Appendix D

Biographical Sketches of Workshop Speakers

Paul A. Biedrzycki, M.P.H., M.B.A., C.I.H., served as the director of Disease Control and Environmental Health for the City of Milwaukee Health Department, where he recently retired after 34 years of service. In that capacity, he provided leadership and strategic management over programs involving emerging infectious diseases and outbreak response, reportable communicable disease prevention and control, environmental health initiatives involving occupational safety and health, air and water quality, lead poisoning prevention, food security and climate health. Mr. Biedrzycki served as the primary public health lead for the department on all public health emergency response activities at a local, regional, and state level. Mr. Biedrzycki has been involved in several high-profile outbreaks of national importance including the 1993 Cryptosporidium outbreak, the 2003 monkeypox outbreak, and the 2009 H1NI influenza pandemic. He has presented numerous times at the national level on a wide variety of topics from a local public health systems perspective, including biosurveillance intelligence fusion, whole of community emergency preparedness, and local planning and response to communicable disease outbreaks. Mr. Biedrzycki recently authored a chapter entitled “Engaging Communities” in the book Transforming Public Health Surveillance (Elsevier, 2016) and continues to facilitate joint Criminal-Epidemiological Investigation Workshops conducted nationwide by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Mr. Biedrzycki holds an M.P.H. from the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities and an M.B.A. from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is currently certified in the comprehensive practice of industrial hygiene (C.I.H.) from the American Board of Industrial Hygiene.

C. Titus Brown, Ph.D., is an associate professor at the University of California (UC), Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, where he is also a member of the Genome Center and Data Science Initiative. Since 2014 he has been a Moore Data Driven Discovery Investigator. Dr. Brown’s laboratory develops and applies methods for exploring and generating hypotheses from large DNA sequencing data sets from underexplored genomes, transcriptomes, and metagenomes. Dr. Brown is a strong advocate for open science, open-source methods, and open data. He blogs at http://ivory.idyll.org/blog, his Twitter handle is @ctitusbrown, and

source code for the lab projects is openly available through GitHub at http://github.com/dib-lab.

David F. Brown, Ph.D., has been with Argonne since 1993 and is currently serving as a principal investigator in several programs involving (1) the modeling of chemical and biological agent releases in subways and interior facilities, (2) modeling release and atmospheric dispersion from chemical accidents, and (3) quantitative risk assessment for hazardous materials transportation. Dr. Brown is the principal developer of several computational models including the CB-EMIS Below Ground Model (or BGM) for the modeling of flow and dispersion in subway systems and the Chemical Accident Statistical Risk Assessment Model for the statistical analysis of risk resulting from hazardous material transportation. In support of model development, Dr. Brown has also served as lead scientist in several experimental programs related to subway air flow and dispersion including systemwide transport and dispersion experiments in Washington, DC, and Boston conducted from 2007 to 2012 and he more recently co-led a major experimental effort in New York City in 2016.

Wayne Bryden, Ph.D., obtained M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physical chemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1982 and 1983, respectively. He spent a 25-year career at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL), where he conducted basic and applied materials and biodefense research as a Principal Professional Staff Scientist and Program Manager. He served from 2003 to 2007 as a Program Manager in the Special Projects/Strategic Technology Office of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) with responsibility for strategic planning, development, technical and operational management, financial affairs, and leadership of ambitious research projects to detect and counter chemical, biological, and explosive weapons. In February 2007 he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service by DARPA. Following his service to DARPA he returned to JHU-APL as Chief Scientist of the Milton S. Eisenhower Research and Technology Development Center. He joined ICx Technologies as Vice President for Advanced Research in late 2007 and became Chief Science Officer for ICx Technologies in 2009. In October 2010, ICx Technologies was acquired by FLIR Systems and he became Chief Science Officer of the Detection Division of FLIR Systems, where he led high-performance teams to achieve aggressive business opportunities and organizational goals. In August 2012, he created W. A. Bryden Consulting to provide technical, operational management, and financial analysis to commercial clients. In September 2013 he co-founded the startup small business Zeteo Tech LLC, where he currently serves as president. He is the author of more than 80 publications and holds 7 U.S. patents (with two pending). He was twice honored as a JHU-APL Inventor of the Year for invention of novel mass spectrometry–based sensors and biological decontamination technologies. His current research interests include miniaturized sensors, integration of sensors with autonomous robotic

systems, mass spectrometry, systems biology, airborne transmission of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, standoff chemical and biological detection, hyperspectral imaging, and materials science. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, the Materials Research Society, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, Sigma Pi Sigma, and Sigma Xi. He has served on the faculty of the Part-Time Graduate Program, G. W. C. Whiting School of Engineering, of The Johns Hopkins University since 1987, teaching courses in applied physics and applied biomedical engineering programs.

