Public Policy and Biological Threats

A program of the UC Institute on
Global Conflict and Cooperation

funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York

Speakers 2009

Speakers

Jon Andrus returned to PAHO in 2003 after a ten-year absence from the organization, having worked on the polio eradication campaign in the Americas from 1989 to 1993. He serves the Lead Technical Advisor for immunization at PAHO. As of March 2009, he also serves Professor of Global Health at George Washington University and Director of its MPH program on global health. A graduate of Stanford University, Andrus received his medical degree in 1979 from the University of California at Davis and completed his family medicine residency with UC San Francisco. From 1982-1984 he practiced family medicine in the National Health Service Corps. From 1985-1987, he served as the District Medical Officer of Mchinji District, Malawi, Africa, as a Peace Corps volunteer. He later trained at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before joining PAHO's Expanded Program on Immunization, where he coordinated polio surveillance. In 1993, he became Southeast Asia regional coordinator for polio eradication for the World Health Organization in New Delhi and later served as chief of vaccines and biologicals for Southeast Asia. Currently, Dr. Andrus is the lead investigator of PAHO’s ProVac Initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to enhance national capacity to make evidence-based decisions for the introduction of new vaccines. Dr. Andrus also holds faculty appointments at University California San Francisco and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Samuel Bozzette is executive director of health outcomes at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, adjunct senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation, and adjunct professor of medicine and of international relations at UC San Diego.  He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He has a strong record of clinical, translational, outcomes, and health economics research, resulting in over 150 publications (including more than 20 in the New England Journal of Medicine and Journal of the American Medical Association) that have been cited by more than 5,000 other publications. Many of these studies significantly changed clinical practice or policy, as did his seminal work in modeling of potential bioterrorist attacks.

Dr. Bozzette has served in the leadership of collaborative groups such as the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (where he was head of the Opportunistic Infections and later the Outcomes working groups) and has been a principal investigator for many large multicenter clinical trials and outcomes research projects such as the nationally representative HIV Cost and Services Utilization Study.  He founded an academic Division of Health Services Research in San Diego, headed a Center for Research in Patient-Oriented Care, and directed the VA's national Quality Improvement Research Initiative in HIV as well as sites or cores for the Southern California Evidence Based Practice Center and the Center for the Study of Provider Behavior, the San Diego Center for Patient Safety, and the UCSD Center for AIDS Research.

Bozzette is involved in clinical teaching and teaching of research methods.  He has served on many national committees, including the DHHS Committee on Clinical Practices for HIV Care, the VA National Clinical Guidelines Panel, and Institute of Medicine's Committee on the Ryan White CARE Act (Data for Research Allocations, Planning, and Evaluation), and the Committee on HIV Prevention for Injection Drug Users in High-risk Countries. He has been an advisor to the pharmaceutical industry, the Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and research centers and funders.

W. Seth Carus is a Distinguished Research Professor at the National Defense University (NDU) and the deputy director of the university’s Center for Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction. His research focuses on biological warfare, bioterrorism, and biodefense issues, and has written extensively on the history of bioterrorism. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Carus was detailed to the Office of the Vice President as the senior advisor to the vice president for biodefense, and also served on the staff of the National Preparedness Review and worked with the Office of Homeland Security while it was being established. Before joining NDU, Dr. Carus was a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses. From 1991 to 1994, he was a member of the policy planning staff of the undersecretary of defense for policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense. Before joining the government, he was a research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He has a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University.

Arturo Casadevall is the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. He is Chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, and served as Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases from 2000-2006. Dr Casadevall received both his M.D. and Ph.D. (Biochemistry) degrees from New York University in New York, New York. Subsequently, he completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital in New York. Later he completed subspecialty training in Infectious Diseases at the Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Casadevall’s major research interests are in fungal pathogenesis and the mechanism of antibody action. In the area of Biodefense, he has an active research program to understand the mechanisms of antibody-mediated neutralization of Bacillus anthracis toxins.

