Dr. Bhadelia is the founding director of Boston University’s Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. She is a board-certified infectious diseases physician and an Associate Professor at the BU School of Medicine. She served as the Senior Policy Advisor for Global COVID-19 Response for the White...

James Coburn joined ARPA-H in July 2025 on detail from his position as Senior Advisor for Emerging Technologies in the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of the Chief Scientist. There, he led a team that increases the agency’s experience with cross-cutting advanced manufacturing...

Dr. Shannon Greene joined ARPA-H in January 2025 from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where she was a Program Manager in the Biological Technologies Office. At DARPA, Greene specialized in microbiology and focused on developing platform technologies for medical countermeasure ...

Dr Bassam Hallis OBE is the Deputy Director and the lead for the Vaccine Development and Evaluation Centre.Bassam has over 35 years’ experience working with public sector, industry and academia in the development and evaluation of vaccines and therapeutics. He provides scientific and operational...

Melinda Hamer MD, MPH is an Operating Partner at the Global Health Investment Corporation, supporting the investment team, portfolio companies, and senior management via advisory expertise in clinical, biodefense, and US government biomedical research domains. She previously served as Deputy...

Dr. Hepburn is currently co-lead of Avinora Health, an independent consulting service covering the landscape of breakthrough health technology in the interface with infectious diseases. He recently served as the Executive Vice President of R&D at Panther Life Science, which focused on...

Dr. Mariana Matus is CEO and Cofounder of Biobot Analytics. She is a computational biologist and pioneered the science of wastewater epidemiology during her doctoral studies at MIT. Mariana is a Henry Crown Fellow in the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute. She has received...

Nelson L. Michael, M.D., Ph.D. is the Senior Medical Advisor of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. He as been on detail to the Office of the Assistant Secretary of War—Health Affairs since March 2026. Dr. Michael graduated summa cum laude from University of California, Los Angeles in 1979...

Dr. Romanik is a physician and policy strategist with deep experience leading U.S. preparedness and response to high-consequence biological threats. She previously served at the White House as Special Assistant to the President, Deputy Director, and Chief of Staff for the inaugural Office of...

Dr. John Schiel is a Program Manager at ARPA-H leading the GIVE program and related cell and gene therapy manufacturing efforts.  Previously he led major biomanufacturing initiatives such as the NIST Monoclonal Antibody (NISTmAb) Reference Material at the National Institute of Standards and...

Taylor Sexton is a health security and biodefense policy executive with experience spanning federal response operations, congressional policy, and biotechnology strategy. He currently serves as a Principal at Todd Strategy Group and as Executive Director of the Medical Countermeasures...

Dr. Vasan advises HJF leadership and staff on medical and scientific work conducted by the foundation, including sponsorship of clinical trials. In addition, as SVP of HJF’s Global Infectious Diseases Portfolio, Dr. Vasan provides key leadership on a wide array of basic and clinical studies...

Jeremy Ratcliff is a Research Scientist and the lead of the Biosecurity initiative at Google DeepMind. The team conducts research to support biological risk reduction from natural, accidental, and enhanced threats. Before joining Google DeepMind, he was a Senior Research Scientist at the Johns...

Kelly Chafin is the Head of Response and Federal Strategy at SecureBio. Prior to joining SecureBio, Ms. Chafin led the integration of the United States Intelligence Community on all matters pertaining to countering foreign biological threats and chemical warfare, coordinated strategic planning, and ...

Jake Jordan, PhD serves as vice president of NTI’s Global Biological Policy and Programs (NTI | bio). In this role, he leads a portfolio of projects working with governments, industry, academia, and NGOs to foster new thinking, test solutions, and promote systemic changes to improve biosecurity and ...