Chuck Burrus’s experience includes 14 years in health care institutions (6 of these years as an infectious disease epidemiologist) and 18 years heading the Division of Environmental Protection & Industrial Hygiene within the Office of System Safety at Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s NYC Transit (NYCT), the largest mass transit system in the nation. He currently serves as Deputy Chief in the Division of Counterterrorism of NYCT’s Department of Security, focusing on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) detection technology and countermeasures. Mr. Burrus is also the Chief Administrator of NYCT’s WMD HazMat Response Team. He has a master’s in environmental science from Hunter College and a doctorate from Columbia University in environmental science. Mr. Burrus is a Certified Industrial Hygienist in Comprehensive Practice, and an adjunct associate professor in environmental science in various colleges within the City University of New York.

Mark Buttner, Ph.D., is a professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, School of Community Health Sciences, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). He is the associate director of the UNLV Public Health Laboratory, the director of the Pollen Monitoring Laboratory, and co-director of the Emerging Diseases Laboratory at UNLV. His research is focused on sampling and analysis of airborne microorganisms, with emphasis on enhanced detection methods of airborne and surface-associated microorganisms that are potential human health risks in indoor environments. Dr. Buttner also conducts research involving detection of antimicrobial-resistant microorganisms and prevention of health care–associated infections. He served on the editorial board of the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology and as an editor of the Aerobiology section of the Manual of Environmental Microbiology. He currently serves as a member of the Standing Standard Project Committee, Ventilation for Acceptable Indoor Air Quality, of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers. Dr. Buttner received his Ph.D. in environmental science and health from the University of Nevada, Reno.

George J. Dizikes, Ph.D., HCLD/CC(ABB), joined the Tennessee Department of Health Knoxville Regional Laboratory as its director in September 2015. Prior to coming to Knoxville, Dr. Dizikes spent 19 years with the Illinois Department of Public Health laboratory at Chicago, where he had been the laboratory manager, supervised the molecular diagnostics and newborn screening sec-

tions, and served as Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments director. In addition, Dr. Dizikes was the onsite Chicago BioWatch laboratory director from 2003 until his departure in 2015. Dr. Dizikes received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Minnesota, and he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), on the genetics of metabolic diseases. Dr. Dizikes serves on the Association of Public Health Laboratories Committee on Newborn Screening and Genetics in Public Health, where he participates in workgroups dealing with legal and legislative issues and new conditions. He is also a member of the Laboratory Procedures & Standards Workgroup of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children. Since coming to Tennessee, he has advised the newborn screening program, particularly on issues of timeliness and the addition of screening for lysosomal storage disorders.

Henry Erlich, Ph.D., focused his research on the study of genetic variation in human populations and on the development and application of new genotyping technologies and analytic methods to the genetics of common complex disease, forensics, evolution, and population genetics. Dr. Erlich and his colleagues at Cetus developed the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) in the mid-1980s and his laboratory has applied it to analyze the host genetics of a variety of autoimmune diseases, such as type 1 diabetes and inflammatory bowel disease. In addition, Dr. Erlich has contributed to the understanding of the genetics of infectious disease (e.g., HIV and human papillomavirus) and cervical cancer. Dr. Erlich pioneered the development of DNA-based human leukocyte antigen (HLA) typing for clinical applications in transplantation, pharmacogenetics, and disease susceptibility. Dr. Erlich’s laboratory also applied PCR to human identification, carrying out the first forensics DNA case in 1986 as well as the first postconviction review case in 1988. In the past decade, Dr. Erlich’s laboratory has applied next-generation DNA sequencing (NGS) to the analysis of the highly polymorphic genes (HLA and KIR) that play a key role in adaptive and innate immunity. In collaboration with his colleague, Dr. Cassandra Calloway, he is also applying NGS technology to forensics, focusing on mitochondrial DNA for analysis of mixed samples and to developing a noninvasive prenatal test for sickle cell anemia and beta-thalassemia. Dr. Erlich received his A.B. in biochemical sciences from Harvard, his Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Washington, and did postdoctoral fellowships at Princeton and Stanford. He was the Director of Human Genetics at Cetus Corporation and Vice President of Discovery Research at Roche Molecular Systems and is currently a Senior Scientist at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute. He has published over 400 papers, book chapters, and review articles and has received numerous grants and awards.