Dr. Casadevall has authored over 440 scientific papers. He has been elected to membership in the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Academy of Physicians, and the American Academy of Microbiology. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and has received numerous honors. In 2005 he received the Alumni Award in basic science from his alma mater New York University. Dr. Casadevall is an editor of Infection and Immunity, and serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Clinical Investigation and the Journal of Experimental Medicine. He has served on numerous NIH committees, including those that drafted the NIAID Strategic Plan and the Blue Ribbon Panel on Biodefense Research. He is a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and co-chairs the NIAID Board of Scientific counselors. In 2008 he received the Hinton Award from the ASM for his efforts in training scientists from underrepresented minority groups. Dr. Casadevall was appointed in 2009 to the National Academy of Science committee that will review the FBI procedures on the investigation of the anthrax letter mailings in 2001.

Marie Chevrier is professor of public policy and political economy at the University of Texas at Dallas. Chevrier’s research focuses on analysis of the negotiations to control chemical and biological weapons, particularly the political aspects of the negotiations. Chevrier has given lectures and workshops at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Princeton University, Harvard University, The London School of Economics, the University of Guanajuato, Mexico the United Nations in Geneva, and many others. She has taught negotiations and conflict resolution at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, India as a Fulbright Scholar and at King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

Chevrier is chair of the BioWeapons Prevention Project, a Geneva based civil society network. She is an active member of the Pugwash Study Group on the Implementation of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions. Chevrier has been designated an expert on security and disarmament matters by the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the United Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs (DDA) and an expert by the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Chevrier’s research on negotiations has appeared in Politics and the Life Science, The Non-Proliferation Review, Arms Control Today, Contemporary Security Policy, The Washington Post, The Newsletter of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, Disarmament Diplomacy and other publications.  She edited Implementation of Legally Binding Measures to Strengthen the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention and Incapacitating Biochemical Weapons:  Promise or Peril? Chevrier received her B.A. from the University of Nebraska and her masters and doctorate in public policy from Harvard University.

Rohit A. Chitale is an epidemiologist and senior analyst in the CDC's Global Disease Detection Operations Center, an epidemic intelligence unit within the Global Disease Detection program in the Coordinating Office for Global Health (COGH). In the GDD Operations Center he plays a key role in disease event detection and surveillance, verification, risk analysis, and facilitation of CDC responses.

Before joining the CDC, Chitale spent several years conducting field research on malaria, specifically in conflict and post-conflict countries in Africa. He worked as a short-term consultant to Roll Back Malaria/Geneva, and helped the WHO evaluate a novel technology for malaria control among displaced populations. Prior to this work, he conducted clinical and behavior research in HIV/AIDS and other pediatric infectious diseases, in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa. His has particular interests in the development and evaluation of drugs, devices, and technologies to improve health; as well as medical and public health informatics.  

Chitale received his Ph.D. in epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, his M.P.H. from UCLA, and his B.A. in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park. He holds a faculty appointment in the Department of International Health at Johns Hopkins.

Juliet Choi joined the American National Red Cross in September 2006 and currently serves as a member of the Disaster Services leadership team in the capacity of senior director for partner services, the principal in charge for both overseeing its national strategy for building diverse and inclusive relationships and managing the operations of the nation’s premiere disaster case management technology consortium called the Coordinated Assistance Network. Formerly, she served at the Asian American Justice Center as the inaugural NAPABA Partners Community Law Fellow and staff attorney where her expertise focused on language access with an emphasis on healthcare and the courts. Additionally, she led AAJC’s post-Katrina relief and advocacy efforts ultimately helping to amend the Stafford Act to ensure language assistance. Prior to her legal career, her portfolio includes seven years with the corporate division of Gannett Broadcasting and subsequently as a policy director with the National Mental Health Association. 

Choi’s current volunteer and leadership efforts include serving on the National Project Advisory Committee on Emergency Preparedness & Cultural Competence to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, board of directors of the National Asian American Pacific Islander Mental Health Association, Leadership and Diversity Committee (Civil Policy Group) of the National Legal Aid & Defender Association (NLADA), and co-chairing the Civil Rights Committee of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.  She received her law school’s Alumni Association Award for Leadership and Character (2003) and had the special privilege of receiving its Rising Star Award earlier in 2009. A certified mediator, she served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Dennis M. Sweeney (retired) of the Circuit Court for Howard County, Maryland.  She is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law and received her B.A. in economics from the University of Virginia. 

