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 Emerald Archer is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara. Her current research interests include civil-military relations, biological weapon proliferation, and terrorism. Her dissertation examines if and to what extent stereotype threat affects the performance of servicemen and women in the U.S. Armed Forces. She is currently conducting social psychological experiments with U.S. Marines in San Diego, California.
Archer earned her B.S. in biology from the University of Puget Sound in 2004. As an undergraduate, she studied radiobiology at Duke University under the supervision of Mitchell S. Anscher, M.D. Her research at Duke focused on strategies to reduce the risk of normal tissue injury after cancer therapy, and findings were subsequently published in BMC Cancer. In 2006, she received her M.A. in political science from UC Santa Barbara and was granted the Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship to study Arabic. In the summer of 2006, she traveled to Egypt to study accelerated Arabic at the American University in Cairo. Archer attended the Summer Institute of Political Psychology at Stanford University in 2007.
 Nicole Arrigo is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the experimental pathology graduate program at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston, TX. Her current research focuses on the ecology and evolution of Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus (EEEV), and particularly on the dichotomy between North and South American EEEV. Her project takes a multidisciplinary approach, including phylogenetic analyses and experimental viral infections of field-captured mosquitoes, rodents and birds, to understand divergence and potential emergence of each EEEV subtype.
Prior to arriving at UTMB, Arrigo received her B.S. from Brandeis University and her M.P.H. in epidemiology from the University of Hawaii. Her studies in Hawaii and a practicum experience exploring water-borne diarrheal disease in the Gambia, West Africa, sparked a passion for the field of public health and infectious diseases. An outbreak of dengue fever in Maui, HI, introduced her to arbovirology and she subsequently worked on West Nile virus projects at Harvard University and as an epidemiologist in environmental health for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Arrigo began her doctoral studies following a seasonal position conducting arbovirus and vector field surveillance with the Georgia Department of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
 Jessica H. Chertow is a Ph.D. candidate at George Mason University in the National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases (NCBID). She received her M.S. in experimental pathology from University of Texas Medical Branch working on West Nile virus pathogenesis studies in the hamster animal model. Her current research focuses on Bacillus anthracis and mechanisms of spore entry in host cells.
Prior to her position with NCBID, Chertow worked at the Centers for Disease Control in Fort Collins, Colorado in the Arbovirus Diagnostic Branch. In addition, she conducted research at the Harvard School of Public Health working on Bunyavirus seroprevalence studies on Nantucket Island. Later, Chertow had the opportunity to work for several vaccine development companies including Acambis in Boston and Hawaii Biotech in Honolulu. Her current interests include better understanding the role of science in global security and international relations.
 Michael A. Fisher is a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. His research focuses on the design, construction, and study of synthetic proteins from vast combinatorial libraries. Of particular concern to him is how the emerging field of synthetic biology will impact policies that aim to mitigate the risks of biological threats. Fisher's developing interest in public policy led him to serve as an assistant instructor for the course "Human Genetics, Reproduction, and Public Policy," offered this past semester through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton.
In April, Fisher was invited to give a seminar on his graduate work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also presented his work at the 2008 Origin of Life Gordon Research Conference and the Biotech 2007 Symposium. In 2003, Fisher graduated summa cum laude from the College of New Jersey with a B.S. in biology, a minor in chemistry, and having completed the College Honors Program; he was the sole recipient of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Senior Award for Excellence in Biology. He was a 2002 Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow in the Department of Biology at Villanova University.
 Dr. Heather Fritz is a veterinarian pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Pathology, Microbiology, and Immunology at UC Davis and a veterinary microbiology residency at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Her current research focuses on elucidating patterns of transmission of Toxoplasma gondii, a zoonotic protozoal parasite. She is interested in emerging infectious diseases and public health, particularly in developing countries.
Fritz received her DVM from UC Davis in 2005 and practiced as a small animal clinician for one year prior to returning to UC Davis for an advanced research degree. In 1999, Fritz received two separate bachelor's degrees from the University of Arizona, one in ecology and evolutionary biology and the other in veterinary science. While at the University of Arizona, she participated in NIH-funded research projects in an internationally recognized parasite immunology laboratory and worked in Mexico City on the development of molecular diagnostic tools for protozoal diseases of pediatric AIDS patients. Most recently Fritz has been awarded an NIH/NIAID sponsored academic fellowship through the UC Davis Center for Comparative Medicine. Fritz aims to complete her Ph.D. and become a board-certified member of the American College of Veterinary Microbiologists in 2010.
 Nina Horne is working on bilateral and multilateral nanotechnology agreements at the U.S. State Department. She is currently conducting a comprehensive analysis of the U.S. regulatory and Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) environment for all federal agencies and other countries, and working with the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to develop cooperation agreements that support the development of the global nanotechnology industry while ensuring effective health and safety regulation.
Horne is completing her Masters of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley; her research focuses on a broad range of science and technology issues, including energy, clean technology, and climate change, as well as the intersection between business innovation, technology transfer, and regulation.