Asha M. George, Dr.P.H., M.S.P.H., is the co-director of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense. She served in the U.S. House of Representatives as the subcommittee staff director and as senior professional staff at the Committee on Homeland Security. She has also worked for a variety of other organizations, in-

cluding government contractors, foundations, and nonprofits, and worked with all federal departments and many agencies. Her homeland security, public health, public policy, and emergency management contributions have been recognized by a number of organizations, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Department of Health and Human Services, and the FBI. Dr. George is also a veteran, having served on active duty in the U.S. Army as a military intelligence officer and as a paratrooper. She is a decorated Desert Storm veteran. Dr. George’s research and programmatic emphasis as a security and public health professional has been both practical and academic. As co-director of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, she co-authored A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership and Major Reform Needed to Optimize Efforts, and Biodefense Indicators: One Year Later, Events Outpacing Federal Efforts to Defend the Nation. She authored two congressional reports (Getting Beyond Getting Ready for Pandemic Influenza and Public Health, Safety, and Security for Mass Gatherings) and was the lead author of the WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2010. Her other publications include the 2011-2012 National Risk Profile; Response Is Local, Relief Is Not; Managing the Multiplicative Threat; We Are In It Together: Executive Considerations to Combat Biological and Agro Terrorism; The Laboratory Response Network: Public Health Laboratories on the Front-line; Don’t Ask–Don’t Tell–Don’t Vaccinate: Physician Perspectives on Barriers to Adult Immunization; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in Desert Storm Veterans; Illicit Drug Use in Honolulu and the State of Hawaii. Dr. George holds a Doctorate in Public Health from the University of Hawaii, a Master of Science in Public Health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a bachelor of arts from Johns Hopkins University. She is also a graduate of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative, run by the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Kennedy School of Government.

Molly Isbell, Ph.D., C.Q.A., C.Q.E., is the director of Quality Assurance (QA) and Data Science at Signature Science, LLC. She is responsible for coordinating the work efforts and development activities of the QA and Data Science business area. Dr. Isbell also serves as the Signature Science Program Manager for the Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) Detection Quality Assurance Program, which supports the DHS BioWatch program, the National Guard Bureau Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team, as well as Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal CBRNE sampling and analysis programs sponsored by the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO-CBD). Dr. Isbell has provided technical and management support for QA characterization and oversight of complex environmental sampling and analysis programs for more than 20 years and has been directly involved in the development and execution of the DHS BioWatch QA Program since its inception in 2010. For the BioWatch program, she led extensive collaboration efforts among BioWatch stakeholders to establish the QA program foundations and continues to work closely with DHS to oversee and execute all components of the QA program. Dr. Isbell holds a Ph.D.

in statistical science and provides senior-level statistical support for field and laboratory testing and validation efforts, proficiency tests, risk assessments, site investigations, background studies, monitoring plans, health effects studies, and laboratory experimental designs.

Dana Kadavy, Ph.D., is the director of Biological Sciences for Signature Science (SigSci) and specializes in the field deployment, sampling, development, and validation of assays for microbiological and molecular detection of microorganisms, in addition to investigating alternative field collection techniques and their efficacy. Dr. Kadavy provides technical leadership and oversight on research and development programs designed to improve analytical capability in the areas of human and microbial forensics. As director of the Signature Science Forensic Laboratory in Austin, Texas, Dr. Kadavy is also responsible for the oversight and technical defensibility of human DNA operations, including obtaining and retaining American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors laboratory accreditation. Dr. Kadavy directs activities across sectors of the forensic science continuum, including human DNA innovative research and development efforts, high-throughput laboratory operations, casework, and training. Dr. Kadavy provides subject matter expertise (SME) and leadership to the Global Biosurveillance Technology Initiative (GBTI) for the JPEO-CBD. Under this effort Dr. Kadavy provided biosurveillance support across a globally distributed network of GBTI participating laboratories including Public Health Command and United States Army Medical Research Units. Dr. Kadavy serves as a SME in microbial forensic initiatives (DoD and DHS), where she guides the development and validation of microbial forensic tools. Dr. Kadavy is investigating and publishing in forensic applications of next-generation sequencing technology for both microbial and human identification. Dr. Kadavy has served as Principal Investigator on JPEO-CBD, BioWatch, and BioQA quality assurance (QA) programs. Within these QA programs she provided expert microbiological and molecular advice, reviewed data, and conducted field collection and technical audits.

James C. Liljegren, M.S., Ph.D., is a research scientist in the Global Security Sciences Division at Argonne National Laboratory. He received B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; his doctoral dissertation concerned the development of a stochastic Lagrangian model of material dispersion in the atmosphere and its validation through tracer studies over simple and complex terrain. Since 2007, Dr. Liljegren has focused primarily on material transport and dispersion in indoor environments. He has developed an agent-based model of subway passenger movement, exposure, and response to chemical and biological agents for inclusion in the Argonne Below Ground Model (BGM) of material transport and dispersion in subways. He has combined subway models with aboveground dispersion models and with indoor facility models to enable the computation of joint consequences of a biological or chemical agent release. He has applied these models to determine the optimal number and location of detectors in sub-

ways and facilities. Dr. Liljegren has also been involved in the planning, execution, and data analysis of transport and dispersion studies in the Washington, DC, Boston, and New York City subways.

Suzet M. McKinney, M.P.H., Ph.D., currently serves as the CEO and executive director of the Illinois Medical District. Dr. McKinney is the former deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Public Health Preparedness and Emergency Response at the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), where she oversaw the emergency preparedness efforts for the department and coordinated those efforts within the larger spectrum of the City of Chicago’s Public Safety activities, in addition to overseeing the department’s Division of Women and Children’s Health. During her time at CDPH, Dr. McKinney also spearheaded Chicago’s efforts as the field test site for the DHS’s Generation-3 autonomous biological detection system technology. Dr. McKinney previously served as the senior advisor for Public Health and Preparedness at the Tauri Group, where she provided strategic and analytical consulting services to the DHS BioWatch program. Her work at DHS included providing creative, responsive, and operationally based problem solving for public health, emergency management, and homeland security issues, specifically chemical and biological early detection systems and the implementation of those systems at the state and local levels. Dr. McKinney was most recently appointed to the Board of Directors for Thresholds, Susan G. Komen Chicago, Good City Chicago, and the African-American Legacy of the Chicago Community Trust. Dr. McKinney is co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies and is a member of the National Academies’ Standing Committee on Health Threats Resilience. She also serves on the Science and Security Board for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Board of Scientific Counselors for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Advisory Council. She has been responsible for leading multiple emergency response efforts, including Chicago’s 2014-2015 Ebola response; the operational response to the 2009 H1N1 outbreak, which was successful in vaccinating nearly 100,000 residents over a 6-week timeframe; as well as CDPH’s participation in the 2012 NATO Summit response and the 2010 Haiti Earthquake response. Dr. McKinney holds her doctorate degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, with a focus on preparedness planning, leadership, and workforce development. She received her bachelor of arts in biology from Brandeis University (Waltham, Massachusetts), where she was also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow. She received her Master of Public Health degree (health care administration) and certificates in managed care and health care administration from Benedictine University in Lisle, Illinois.

Toby L. Merlin, M.D., is the director of the Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections in the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Disease at the CDC. He is responsible for the CDC’s Laboratory Response Network (LRN), infectious disease emergency response coordination, and Emerging Infections Epidemiology and Laboratory capacity programs, Health Economics and Modeling Unit, and Arctic Investigations Program. He recently served as a senior agency leader in the 2014-2015 CDC Ebola response and the 2016 Zika virus response. He previously served as the deputy director of the Influenza Coordination Unit and served as Deputy Incident Commander of CDC’s Response to 2009 H1N1 Influenza. Dr. Merlin received his bachelor of arts degree in philosophy from Yale College and his doctor of medicine from the University of Florida. He served an internship at Stanford University Hospital and completed his training in pathology at the University of New Mexico. From 1984 until 1992 he served on the faculty of the departments of pathology and internal medicine at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, where he performed research in the molecular mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and was associate professor of pathology, Vice-chairman of the Department of Pathology, and Chief of Laboratory Services at the Veterans Administration Hospital. Dr. Merlin has been a member and chair of the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Advisory Committee. He has also served on the editorial boards of Human Pathology and the International Journal of Surgical Pathology, as well as various test committees on the National Board of Medical Examiners and committees of the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. Dr. Merlin joined the CDC in 2003 from Lovelace Health Systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he served as senior vice president and chief medical officer and an officer of the Board of Directors. Dr. Merlin also served as chair of the Department of Laboratories and as an elected member of the Medical Practice Board.

