Dr S. Eliza (Liza) Lockwood, MD, FACMT
It was my pleasure as 2025 meeting chair to propose Dr Liza as our 2025 Keynote speaker. Dr Liza mirrors the cross-over of disciplines so commonly found in the SIVB. Her formal education is in human medicine and toxicology but she is currently at Bayer CropScience and is an advocate for innovation in agriculture and chemistry.
Dr Liza has held prestigious positions at the Washington University Medical School in St. Louis – such as section chief for their Medical Toxicology. She has also served as an emergency room physician. She has written extensively on potential impacts of chemical exposure. She has also dedicated much of her time to global health and humanitarian relief concerns.
She discerned that agriculture and vector control (chemistry) were critical elements contributing to human health and general welfare. This brought her to consider a position in industry and she joined Monsanto (later acquired by Bayer) as their Medical Affairs Lead. She combines her deep knowledge of human health with an understanding of how agriculture contributes as well as how traits and associated chemistries must be a part of the holistic understanding of global health concerns. She constantly reminds that the foundations of modern society come not only from improvements in medicine, but also from secure, safe food supply and the tools that contribute to that supply as well as vector control contributing to declining disease rates.
I got to know Dr. Liza through her dedication to engaging and discussing science in public forums. Even prior to the Covid Pandemic, the need for active and clear scientific communication was undervalued. This has led to a situation of public distrust that has only gotten worse post Covid. Dr. Liza actively engages with people from all different walks of life – from medical doctors, to farmers, to consumers – in a way that I find extremely admirable. She is a co-host for the podcast “Science Facts and Fallacies” hosted by The Genetic Literacy Project. Each week she engages with the news and public concerns and addresses them in a way that is scientifically accurate, but also understandable by the public. She takes on concerns without dismissing concerns and thereby generates greater engagement. She also hosts public forums where people from all walks of life and all different points of view engage in discussion. I am constantly amazed at her ability to engage people in the discussion. She is not afraid to confront tough topics such as publication fraud and lack of public trust.
Dr. Liza’s active communication is a model that I hope we can all follow and take away from her example, not only as an extremely talented scientist and medical doctor who understands not only health and toxicology, but also chemistry and agriculture as a prestigious Bayer Senior Science Fellow. It is a model that we, as a scientific society that has many innovative ideas, need to follow if we want those innovative ideas to make as much of an impact on the public as we desire.
Submitted by Allan Wenck