Raymond Clark

Michael Friedman is the president and chief executive officer of City of Hope, a cancer research and treatment institution dedicated to innovation in basic and clinical biomedical research. He completed postdoctoral training at Stanford and the National Cancer Institute and is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology. Dr. Friedman also served as chief medical officer for biomedical preparedness at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America following the events of September 11, 2001.

Michele Garfinkel is a policy analyst at the J. Craig Venter Institute. Her research focuses on identifying emerging societal concerns associated with new discoveries in genomics and crafting options for policy interventions. Her earlier work at Columbia University’s Center for Science, Policy, & Outcomes focused on health research policy. Prior to her appointment at Columbia, she was an assistant in the Scientific Freedom, Responsibility & Law Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she worked primarily on policy issues related to stem cell research. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, where she conducted research on genetic and developmental regulation of the cell cycle in Drosophila melanogaster. Garfinkel received her A.B. in genetics from UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Washington, where she completed a dissertation on translational regulation of messenger RNAs in eukaryotic cells during influenza virus infection. She also holds an M.A. in science, technology, and public policy from the George Washington University, where she was a Shapiro Fellow in International Affairs.

Michele Ginsberg is the chief of the division of Community Epidemiology for the HHSA San Diego County. Community Epidemiology conducts disease surveillance, investigation, and intervention on communicable diseases, emerging infectious diseases, and intentional health threats.

Dr. Ginsberg is an adjunct clinical professor in the departments of Medicine and Family Medicine and adjunct professor in the San Diego State School of Public Health. Dr. Ginsberg has conducted investigations of AIDS/ HIV epidemiology and transmission in diverse populations, Hepatitis A in Mexican-American youth, prevalence of lead poisoning in homeless children, and factors influencing use of health care.

Gigi Kwik Gronvall is a senior associate at the Center for Biosecurity of UPMC and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. She is an immunologist by training. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and also serves on the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility.

Dr. Gronvall’s work addresses the role of scientists in biodefense—how they can diminish the threat of biological weapons and how they can contribute to an effective technical response against a biological weapon or a natural epidemic. She is currently working with the Alliance for Biosecurity, a collaboration among the Center for Biosecurity and several pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, on how to implement the FDA’s Animal Efficacy Rule for licensing new biodefense countermeasures. In another project, she is investigating the biosafety and biosecurity regulations and oversight of high-biocontainment laboratories in the U.S. and worldwide.  

Ann Keller is an assistant professor of health policy at the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley. Her major fields of research are public administration and organization theory, health policy and environmental health policy, and the role of expertise in public decision making.  Before joining the UC Berkeley faculty, Keller was a member of the faculty of the Department of Political Science at the University of Colorado, Boulder and completed a postdoctoral fellowship with the Robert Wood Johnson Scholars in Health Policy Research Program.

Keller’s research covers a number of domains including the role of scientific expertise in shaping environmental policy in the United States; organizational strategies used by science assessment organizations working in policy environments; the relationship between expertise and autonomy in defining program goals at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and the role of patient interest groups in shaping private and public sector research agendas. Keller is currently a co-principal investigator of a study funded by the National Science Foundation to analyze the organizational and analytic challenges of responding to global infectious disease outbreaks. 

Keller’s publications have appeared in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, and The Nonproliferation Review. Keller’s book, Scientists in Environmental Policy: The Politics of Objective Advice, is published by the MIT Press. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from UC Berkeley.

Lawrence Kerr is the senior bio adviser to the director of the National Counterproliferation Center (NCPC) within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. He joined the NCPC in April 2006.  From 2001 to 2006, he was director for biodefense policy with the White House Homeland Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. He came from his position as chief of transplantation at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Before joining NIH, Kerr worked in science and health care policy for Senator Orrin Hatch on the health sub-unit of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the 106th Congress.

Prior to entering the policy world, Kerr was an assistant professor in microbiology and immunology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.  He ran a basic science laboratory devoted to the study of the transcriptional regulation of gene products involved in HIV replication and breast cancer development. 