M. Allen Northrup, Ph.D., is a CEO with more than 30 years of diagnostics instrumentation development both as an inventor and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Microfluidic Systems (sold to PositiveID Corp.) and a co-founder of Cepheid (NASDAQ: CPHD). Dr. Northrup received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the University of California, Davis, in 1991. He then spent more than 8 years as a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and University of California at Berkeley, where he was the first to demonstrate the PCR process in a micromachined silicon chip. He also co-developed microactuators and micro-actuator materials. As CTO and VP of Research, Cepheid had its IPO in 2000; as CEO, he sold Microfluidic Systems to PositiveID Corporation in 2011. Dr. Northrup has 54 issued U.S. and foreign patents, more than 40 peer-reviewed publications, and several engineering and entrepreneurial business awards, including an Inc. Magazine award for one of the fastest-growing small U.S. companies in 2010-2011. Dr. Northrup is on the Science Advisory Board of Fluigent (Paris), a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, and a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Denise Pettit, Ph.D., obtained her Ph.D. in the Department of Microbiology/Immunology at the Medical College of Virginia. Currently she is the assistant director at the North Carolina State Laboratory of Public Health (NCSLPH). In this capacity, she provides support to the director to manage, lead, and direct the public health laboratory program for the state of North Carolina. Collaborating with programs in the Division of Public Health, Dr. Pettit provides vision and leadership for the strategic direction of the laboratory and ensures that the laboratory provides relevant, accurate scientific data essential for disease surveillance, prevention, and control. She works directly with partners to develop public health policy and responds to statewide public health threats caused by common or emerging biological, chemical, and radiological agents. In addition, she provides technical oversight to infectious disease units within the NCSLPH: Molecular Epidemiology, Bioterrorism and Emerging Pathogens, Microbiology, and Virology/Serology. Throughout her career, she has been responsible for building, managing, and directing laboratory emergency response teams compromised of scientists and administrators from a variety of disciplines working together to meet customers’ needs for responsiveness, efficiency, and quality. These teams have been recognized at the state and national levels for the contributions they have made to ensuring the safety and well-being of citizens. Dr. Pettit has a rich history in public health laboratory practice, serving as a Lead Scientist for 16 years where her duties included the development, implementation, and validation of new testing strategies to detect and characterize unique biological agents that are of public health concern (i.e., Bacillus anthracis, Francisella tularensis, Brucella spp., and West Nile virus). Working with epidemiologists and other partners, she has strategically designed and implemented laboratory-based surveillance to detect biothreat agents during national events (e.g., presidential inauguration) and rare or emerging infectious disease agents (e.g., Zika, Ebola, chikungunya, and influenza viruses; Exserohilum rostratum; and Plasmodium vivax) during outbreak response. She has participated in numerous studies collaborating with federal partners such as the CDC, Environmental Protection Agency, and DHS to validate assays to detect Category A biothreat agents and has worked with local, state, and national partners to establish and maintain a strong National Laboratory Response Network to identify biothreats and emerging infectious disease agents. In addition, she is an active member of the American Society of Microbiology and has served as a Counselor for Public Health Division Y.

Lyle L. Probst, M.B.A., is the CEO, director, and founder of Excite PCR Corporation. Mr. Probst holds a bachelor of science degree in biology and a Master of Business Administration with 20 years of executive management and product development experience at PositiveID, Excite PCR and MicroFluidic Systems, SAIC, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), including a series of biodetection programs such as the Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology SenseNet program, BioWatch Gen-3 BAND program, development and deployment of BioWatch Generation 1, and as a subject-matter expert

within the Biodefense Knowledge Center at LLNL, and principal investigator/developer of the high-throughput BioWatch mobile laboratory at SAIC Corp. Mr. Probst was previously the director of Capillary Electrophoresis and director of Chemistries at the Joint Genome Institute.

Jennifer Rakeman, Ph.D., received her Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle and completed an American Society for Microbiology Committee on Postdoctoral Educational Programs Clinical and Public Health Laboratory Microbiology Fellowship at the UW Medical Center. Later, she became the deputy director of the program from which she graduated. After several years in leadership positions at clinical hospital laboratories, Dr. Rakeman returned to her native New York and became the Associate Director of Microbiology at the New York City (NYC) Public Health Laboratory in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH). Dr. Rakeman now serves as the Assistant Commissioner for the Bureau and is the Laboratory Director and, in this position, led NYC’s laboratory response to Ebola, to the largest Legionella outbreak since the disease was discovered, and leads the ongoing response to Zika virus. She has led NYC’s BioWatch Laboratory component since joining the DOHMH in 2009, and has been involved in national BioWatch issues and the Gen-3 program. In addition, Dr. Rakeman serves as the chair of the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) Infectious Diseases Committee, is the APHL liaison to the Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis, and has been actively involved as an advisor and advocate for fellowship and leadership training programs in public health laboratory science.

Sam Reed has 15 years of leadership and management experience in in vitro diagnostics, including management of point-of-care diagnostics and sequencing instruments, from concept phase and early technology development through Food and Drug Administration approval and market. He has additional experience in consumer and industrial products. Mr. Reed has played a range of executive roles, including overall organizational leadership and operational management (COO), strategy and business plan development, direct management of technology development, and market research and clinical interaction to guide product and pipeline planning. Mr. Reed has built a product development organization from the ground up and first hires, as well as partnering with several blue-chip companies on their product portfolios. He received a Master of Science in Analogue and Digital IC Design from Imperial College London and a bachelor’s degree in physics and electrical engineering from the University of Maryland.

David Silcott is the CEO and founder of S3I, LLC, a biosecurity firm focused on sensor development, networked biological monitoring architecture design, and agent neutralization processes. He has 29 years of experience in sensor development and for the last 18 years has developed optical sensor technologies centered on rapid early warning biological threat detection. He is the inventor of

two real-time optical sensors, the IBAC and Polaron, which provide rapid early warning of airborne biological threats for indoor and outdoor applications. Mr. Silcott is the inventor of six U.S. patents issued or pending related to airborne biological threat detection. He has extensive operational experience of deployed early warning biological monitoring architectures that have millions of hours of cumulative operational runtime. Mr. Silcott has managed or participated in numerous field aerosol dispersion studies for DHS, DoD, and commercial entities. These include such facilities as airports, subway systems, large malls, skyscrapers, multibuilding complexes, office buildings, national monuments, commercial aircraft, and classified facilities. He has also participated in numerous DoD biological defense efforts and is actively involved in tactical biological detection and other point detector development efforts. Mr. Silcott has a B.S. degree in biochemistry from Virginia Tech.

Maureen Sullivan is the supervisor of the Emergency Preparedness and Response Laboratory Unit at the Minnesota Department of Health Public Health Laboratory (MN-PHL). MN-PHL is an active member of the CDC’s LRN. Her unit conducts CDC LRN testing for select agents and coordinates activities within the BioWatch program. She has worked for the MN-PHL for the past 25 years, holding a variety of positions. Nationally, Ms. Sullivan is the chair and member of the APHL Public Health Preparedness and Response Committee. She currently chairs the First Responder Standards and Technology Subcommittee and has worked on a variety of subcommittees dealing with emergency preparedness, including defining surge capacity, developing a guidance document for handling unknown environmental samples, and defining sentinel laboratory partnerships and outreach. Ms. Sullivan has worked with the CDC, the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, and others on the National Health Security Preparedness Index, a composite index for preparedness measures. In addition, Ms. Sullivan has worked with the Department of Homeland Security and other public health laboratories to develop a Quality Assurance Program Plan for the BioWatch program.

Michael V. Walter, Ph.D., joined the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs as the BioWatch Program Manager in September 2009. Since joining BioWatch, Dr. Walter has instituted a robust Quality Assurance Program. Working with the CDC, he directed the transition of BioWatch sample screening from CDC PCR assays to DoD Critical Reagent Program PCR reagents. Additionally, he has overseen the successful completion of the Gen-3 Phase I Acquisition Program. He has worked to increase interoperability and partnerships with federal, state, and local BioWatch Program stakeholders. He was recognized as “One of the Faces of Homeland Security” by Secretary Napolitano in 2011. Dr. Walter possesses more than 20 years of experience in microbiology/biological warfare research. He has an extensive background in sampling and detection for aerosolized microorganisms, as well as in the management and development of design, test, evaluation, and quality assurance for related systems and programs.

He also has significant experience in laboratory assay development, testing, and evaluation. Prior to joining BioWatch, Dr. Walter was a staff senior scientist and headed the Technology Special Project Team for the DoD Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense. He has also held positions with the Central Intelligence Agency, the Naval Surface Warfare Center, and Texaco, Inc. Dr. Walter is the recipient of eight publication and innovation awards and is the author of numerous scientific articles, abstracts, and patents. He received his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Dakota.