIAN (Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering), an organization she founded in 1999 to advocate free-market, consumer-based solutions to the problem of retail privacy invasion. Since 2002, Ms. Albrecht has spearheaded efforts to alert the public to the privacy and civil liberties implications of RFID. She has testified before state legislatures, the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission, and the Federal Reserve Bank, and has given over a thousand television, radio and print interviews to news outlets all over the world. Her consumer advocacy work has been featured on CNN, NPR, the CBS Evening News, Business Week, and the London Times, to name just a few. Ms. Albrecht holds an undergraduate degree in Business Administration with a concentration in International Marketing. She received her Master's degree in Instructional Technology from Harvard University, where she is currently completing her Doctorate in Education.

Elizabeth Board

Elizabeth Board is the head of the public-policy steering committee of EPCglobal, the nonprofit organization set up to commercialize Electronic Product Code technology. The committee is composed of of members from industry trade associations, consumer products companies, retailers and standards organizations. The committee's job will be to promote adoption of guiding principles for how EPC technology will be used and to educate the public and stakeholders about the technology. Board is a veteran public relations executive who spent 30 years in Washington, D.C., including four years in the Reagan White House, where she was deputy assistant to the president for media relations. She spent two years running the television office and two years working with journalists from around the country who were not part of the regular Washington press corp. Board later handled public relations for the Distilled Spirits Council of United States, the trade association of the liquor industry, and then was VP of global corporate communications at AC Nielson. She worked in corporate communications at Reader’s Digest and then returned to Washington as a consultant before being hired as the director of EPCglobal’s public-policy steering committee.

Daniel Engels

Dr. Daniel Engels, Ph.D., is the Research Director of the MIT Auto-ID Labs. Auto-ID Labs is a federation of research universities that has evolved from the Auto-ID Center, initially founded in 1999 to develop an open standard architecture for creating a seamless global network of physical objects. Funded in part by EPCglobal, government and industry, Auto-ID Labs is based at the Center's same six leading universities worldwide: MIT, University of Cambridge, University of Adelaide, Keio University, Fudan University and University of St. Gallen. Each with distinct interests and capabilities, but linked by the common vision of an "Internet of things," we continue to research and develop new technologies and applications for revolutionizing global commerce and providing previously unrealizable consumer benefits.

Russell Fox

Fox is a member of Mintz, Levin's Washington office, practicing in the Communications Section. With over 20 years in the wireless telecommunications industry, Fox is among the most experienced wireless communications attorneys in the country. He has spoken often at IWCE and other industry conferences. Prior to joining Mintz Levin, Fox was a partner, and head of the telecommunications department, in the Washington office of a major Chicago-based law firm where he represented users and providers of telecommunications services and equipment. Previous to that, he held the title of Executive Director and President at the American SMR Network Association, Inc., where he established offices of a national trade association representing a segment of the wireless telecommunications industry. Fox has extensive experience evaluating wireless telecommunications opportunities, structuring transactions involving the purchase, financing or sale of wireless telecommunications systems, handling regulatory and legislative matters before Federal and State authorities, and dealing with licensing matters before the Federal Communications Commission. Fox has assisted clients that have successfully participated in spectrum auctions conducted by the Federal Communications Commission and has secured regulatory approvals necessary for clients to offer new telecommunications services and products. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Fox was awarded his B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Rochester (1978), and earned his J.D. from Duke University School of Law (1981). He is a member of the Federal Communications Bar Association and the Radio Club of America.

Jack Goldsmith

Jack Goldsmith is a professor at Harvard Law School. He earned his J.D. at Yale Law School in 1989 and clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy in 1990-91. Professor Goldsmith's interests include international law, foreign relations, and national security. He has also written extensively on Internet regulation.

James Hodge

James G. Hodge, Jr., J.D., LL.M., is an Associate Public Health Professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he teaches courses on health information privacy, bioethics and the law, and international human rights and health. He is the Executive Director for the Center for the Law and the Public's Health, a Core Faculty member with the Berman Bioethics Institute at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and a member of the Steering Committee for the Information Security Institute at Johns Hopkins. Professor Hodge is also an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center where he has lectured in constitutional law, public health law, bioethics, international human rights, genetics law and policy, and health law. Professor Hodge has drafted (with others) several public health law reform initiatives, including the Model State Public Health Information Privacy Act (MSPHPA), the Turning Point Model State Public Health Act, and the Center's Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA). Additional areas of research include new federalism, genetic privacy and anti-discrimination, partner notification, legal approaches to bioethics, the human right to health, and additional areas in public health law. Professor Hodge speaks extensively at national and regional conferences and before legislative and policy-making bodies on these and other health topics.