Kerr is the author of more than fifty peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and book chapters. He lectures at national and international conferences and has received awards for teaching excellence. He holds a B.S. in Biology and Art History from the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Kerr completed his Ph.D. in cell biology from Vanderbilt University in 1990 and undertook his post-doctoral work in immunology and virology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego, California.  Kerr is currently an professor in microbiology and immunology at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Michael Kleeman is a senior fellow at IGCC, focusing on preparedness and critical infrastructure issues. He has worked with the intelligence community on information sharing procedures and technologies, and is currently working with the State Office of Homeland Security on senior elected official training and preparedness. He serves as the national chair of strategy for the American Red Cross focusing on community preparedness and large- scale organization coordination.

For more than 30 years Kleeman has been involved in the technology industry in engineering, planning, management and advisory roles. He has also worked with a number of start-up firms and been an executive manager in both the consulting and technology industry.  Formerly a vice president at the Boston Consulting Group, director at Arthur D. Little, and executive at Sprint, Kleeman has been involved with numerous technology companies in North America as advisor and executive. He has most recently served as the co-founder, vice president and chief technical officer of Cometa Networks, a nationwide 802.11 firm, and before that Aerie Networks, a U.S. nationwide long- distance fiber optic carrier and was also the founding CTO of Global Telesystems Group.

Kleeman holds an M.A. from the Claremont Graduate School. He serves a on the boards of Equal Access, a not-for-profit providing digital satellite radio services to developing nations, and the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. He is also on the advisory council for the Comnexus San Diego.  Previously he was a visiting fellow at the University of California's Berkeley Roundtable on International Economics, a fellow of the BIOS Institute, a firm specializing in Complex Adaptive Systems, and served on the Board of Science Foundation Ireland.

Michael Kurilla is the director of the Office of Biodefense Research Affairs and associate director for biodefense product development for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). His primary role is to provide overall institute coordination for product development of medical countermeasures against bioterror threats. He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He earned his M.D./Ph.D. from Duke University. He took his postgraduate medical training in pathology at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Elliott Kieff at Harvard Medical School.

At the University of Virginia, De. Kurilla was an assistant pofessor of pathology as well as co-director of the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics and associate director for clinical microbiology. He moved to the private sector, working in anti-infective drug development at Dupont Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Wyeth. He subsequently joined the NIAID as a medical officer. In 2005, he was named to his current positions within NIAID.

Leslie Lenert is director of the National Center for Public Health Informatics (NCPHI) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). NCPHI mission is to protect the public’s health and to transform public health practice your advancement of the science of public health informatics. A graduate of UC Riverside and the School of Medicine at UCLA, Dr. Lenert has completed training in internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine and fellowships in clinical pharmacology and in medical informatics at Stanford University.

Prior to joining the CDC, Dr. Lenert was professor of medicine at UC San Diego, associate director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, and director of health services research at the Department of Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.

As the first permanent director of NCPHI, Dr. Lenert has worked to improve linkages between clinical data systems and public health, to transform national real-time surveillance systems using grid technologies, and to move leading CDC software platforms including Epi Info, NEDSS, and PHIN-MS to the open source environment. Dr. Lenert has published more than 100 articles, book chapters, and other scientific publications on various topics in health informatics.  He is a member of the editorial boards of JAMIA, JBMI and the IJMI, and is a fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.

Nicole Lurie is senior natural scientist and the Paul O'Neill Alcoa Professor of Health Policy at the RAND Corporation. She is acting co-director of RAND's Center for Domestic and International Health Security, with responsibility for public health. Prior to that, she had a long affiliation with the University of Minnesota and Hennepin County Medical Center, where she was professor of medicine and public health, and most recently, medical advisor to the commissioner at the Minnesota Department of Health. From 1998–2001, she took a leave of absence to serve as principal deputy assistant secretary of health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Among her many responsibilities, she had supervisory responsibility for the Office of Emergency Preparedness and for the development of the pandemic influenza plan. Dr. Lurie has a long history in the health services research field, primarily in the areas of access to and quality of care, managed care, mental health, prevention, and health disparities.

Dr. Lurie has worked extensively on issues related to the public health infrastructure and public health preparedness. She led a study to assess preparedness of California's public health infrastructure and to estimate gaps. In addition, she co-directs RAND's work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop and test methods for assessing various components of public health preparedness.

