Julianne McCall

Julianne McCall

Julianne McCall, PhD, is the CEO of CCST. As CEO, McCall serves as the lead liaison to state and national leaders in policy, philanthropy, and science and technology related issues. As such, she is responsible for developing responsive programs and services to provide science, engineering, and technical advice to the State of California’s government—listening and engaging to advance CCST’s role as a thought leader in the science policy community. McCall is also the chief executive responsible for CCST’s administration, fundraising, budgeting, and overseeing the CCST Science & Technology Policy Fellowship. Working with the board of directors, she will be the point person for CCST’s ambition to further deepen the ties between the state government and CCST’s partner institutions.

McCall previously served as Director of Precision Medicine at the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR), where she oversaw cross-sector health policy working groups and projects, research grantmaking, and state government interagency efforts, which include co-authoring the first-ever California Surgeon General’s Report and co-leading the development of a nationwide health innovation network for the new federal program, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), for which she was named 2023 Government Official of the Year by Biocom California. Previously, McCall worked on public health and research policy in the California Senate Office of Research and as a 2017 CCST Science and Technology Policy Fellow. Prior to her career in policy, she spent 16 years in neuroscience research labs, including the Salk Institute, Stanford University, the Cleveland Clinic, and the National Center for Microscopy Imaging Research. She conducted medical research as a Fulbright Fellow in Sweden and as a neuroscientist at the Neuroregeneration Laboratory of Heidelberg University in Germany.

In the community, McCall teaches graduate courses in science policy at UC Davis and UC Riverside; serves as CEO and Managing Publisher of the Journal of Science Policy & Governance; participates as a Class of 2024 Delegate of the US-Japan Leadership Program; has directed the International “Brain Bee” Neuroscience Olympiad for high school students across fifty countries; and is the co-founder of TEDxFulbright and a chapter of the Sustained Dialogue Campus Network for racial justice. She earned a PhD in Neuroscience from Heidelberg University in Germany, a Master’s degree in Biomedical Sciences from UC San Diego, and a Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Denison University.