Orin Kerr

Professor Orin Kerr earned a B.S.E. at Princeton, an M.S. at Stanford, and his J.D. at Harvard Law School. He returned to the GW Law School after clerking for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court for the October Term 2003. Professor Kerr is a prolific scholar in the area of criminal law and criminal procedure, and is nationally recognized as a leading voice in the emerging field of computer crime law. From 1998 to 2001, he was an Honors Program trial attorney in the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice. Professor Kerr is also a former special assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in mechanical engineering. His scholarly articles have appeared or are forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, New York University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Northwestern University Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, George Washington Law Review, William and Mary Law Review, Washington and Lee Law Review, and several other journals. He also blogs regularly at The Volokh Conspiracy, available at http://volokh.com. After graduating from law school in 1997, Professor Kerr clerked for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

James Nehf

James Nehf is the Cleon H. Foust Fellow and Professor of Law at the Indiana University School of Law – Indianapolis. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Georgia School of Law for the past two years. He earned his B.A. at Knox College in 1979 and his J.D. at the University of North Carolina in 1983. He graduated first in his law school class, served as editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law Review, and was elected to Order of the Coif. After law school, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Phyllis A. Kravitch of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and entered private practice with O'Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. Before joining the faculty in 1989, he was a partner in the Washington firm of Choate, Filler, & Nehf, specializing in commercial and consumer litigation. Professor Nehf serves as an executive board member of the International Consumer Law Association, a society of consumer law scholars based in Toronto. He has won numerous teaching awards and has been a frequent speaker at law conferences, CLE seminars, and law-related lecture series. Professor Nehf was the inaugural Director of the law school's European Law Program and has held several university administrative positions, including a term as interim Director of the Indiana University Center on Southeast Asia. His publications include an updated and revised edition of Corbin on Contracts - Impossibility, and numerous articles on consumer law, commercial transactions and international/comparative law subjects. He has written extensively in information privacy law.

Paul Ohm

Paul Ohm is an Honors Program Trial Attorney with the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division at the United States Department of Justice. He is a member of the Technical Issues and Procedural Law team where he helps guide DOJ policy concerning emerging Internet technology and the search and seizure of digital evidence. He has also helped investigate and litigate several high profile computer crime cases; commented upon and drafted proposed legislation involving Internet surveillance; and trained countless law enforcement and other audiences on issues relating to computer crime. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science from Yale University and a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law. Prior to joining DOJ, Mr. Ohm clerked for Judge Betty Fletcher in the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Judge Mariana Pfaelzer in the US District Court in Los Angeles.

Robert O’Harrow

Robert O’Harrow, Jr., is a reporter at The Washington Post and an associate of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for articles on privacy and technology and a recipient of the 2003 Carnegie Mellon Cyber Security Reporting Award. He lives in Arlington, Virginia. In his recent book, “No Place to Hide”, O’Harrow explores how the government is teaming up with private companies to collect massive amounts of data on citizens and how, he writes, "More than ever before, the details about our lives are no longer our own. They belong to the companies that collect them, and the government agencies that buy or demand them in the name of keeping us safe."

Marc Rotenberg

Marc Rotenberg is Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington, DC. He teaches information privacy law at Georgetown University Law Center and has testified before Congress on many issues, including access to information, encryption policy, consumer protection, computer security, and communications privacy. He recently testified before the 9-11 Commission on "Security and Liberty: Protecting Privacy, Preventing Terrorism." He has served on several national and international advisory panels, including the expert panels on Cryptography Policy and Computer Security for the OECD, the Legal Experts on Cyberspace Law for UNESCO, and the Countering Spam program of the ITU. He currently chairs the ABA Committee on Privacy and Information Protection, and is Secretary of the Public Interest Registry. He is editor of The Privacy Law Sourcebook and co-editor (with Daniel J. Solove) of Information Privacy Law (Aspen Publishing 2003). He is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School. He served as Counsel to Senator Patrick J. Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee after graduation from law school. He is the winner of the 2002 World Technology Award in Law.

Thomas Saunders

Thomas Saunders specializes in representing emerging medical technology, biotechnology/genetic engineering and pharmaceutical concerns, particularly as to patent prosecution, patent strategy and IP licensing matters. His practice also includes interference practice, trademark and copyright matters. He was named in 2004 as a Massachusetts "Super Lawyer" by the publishers of Law & Politics. Mr. Saunders has a substantial background in biotechnology and chemical patent practice, facilitated by his graduate studies in physiology at Case Western Reserve University and Albany Medical College. He has also been in-house patent counsel in the pharmaceutical industry.

Gil Siegal

Dr. Gil Siegal MD LLB is an associate professor at Haifa University's law school, and a visiting professor at University of Virginia Law School, where he teaches Comparative Health Law. He was a Fellow in Health Policy and Ethics at the University of Virginia School of Law during 2003-04, and is currently a Fellow in Medical Ethics at Harvard University Medical School. Siegal has taught at in Israel since 1996, and in 2002 joined the International Center for Health, Law and Ethics at Haifa as a senior lecturer. Siegal has also taught at the Tel Aviv University Medical School and at Manchester University Law School in Hakirya Ha'academit, Israel. Siegal's scholarly interests include health law, genetics and biotechnology, organ transplantation, and bioethics. He is a member of several organizations focused on genetic studies, including Israel's Committee on Human Genetic Research and the Israeli National Advisory Committee on Genetic Information. He also served on Israel's National Committee for the 'Right to Die' Act 2000-2002. Siegal is a member of the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Medicine and Law and was on the review panel of the Israeli Medical Association Journal and the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Cory Tennison

Cory Tennison is a St. Paul, Minnesota native and American University and University of Wisconsin Law School graduate. As a member of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, an arm of the Law School's Frank J. Remington Center, Tennison and two other students did exactly that. Their discovery of previously overlooked DNA evidence helped free Chris Ochoa, a Texas man convicted and imprisoned for a 1988 rape and murder he did not commit.