Staff

Executive Director

Holly Million

Holly Million has been a nonprofit management consultant for two decades, working for such organizations as Interplast, SFJAZZ, KTEH Public Television, Goodwill, Amnesty International, and others. Million is a staunch champion of democracy and the common good who has dedicated her life to the nonprofit sector.

As a consultant, teacher, writer, and filmmaker, Million has educated and empowered people to solve problems and make the world a better place. At the BioBricks Foundation, Million’s focus has been to help shape the organization as a force to promote biotechnology in the public interest.

For 15 years, Million has been a professional filmmaker and producer. In 1997, she secured funding for the Academy Award-winning film, A Story of Healing, and today she continues to raise money for an eclectic mix of independent films. As a director, Million created Changing Room, a dramatic film that had its television debut on PBS in 2005.

Million is dedicated to ensuring that science produces positive effects on people and the environment because of her personal experience — her stepfather, Bob, died from non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a disease caused by his exposure to Agent Orange more than 35 years earlier in the Vietnam War. To tell Bob’s story, Million has been producing A Permanent Mark: Agent Orange in America and Vietnam, a documentary for national broadcast that integrates the story of Americans exposed to Agent Orange with the story of Vietnamese people still contending with the toxic herbicide.

While A Permanent Mark is about events that have their origin in the Vietnam War, the film deals with universal themes of war and the technology of war that are relevant today. A Permanent Mark shows that war persists, long after we declare “mission accomplished.”

Million has an MA in education from Stanford University and a BA in English from Harvard University.

Manager of Web & Design Services

Jeff Brock

Jeff Brock is a charismatic, right-and-left-brained communicator with more than 14 years expertise in web content, programming, design and usability, and 9 years as a photographer, journalist and media relations professional. Brock uses his expertise in all things digital to ensure that BioBricks Foundation staff, board, and the larger BBF community stay connected, overseeing all the organization’s websites, social-networking accounts, blogs, hosting services, and print and collateral materials.

He’s committed to social change. Brock worked at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation from 1996-2007 (first as media spokesperson, and then webmaster). In June 2003, he bicycled 585 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles in AIDS/LifeCycle, raising more than $3,300 for the AIDS Foundation. Some of his recent work for nonprofits includes websites for InSTEDD (Innovative Support to Emergencies Diseases and Disasters) and the Kidney TRUST, as well as an online fundraising campaign for Mama Cash, an international women’s rights organization in Amsterdam.

As owner of the design & development shop Jeff Brock Studio, Brock is a staunch proponent of open source software, including WordPress, PHP, and MySQL.

Brock, a former indie film actor who has a BA in sociology from Stanford University, lives in Portland, Oregon with his fiancée Bobbie, and a cat with only one eye, and a cat with no tail.

Global Relations Lead

Lauren Ha

Lauren Ha is the Global Relations Lead at BioBricks Foundation, a U.S. not-for-profit organization founded by leading synthetic biology researchers from MIT, UCSF, and Harvard to make biology easier to engineer by promoting and protecting the open development of biological technology based on BioBrick™ standard biological parts.

Mrs. Ha began her management career in 1997 by joining Sydney Brenner and Roger Brent in developing the Molecular Sciences Institute (MSI) in Berkeley, California, a multidiscliplinary, bioengineering research lab . She served as the MSI’s Vice President of Administration from 1997 to 2005. As Vice President, Mrs. Ha was responsible for financial and administrative operations, managing a multimillion-dollar annual operating budget. She was appointed Executive Officer of the Corporation and helped raise over $25M in research funding. In 2002, she was also appointed Administrative Manager and Steering Committee Member of the MSI Center for Genomic Experimentation and Computation and helped the Center win a designation as a “Center of Excellence in Genomic Sciences” by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

In her current position at the BioBricks Foundation, Mrs. Ha leads and participates in projects that support the technical programs at the Foundation. She coordinates the development of long-term strategy and secures financial resources for the projects. She is currently working to develop a network of design/build labs around the world (Global BIOFAB Network) and coordinatng a global roadmapping effort for synthetic biology.

In addition to her work with the BioBricks Foundation, Mrs. Ha is engaged in independent policy research on innovation and economic development based on science and technology, in collaboration with the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan. Mrs. Ha also serves as Founder & President of Creative BioWorks, a business consulting firm based in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina, where she advises start-up biotechnology companies on strategic planning, financial and administrative operations management, and fundraising.

Mrs. Ha received her B.S. in Biological Sciences from the University of South Carolina.

Education Program Manager

Camila Oliveira

Camila Oliveira is the Education Program Manager at BioBricks Foundation. Ms. Oliveira is passionate about educational missions and interested in exploring mechanisms to facilitate public education about synthetic biology. In her current position at BioBricks Foundation, she is working on an education program to promote shared technical standards, open-source biotech tools, bioethics, and other key values across the professional synthetic biology community; and promoting biotechnology in the public interest, particularly in terms of what technology can do to help teachers and learners succeed in the field.

Prior to joining BioBricks she has contributed to qualitative and quantitative research, and in-depth literature reviews in collaboration with Policy Study Institute in London for a diverse range of projects, including public understanding of government actions to mitigate air pollution; effective environmental policy guidelines for university campuses; and the relationship between mental health and employment. She also participated in a faculty-led field research in Ghana aimed to investigate how technology innovations can improve public health at both individual and community level.

Camila studied Global Studies as an undergraduate at Bentley University, specializing in International Economics and Business Management and lives in Newton, Massachusetts.

Manager of Finance and Operations

Brian Schulz

Brian Schulz came to the BioBricks Foundation in November 2010 as a part-time bookkeeper, and as the organization has quickly grown over the last year, Brian’s role has grown into the new Manager of Finance and Operations (MOFO). The MOFO oversees the major financial and operational systems of BBF with tasks including but not limited to financial accounting and reporting, taxes and filings, human resources and payroll, and virtual office management.

Brian has a strong background in financial and operational leadership at nonprofit organizations. He was previously Director of Finance and Administration at Film Arts Foundation, and is currently the Operations Manager at Ninth Street Independent Film Center. Brian also has a background in nonprofit direct mail fundraising, working with many internationally recognized progressive organizations including US Fund for UNICEF, National Wildlife Foundation, National Organization for Women, and Human Rights Campaign.

Brian grew up in the Washington, DC area, and has a degree in Political Science from Earlham College in Richmond, IN. Brian lives in San Francisco and Nevada City, CA with his partner Jack and his cat.