Prior to returning to school, Horne served as a publisher of scientific academic textbooks by leading advanced biology and earth science researchers and educators for the two largest global publishing companies. She is a city commissioner in Oakland, California, and provides oversight and direction for the funding of more than 150 community-based programs serving over half of Oakland's youth.
 Matthew Lawlor is a program analyst at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). BARDA has lead responsibility in the federal government for the development and acquisition of medical countermeasures to protect the civilian population against emerging infectious diseases and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. Lawlor's policy portfolio includes maintaining a current understanding of the pipeline of candidate medical countermeasures in development, as well as issues specifically related to anthrax vaccines and therapeutics. He has also contributed to the establishment and maintenance of a wide-ranging interagency governance process for medical countermeasure decision making that led to the publication of the 2007 PHEMCE Implementation Plan for Medical Countermeasures for CBRN Threats.
Lawlor got his start at BARDA as a Presidential Management Fellow. Before entering government service, he received his Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and microbial pathogenesis from Washington University in St. Louis in 2005. His graduate work focused on the identification of novel virulence factors of the bacterial pathogen Klebsiella pneumoniae. While a graduate student he was also a recipient of a predoctoral fellowship from the Lucille P. Markey Pathway in Human Pathobiology. Lawlor is a 1995 graduate of Swarthmore College, where he received a B.A. in biology.
 Alana Lerner is a third-year biomedical sciences Ph.D. candidate in the laboratory of Feroz Papa at UC San Francisco. Her research focuses on endoplasmic reticulum stress in pancreatic beta cells and its role in diabetes pathogenesis. She is also active in the Science and Education Partnership program by volunteering in San Francisco public schools.
Lerner graduated with a B.S. in microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics with a minor in public policy from UCLA in 2005. She also conducted an undergraduate research project in the laboratory of Kent Hill studying regulation of flagellar motility of the protozoan parasite T. brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness. She is interested in integrating her biology and public policy interests with global health as a potential career path.
 Hen-I Lin, originally from Taiwan, is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University. His current research project is within the Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense (FAZD) Center, and his doctoral dissertation focuses on modeling the economic resilience in the face of major outbreak and analysis of biosecurity-related issues under the direction of Dr. Bruce A. McCarl. One of the major components of his research within the FAZD Center is to examine how government, industry, sector, and other actions can reduce risks from deliberate or unintentional animal disease outbreaks. His research evaluates the effects of pre- and post-event actions and sectoral realignments on resilience in the context of the Texas High Plains study, with examinations of optimal responses given considerations of budget, adoption, risk attitude, event magnitude and event likelihood.
Lin received his bachelor's degree in economics from National Taiwan University in 2001 and his Master of Economics degree from Texas A&M University in 2005.
Eric Lorber is a second-year Ph.D. candidate in political science at Duke University. His main subfields are international relations and public policy. His current research interests include nuclear opacity, the breaking of international norms of nonproliferation, chemical and biological weapons use, and hypocrisy costs in U.S. foreign policy. He is currently editing a book on terrorism and counterterrorism slated for publication in early 2009.
Lorber is a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, focusing on why countries reveal WMD programs. In addition, he is the program coordinator and fellow for the Duke University Grand Strategy Project under Prof. Peter Feaver, as well as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.
Prior to Duke, Lorber received an M.A. in War Studies from King's College London where he wrote on scientific communities, their relations with policymakers, and how those relations affect nuclear weapons development. He received a B.A. in political science from Columbia University in 2006.
 Theresa MacPhail is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the joint medical anthropology program at UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco, and is the recipient of the Chancellor's Fellowship at UC Berkeley. Her research focuses on the ways in which public health, politics, and science intersect in the development of both effective and ineffective international disease prevention policies.
MacPhail's current fieldwork on the latest implementation of avian influenza surveillance and prevention policies is carried out in Hong Kong and Guangzhou, China. Specifically, her work examines how international and local policies of surveillance, prevention, and viral sample collection are put into practice and how they might help to inform each other. By talking with Chinese scientists, interviewing policy administrators, and visiting with local farmers, she will trace out the networks currently in place for the detection and prevention of bird flu and other viral outbreaks in China.
McPhail earned her Bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of New Hampshire in 1994. In 2004, she obtained a Master's degree in humanities and social thought at New York University, with an emphasis on science studies and global history. In 2004, her master's thesis on retroviral remnants in the human genome was published in the journal Science as Culture. MacPhail lived and worked in Hong Kong from late 2003 to 2006, where she experienced the aftereffects of SARS and the initial outbreaks of bird flu firsthand. This fall, her article "The Politics of Bird Flu: The Battle Over Viral Samples and China's Role in Global Public Health," an analysis of the recent debates over access to viral samples in Southeast Asia, will appear in a special issue of Language & Politics devoted to avian influenza.
 Dr. Christina Matheny is a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University working with Dr. Michael Cleary in the Department of Pathology. Her research aims to understand how a specific genetic aberration disrupts cell function, resulting in leukemia. She is concentrating on identifying genes critical for the survival of leukemia cells with this mutation, and chemical compounds that can inhibit the growth of these cells. Matheny also studied leukemia during her graduate work at Dartmouth College. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry for her work examining the effect genetic mutations had on the biochemical and biological properties of a protein necessary for blood development.
