James Spudich is a private pilot of thirty years, with an instrument rating and extensive experience in many single-engine land airplanes. His favorite is a Piper Comanche 260C, which he co-owned for many years with two friends at Stanford University. He flies out of Palo Alto Airport.

A Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University, he has been an educator for more than thirty-five years. He served as Chairman of two Departments at Stanford and was co-founder and first Director of a bold interdisciplinary Stanford program known as BioX. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has published more than two hundred scientific papers, edited a variety of books, and trained more than fifty students in basic research.