Elizabeth O’Brien

Elizabeth (Betsy) O’Brien joined the New York Genome Center in February 2016, as Vice President and General Counsel. She brings over 25 years of collaborative nonprofit administration and legal advisor experience.
Most recently, she was Vice President for Legal and External Affairs at The Wistar Institute, an independent, nonprofit, academic medical research organization affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania. Ms. O’Brien provided advice to The Wistar Institute’s leadership and board on a wide range of legal and regulatory issues and oversaw the Institute’s government affairs activities. As a member of the Institute’s senior management team, she helped to chart the Institute’s strategic direction and worked on matters affecting all aspects of the organization’s administration and operations, including faculty and employee affairs, donor relations, intellectual property and technology transfer, corporate governance, and research compliance.

Prior to The Wistar Institute, Ms. O’Brien was the Associate General Counsel at the University of Pennsylvania, where she counseled schools and departments across the University on research and intellectual property, employment discrimination and general contract matters. Before that, she was an associate at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, an international law firm headquartered in Philadelphia.

She has been a member of the Government Affairs Steering Committee of the American Association of Cancer Institutes and is a board member of the National Coalition for Cancer Research and a Co-Founder/Coordinator of The Pennsylvania Cancer Alliance.

Ms. O’Brien received her Bachelor of Arts in German from Bryn Mawr College and her Juris Doctor from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.