In addition to oncology, Matheny is interested in bacterial and viral pathogenesis. She holds a B.S. in microbiology and cell science from the University of Florida, and has been involved in several immunology and bacterial molecular pathogenesis research projects. She would like to use her scientific background to pursue a career in public policy assessing and managing the threat of bioterrorism.
 Amy Nelson is a graduate student in the Political Science Department at UC Berkeley. She received an A.B. in philosophy from Stanford University and an M.A. in intellectual history from Columbia University. Prior to her studies of international relations, political theory, and research methodology at Berkeley, Nelson spent a number of years working as a neuroscientist, researching decision making and visual perception. Currently, her research interests include the intersection of international relations and contemporary political theory; the role of decision-making, risk and rational choice in crafting foreign policy and international security strategy; complex systems and systems theory; and biotechnology and science policy. She is a research associate at the Institute of International Studies at UC Berkeley.
 Holly Porteous is a senior strategic policy advisor for the Canadian Department of National Defence. She holds a MScEcon in strategic studies from the University College of Aberystwyth, Wales, and has more than twenty years of experience in security and intelligence, working as a research associate on proliferation issues with the University of Southampton and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, as a staff member of Janes Defence Weekly and Inside the Pentagon, and as an analyst with various departments of the Government of Canada. Although she addresses a range of threats and threat agents in her current employment, the threat posed by disease outbreaks—both naturally occurring and man-made—remains a life-long source of fascination and concern.
 Dr. Lycely Sepúlveda is the executive associate director for the Pacific Southwest Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research (PSWRCE) at UC Irvine. The PSWRCE is one of ten NIAID-funded centers devoted to research on emerging infectious diseases and potential agents of bioterrorism and involves institutions in Arizona, California, Hawaii, and Nevada. Her position oversees the compliance issues of the multi-institution research consortium with an annual budget of $10 million and more than 35 ongoing projects.
Sepúlveda received a Ph.D. in microbiology from the Michigan State University Department of Microbiology and the NSF-funded Center for Microbial Ecology. After conducting research in bioremediation, bacterial genetics, microbial ecology, microbial diversity and teaching at two universities in Puerto Rico and Stanford University, Sepúlveda switched careers to research administration. She is eager to learn more about biodefense compliance and looks forward to meeting scientists with similar scientific interests.
 Dr. Jennifer Siembieda D.V.M., M.P.V.M. is a fourth-year doctoral candidate in the epidemiology graduate group at UC Davis. After completing her Bachelors degree in biology from Missouri Southern State University in 1994, she received her D.V.M. from the University of Missouri in 1998. After veterinary school, she practiced in the fields of emergency, shelter and fish medicine in the Pacific Northwest. She came to UC Davis in 2003 and received her Masters in Preventative Veterinary Medicine in 2004.
Dr. Siembieda is a graduate researcher at the Wildlife Health Center where she studies zoonotic diseases in wildlife populations that are likely to interact with humans, namely Escherichia coli (O157:H7), Salmonella spp., Campylobacter jejuni, Vibrio spp., Yersinia spp., Influenza A viruses, Giardia spp. and Cryptosporidium spp.. Most recently, her first research publication on the risk of human exposure to influenza A infected wildlife in California was accepted in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Her dissertation focuses on the risk of exposure to zoonotic diseases at the human-wildlife interface using wildlife hospitals as a model for exposure. She is involved in NIH- and USDA- funded projects for avian influenza surveillance in California.
 Cassandra P. Waite is program manager for the Science Centers Program on a contract with the U.S. Department of State's International Security and Nonproliferation Bureau, Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction. The Science Centers Program manages U.S. nonproliferation efforts at the International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) in Moscow and the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU). These centers are critical tools to engage former WMD scientists, technicians, engineers and experts in the former Soviet Union and help the institutes where they are employed to become financially self-sustainable. Waite is a national security professional with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). She received an M.A. in security policy studies and B.A. in international affairs from the George Washington University.
 Nathan Yozwiak is a third-year Ph.D. student in the Infectious Disease and Immunity Division in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. He is interested in the detection, discovery, and prevention of emerging viral pathogens. Yozwiak's graduate project seeks to delineate the spectrum of viral pathogens in a tropical environment using current molecular diagnostic methods, with special attention to respiratory and dengue-like illnesses, and to utilize the data provided by the extensive screening as a platform for the discovery of novel or divergent human viral pathogens. His project focuses on a prospective community-based cohort study of 4,000 children in Managua, Nicaragua. He is co-mentored by Dr. Joseph DeRisi at UC San Francisco and Dr. Eva Harris at UC Berkeley.
Yozwiak received his B.S. in molecular and cellular biology from the Johns Hopkins University in 2005. His undergraduate research focused on the interplay between Simian Foamy Virus and Simian Immunodeficiency Virus infection in rhesus macaques under the mentorship of Drs. Joseph Mankowksi and Janice Clements. Recreationally, he enjoys playing soccer, skiing, reading, motorcycling, and traveling.
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