Dr. Lurie attended college and medical school at the University of Pennsylvania, and completed her residency and MSPH at UCLA, where she was also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholar. She serves as senior editor for Health Services Research and has served on editorial boards and as a reviewer for numerous journals. She has served on the council and was president of the Society of General Internal Medicine, is currently on the board of directors for the Academy of Health Services Research, and has served on multiple other national committees. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the AHSR Young Investigator Award, the Nellie Westerman Prize for Research in Ethics, the Heroine in Health Care Award, and is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Theresa MacPhail is a doctoral candidate in medical anthropology at UC-Berkeley/UC San Francisco. Her work centers on the cultural study of infectious diseases, the creation of global public health policies and institutions (such as GOARN and revisions to IHR), and the development of the new field of "global health diplomacy". Her dissertation research is on influenza prevention and response in Hong Kong, China, and the United States, focusing on the ways in which science, public health, and politics intersect, overlap, and help build and sustain the need for global surveillance. Her work attempts to blend the tools and crafts of medical anthropology, political science, science and technology studies, and journalism together to examine the various "stories" or narratives surrounding H5N1 and H1N1.

Adel A. F. Mahmoud is at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. He has recently retired as president of Merck Vaccines and member of management committee of Merck & Company, Inc. His prior academic services at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals of Cleveland spanned 25 years, concluding as chairman of medicine and physician-in-chief from 1987 to 1998.

Dr. Mahmoud's academic pursuits focused on investigations of the determinants of infection and disease in human schistosomiasis and other infectious agents. In laboratory and field studies in several endemic areas, he developed the scientific bases of strategies to control helminthic infections which have been adopted globally. At Merck, Dr. Mahmoud led the effort to develop four new vaccines which have been launched in 2005-2006, including: combination of measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella; rotavirus; shingles; and human papillomavirus. Dr. Mahmoud's leadership in setting strategies for global health shaped the agenda of the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine in recent years by tackling topical issues such as biological threats and bioterrorism; SARS; and pandemic flu He is an active contributor to scientific literature and authored and edited several textbooks and reports.

Dr. Mahmoud received his M.D. degree from the University of Cairo in 1963 and Ph.D. from the University of London, School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1971. He was elected to membership of the American Society for Clinical Investigation in 1978, the Association of American Physicians in 1980 and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1987. He received the Bailey K. Ashford Award of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1983, and the Squibb Award of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in 1984.

Dr. Mahmoud is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Parasitic Diseases of the World Health Organization. He served on the National Advisory Allergy and Infectious Diseases Council and is a past president of the Central Society for Clinical Research and the International Society for Infectious Diseases. He is currently serving as a member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and Committee on Scientific Communications and National Security (CSCANS) of the National Academy of Sciences.

Michael Oxman received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1963. He then served as an intern and resident on the Harvard Medical Service at Boston City Hospital with Dr. Maxwell Finland, as a staff associate at the NIH with Dr. Wallace P. Rowe, and as a research fellow at Harvard Medical School with Dr. John F. Enders. He was a fellow and faculty member in the Childrens Hospital-Beth Israel Hospital Infectious Diseases Training Program, an associate professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at Harvard Medical School, and director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Boston Childrens Hospital.

In 1976, Dr. Oxman joined the faculty of UC San Diego as professor of medicine and pathology, and chief of the Infectious Diseases Section at the San Diego VA Medical Center. His major research interests have been the mechanism of action of interferon, the control of SV40 and Adenovirus-SV40 hybrid virus gene expression, and the pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of viral diseases, especially those caused by members of the herpesvirus family. He has played a significant role in training and mentoring physician-scientists at Harvard and the University of California, and in the use of cooperative multi-center double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials to evaluate treatments for herpes simplex and varicellazoster virus infections.

Dr. Oxman is the National Chairman of VA Cooperative Study #403: “The Shingles Prevention Study,” the author of more than 140 journal articles and book chapters, and a member of a number of national societies and boards, including the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Society for Microbiology, the American Society for Virology and the Society for General Microbiology. He is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a member of the Defense Health Board and its Infectious Disease and Pandemic Influenza subcommittees.

