Gigi Gronvall

Talk Title: Emerging issues in US biosecurity policy

Dr. Gigi Kwik Gronvall is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on biosecurity and addressing pandemic risks. She has testified before Congress about the safety and security of high-containment biological laboratories in the United States and served on several task forces related to laboratory and pathogen security. She also has written about the scientific response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the contested origin of SARS-CoV-2, and the implications for national and international security. Dr. Gronvall is the author of Synthetic Biology: Safety, Security, and Promise. In the book, she describes what can be done to minimize technical and social risks and maximize the benefits of synthetic biology, focusing on biosecurity, biosafety, ethics, and US national competitiveness—important sectors of national security. Dr. Gronvall is also the author of Preparing for Bioterrorism: The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Leadership in Biosecurity. She is currently a member of the International Security Advisory Board (ISAB) which advises the US State Department, and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Novel and Exceptional Technology and Research Advisory Committee (NExTRAC). From 2009-2010, she served as the Science Advisor for the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism. Dr. Gronvall received a B.S. in biology from Indiana University, Bloomington, a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, and was a National Research Committee fellow at the US Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID).