Gregory D. Koblentz is an associate professor and director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. The Biodefense Graduate Program is a multidisciplinary research and education program designed to prepare students to work on issues at the nexus of health, science, and security, and bridge the gap between science and policy.

He is also the editor-in-chief of The Pandora Report, an online newsletter that covers global health security, and codirector of the Global BioLabs Initiative that tracks high containment labs and biorisk management policies around the world.

Koblentz is an associate faculty at the Center for Security Policy Studies at George Mason. He is a member of the Scientist Working Group on Biological and Chemical Security at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C., and the Security Working Group of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC). In 2016, he briefed the United Nations Security Council on the impact of emerging technologies on the threat posed by nonstate actors armed with weapons of mass destruction. He serves as a pro bono advisor for the Open Society Justice Initiative, as a consultant for the Stimson Center on their cheminformatics program, and is a member of the Biothreat Advisory Board of Nighthawk Biosciences.

Prior to arriving at George Mason, Koblentz was a visiting assistant professor in the School of Foreign Service and Department of Government at Georgetown University. He has also worked for the Executive Session on Domestic Preparedness at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Koblentz is the author of Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age (Council on Foreign Relations, 2014) and Living Weapons: Biological Warfare and International Security (Cornell University Press, 2009) and coauthor of Global Biolabs Report 2023 (2023), Mapping Maximum Biological Containment Labs Globally (2021), Editing Biosecurity: Needs and Strategies for Governing Genome Editing (2018), and Tracking Nuclear Proliferation: A Guide in Maps and Charts (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1998).

His research and teaching focus on understanding the causes and consequences of the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons to state and nonstate actors, global biorisk management, and the impact of emerging technologies on international security.

He received a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Sarah Emami, Director of Legal Public Health at Resolve to Save Lives, has over 20 years of experience working and teaching in international health law and policy with groups including WHO, UNDP, the US government Office of Global Affairs, and a number of CSOs.  She has carried out mappings and frameworks for WHO negotiations (the FCTC and IHR), as well as supporting  WHO’s Commission into IPRs, Innovation and Public Health; and managed complex interagency negotiations within government relating to WHO sustainable financing, IHR amendments, and the Pandemic Accord.

Juliana Abude-Aribo is a highly accomplished executive with over two decades of experience in Nigeria’s development sector, specializing in health systems strengthening since the year 2005. Her expertise is importance in promoting institutional effectiveness in health security, demonstrated by her successful role in the sector, and leadership in implementing the Resolve to Save Lives and Global Health Advocacy Incubator grants to improve domestic financing for epidemic preparedness and response in Nigeria from 2021-2025. She was also instrumental in facilitating the inclusion of the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) in the 2018 federal appropriation in Nigeria, a central milestone for sustainable and equitable healthcare access.

Currently, Juliana is advancing her research on aging and rehabilitation as a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Texas, USA.

Dr Gemma Bowsher is a social scientist and medical doctor working at the interface of health security and CBRN threats in complex settings, particularly those experiencing conflict. Based at the Centre for Conflict and Health Security, King’s College London, Gemma’s work spans academic, operational and policy domains in settings such as Ukraine, the MENA region and the Indo-Pacific. She leads empirically-driven research programmes encompassing themes such as emerging biological risks, CBRN arms control and mis/disinformation.

Dr Bowsher is a fellow of the Royal Society of Public Health and the Royal Geographical Society, and holds visiting appointments at Jesus College at the University of Cambridge and the American University of Iraq. Gemma couples her work in global health security with clinical practice in the United Kingdom’s National Health Service.