Kit Pogliano is a professor of biological sciences at UC San Diego. The goal of her research is to understand the mechanisms by which bacterial cells are organized and by which they differentiate to form specialized cell types. She has developed new cell biological methods for the study of bacterial cell division, chromosome segregation, protein localization and membrane dynamics. These tools are now widely used in the microbiology community.

Her research is focused on Bacillus subtilis, an endospore-forming soil bacterium that is closely related to the pathogen Bacillus anthracis. She has taught lecture classes in graduate genetics, introductory microbiology and infectious disease and laboratory courses in phage genomics and the advanced bacterial genetics laboratory course at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

Pogliano received her Ph.D. in microbiology and molecular genetics from Harvard Medical School, where she studied protein secretion in E. coli. She was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University, where she developed methods to investigate subcellular organization of bacterial cells. She is a recipient of the Beckman Foundation Young Investigator and Searle Scholar Awards. She was named a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology in 2009.

Michael Sicilia is public affairs manager with the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA). He is project manager of the Public Officials Initiative, which trains and exercises elected officials on their crucial role as crisis communicators in catastrophic emergencies. From 1999–2003 he was deputy director of communications for California Governor Gray Davis. Sicilia helped devise and supervise the communications strategy for the Y2K preparedness efforts. During the Energy Crisis of 2000–01, he was spokesperson for the Department of Water Resources, charged with purchasing power for near-bankrupt utilities. Sicilia participated in the successful execution of the Capitol evacuation and reconstitution of government operations on 9/11. He served as the governor’s liaison to the State Joint Information Center during the Southern California Wildfires of 2003.

An award winning broadcast journalist, from 1997–99 Sicilia was state capitol reporter for The California Report, heard on NPR stations statewide. He also covered the Sacramento region for KCBS-AM, San Francisco and KFBK-AM, Sacramento. He covered the trial of convicted Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski for Westwood One radio network Agence France Presse (AFP). Sicilia won three Southern California Radio and Television News Director Golden Mike Awards for his news, political and documentary reporting. Sicilia was trained in journalism at California State University Northridge, where he won the Associated Press Clete Roberts Scholarship and was a William Randolph Hearst Scholarship winner.

Phillip Van Saun is director of continuity and emergency services at UC San Diego. Previously he was an assistant chief in the emergency operations section of the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services. He has served in the field of crisis response since 1987 when he was a Marine assigned to the White House emergency response mission. Following military service, van Saun served as a consultant to the White House Military Office, providing emergency response training to White House support personnel. In 2003 he served as an advisor during the evacuation of American oil company employees in Venezuela and in 2002 as a trainer and evaluator to the security and safety elements of the Panama Canal Authority. In 1990 Van Saun was awarded the Presidential Service Award by President George H. W. Bush for his service to the White House. He is a graduate of the National Interagency crisis communications program, the White House Military Office’s executive support program and the executive seminar in crisis management at Harvard University.

Jeffrey Wasserman is a senior policy researcher at RAND. Wasserman has more than 25 years of experience directing large and complex health services research projects in the areas of public health preparedness, health care financing, and health promotion and disease prevention.  He currently serves as principal investigator on both an HHS/ASPR-funded project to develop a national health security strategy and a five-year project for ASPR, "Enhancing Public Health Preparedness: Exercises, Exemplary Practices and Lessons Learned."

He is also serves as co-principal investigator on a CDC-funded related to law and public health emergency preparedness. Additionally, Wasserman is co-principal investigator on RAND’s Comprehensive Assessment of Reform Efforts (COMPARE) initiative, and has recently been a key researcher on the CDC-sponsored evaluation of the Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) and on a Gates Foundation-funded project on developing a global vaccine stockpile for pandemic influenza.

Previously, Wasserman led projects on measuring the health impact in developing countries of additional investments in diagnostic technologies; financing the health services safety net and on how the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs could modify its budget allocation mechanism to better serve the health care needs of veterans. 

He has published numerous papers and technical reports, as well as co-authored three books (The Costs of Poor Health Habits, Harvard University Press; Tobacco Control Laws:  Implementation and Enforcement, RAND; and Combating Teen Smoking: Research and Policy Findings, University of Michigan Press). Wasserman received his doctorate in public policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School for Policy Studies, where he was a Pew Health Policy Fellow.