Dr. Jacob Golan

School of Law, New York University

Jacob Golan is a law student at New York University. He received his bachelor’s degree in biology and geology from Duke University, and his Ph.D. in fungal biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow. For the past six years, he has also worked as a patent clerk for the USDA Forest Service and APHIS.

Prior to graduate school he worked as a mushroom breeder in southeastern Pennsylvania, where he first became interested in traditional knowledge. Throughout his studies Jacob has worked with various Indigenous groups in his role as the intellectual property advisor for the Herbal Anthropology Project. He completed a WIPO Advanced Course on Intellectual Property, Traditional Knowledge, and Traditional Cultural Expression and actively researches and publishes on modern approaches to protecting Indigenous and local communitys' genetic resources.