Aurelia Attal-Juncqua is a biosecurity policy researcher at RAND. She is dedicated to better understanding the intersection between pandemic preparedness, emerging tech, biosecurity, and biodefense. Previously, she was a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, where her research focused on strengthening the U.S. bioeconomy. Before that, she was a program officer on the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), where she contributed to the success of NASEM’s COVID-19 rapid response work. In 2020, she was awarded NASEM’s Health and Medicine Division Spot Award for her work supporting the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and Other 21st Century Health Threats during the very early days of the COVID-19 crisis. Before joining NASEM, Attal-Juncqua was a senior research associate at the Georgetown University Center for Global Health Science and Security, where she worked alongside the Biological Weapons Convention on projects focused on preparing for and responding to deliberate biological events, as well as with the Guinean government and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a large post-Ebola health security and emergency management capacity-building partnership. Attal-Juncqua received a B.Sc. in biology and microbiology from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine in London and an M.Sc. in control of infectious diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and a DrPH in Health Security from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Mirwais Rahimzai is an infectious disease physician with Masters in Public Health from Tulane University. Dr. Rahimzai has over 25 years of experience in leading public health programs in the field of infectious diseases, maternal and child health, health system strengthening and outbreak response in Asia, Africa, Central and Southern America. He is a Fulbright scholar and a quality improvement specialist who led several large-scale improvement projects in low- and middle-income countries. He is currently the Technical Director for Infectious Disease and Global Health Security at FHI 360 based in Washington DC where he oversees implementation of GHS programs across 30 countries

Aminat Adebayo is a Climate Intersections Project Coordinator at NetHope, where she
contributes to the planning and implementation of anticipatory action, upskilling and climate
equity projects in vulnerable communities around the world using digital technology and
innovation.

She previously served as the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) Outreach
Coordinator at Care About Climate. She reviewed and analyzed the NDCs of countries for their
commitments to greenhouse gas reduction, youth inclusivity, and gender equality.

Aminat has served on the scientific committee for several events including the Planetary Health
Alliance Conference, NetHope Global Summit and the Africa Public Health Students Summit,
where she led the scientific committee.

An early-career researcher, Aminat has authored over 10 research papers on global and
planetary health. She also co-authored a children’s book on planetary health. The digital book,
aiming to reach thousands of children globally explains the complex relationship of climate
change and health to young people.

Aminat’s advisory experience includes serving as an advisory committee member for the
National Center for Healthy Housing fellowship program and the Global University Climate
Forum’s Youth Advisory Board.

John Paul (JP) Tarangelo is a Senior Technical Analyst at RAND where his research focuses on health security, biodefense, and biosecurity policy. Prior to joining RAND, JP spent seven years as a federal contractor at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR). His work at ASPR focused on biodefense policy, nonproliferation, countering CBRN threats, and advancing national health security capabilities. JP received ASPR’s Superior Contribution Award in 2023 for his role in developing the Playbook for Biological Incident Response. Before working at ASPR, JP completed internship rotations at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of International Health and Biodefense and HHS’s Office of Global Affairs while pursuing his master’s degree full-time.

JP is a doctoral candidate in the health security track of the Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) program at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His dissertation research focuses on countering biological weapons disinformation. JP holds an M.S. in public health microbiology and emerging infectious diseases from George Washington University, a B.S. from the University of Miami, and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute.

David Brett-Major, MD MPH, is an Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases physician. He has worked at home, in South America, Africa, and Asia as a clinician, educator, researcher, and in health emergency risk management. He has been part of filovirus emergency response in Guinea, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Uganda; and, worked in health security policy and management on issues such as research in emergencies, Dual Use Research of Concern, high consequence pathogens including pandemic influenza, and all hazards preparedness. He was part of global alert and response coordination against Ebola virus disease, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and avian influenza A(H7N9). As a clinical scientist and medical epidemiologist, his research interests focus on risk, how it may be identified, characterized, and managed from patient- and community-centered vantages, particularly related to emerging infectious diseases.

Dr. Feng-jen (Jean) Tsai is the Director and a professor of the Global Health and Health Security program, Taipei Medical University. She is also an adjunct professor of the Graduate Institute of Health and Biotechnology Law at Taipei Medical University. Her research specializations are in the fields of global health policy and law, trade and health, and occupational health. As a scholar trained both in law and public health, Jean applies both quantitative and qualitative approaches to answer questions in global health. Prior to entering academia, Jean worked as a lawyer in Taiwan.