Appendix C

Biographical Sketches

COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Harvey V. Fineberg, M.D., PH.D. (Chair), is president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. He previously served as president of the Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) from 2002 to 2014 and as provost of Harvard University from 1997 to 2001, following 13 years as dean of the Harvard Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Fineberg devoted most of his academic career to the fields of health policy and medical decision making. His past research has focused on the process of policy development and implementation, assessment of medical technology, evaluation and use of vaccines, and dissemination of medical innovations. Dr. Fineberg serves as a trustee of the China Medical Board. He helped found and served as president of the Society for Medical Decision Making and previously chaired the boards of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He chaired the committee to review the performance of the World Health Organization and the functioning of the International Health Regulations (2005) during the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic. Dr. Fineberg is co-author of the books Clinical Decision Analysis, Innovators in Physician Education, and The Epidemic That Never Was, an analysis of the controversial federal immunization program against swine flu in 1976. He has co-edited several books on such diverse topics as AIDS prevention, vaccine safety, understanding risk in society, and global health. He has also authored numerous articles published in professional journals. Dr. Fineberg chaired the National Academies committee that produced the 2019 report on Reproducibility and Replicability in

Science and chairs the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats. He earned his bachelor’s and doctoral degrees at Harvard and is the recipient of several honorary degrees.

Kevin M. Alexander, M.D., is an advanced heart failure and transplant cardiologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Stanford University. He completed internal medicine residency training at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a cardiology fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He then completed an advanced heart failure fellowship at Stanford Hospital. Dr. Alexander’s clinical and research interests include heart failure, cardiac amyloidosis, and heart transplantation. His primary interest lies in cardiac amyloidosis, in particular unraveling the molecular determinants of transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy to improve diagnosis and treatment. He has co-authored many publications on cardiac amyloidosis and has received research grants from the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he developed an interest in the interaction between cardiovascular disease and COVID-19 infection. He published several articles on the effect of COVID-19 on heart transplants and left ventricular assist patients (Trans-Co-V registry) as well as serving as a member of the Association of Black Cardiologists COVID Task Force. Dr. Alexander serves on an ongoing advisory board for Arbor Biotechnologies and in the past served as consultant for Alnylam, Bristol Myers Squibb, Eidos, Ionis, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer.

Donald Berwick, M.D., M.P.P., FRCP, KBE, is president emeritus and a senior fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), an organization he co-founded and led as president and chief executive officer for 19 years. He is one of the nation’s leading authorities on health care quality and improvement. In July 2010, President Obama appointed Dr. Berwick to the position of administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which he held until December 2011. A pediatrician by background, Dr. Berwick has served as a clinical professor of pediatrics and health care policy at the Harvard Medical School, professor of health policy and management at the Harvard School of Public Health, and as a member of the staff of Boston’s Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has also served as vice chair of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, the first “independent member” of the board of trustees of the American Hospital Association, and chair of the National Advisory Council of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. He is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM, formerly the Institute of Medicine, or IOM). Dr. Berwick served two terms on the IOM’s governing

council, was a member of the IOM’s Global Health Board, and currently chairs the NAM Board on Health Care Services. He served on President Clinton’s Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry. His numerous awards include the 2007 William B. Graham Prize for Health Services Research, the 2006 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award, and the 2007 Heinz Award for Public Policy. In 2005, he was appointed Honorary Knight Commander of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, the highest honor in the United Kingdom for non-U.K. citizens. He is the author or co-author of over 200 scientific articles and six books. He also serves now as a lecturer in the Department of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Berwick is a member of the board of directors of LumiraDx and has been a member of the advisory group to the COVID Patient Recovery Alliance organized by Leavitt Partners, which has been considering the consequences of Long COVID and has made several public statements and drafted a bill.

Karyn Bishof, B.S., is the founder and president of the COVID-19 Longhauler Advocacy Project (C19LAP), a nonprofit whose mission is to advance the understanding of Long COVID and expedite assistance and solutions to Longhaulers and their families through advocacy, education, research, and support. Ms. Bishof retired from her work as firefighter/paramedic due to Long COVID and associated conditions (LCAC) and currently serves on the National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER Initiative Ancillary Studies Committee and sits on the executive committee of the Long COVID Alliance. In 2022, she received the Amelia Moore Sparkle Award for Compassionate Advocacy from Dysautonomia International. She holds a bachelor of science in exercise science and health promotion.

Lily Chu, M.D., M.S.H.S., is the vice president of the International Association for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. She has a background in internal medicine, geriatric medicine, and health services research. Her career took a detour in 2006 when she became ill with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). Since then, she has investigated various aspects of ME/CFS, including its epidemiology and the unusual symptom of post-exertional malaise. During 2014–2015, she served as a member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Committee on the Diagnostic Criteria for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which created new, evidence-based criteria. From 2012 to 2021, she was a member of the community advisory board for the Stanford University ME/CFS Initiative. She has also collaborated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, and Cochrane. Dr. Chu hopes to bring her perspectives as a patient, physician, and researcher to this project.

Betty Diamond, M.D., received her M.D. from Harvard Medical School, performed a residency in internal medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, and then trained in immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her research has focused on the induction and pathogenicity of autoantibodies in systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), especially in the brain. Most recently, she has become interested in the anti-inflammatory effects of C1q. In recent years, she has also become involved in clinical trials in SLE and has led several clinical trials of novel therapeutics. She has received the outstanding investigator and the mentoring awards of American College of Rheumatology. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. She is a past president of the American Association of Immunologists. In the past, Dr. Diamond served as a consultant for Pfizer and Moderna.

Abigail Dumes, PH.D., is an assistant professor in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Michigan. She is a medical and cultural anthropologist with research interests in gender, infectious disease, contested illness, and environmental health. She received her Ph.D. in sociocultural anthropology from Yale University and is the author of Divided Bodies: Lyme Disease, Contested Illness, and Evidence-Based Medicine (Duke University Press, 2020). Dr. Dumes’s current research is on Long COVID. In 2021, she received the University of Michigan’s Public Engagement Faculty Fellowship and, in 2023 she launched a fellowship-supported project titled “Working Toward Health Equity through Free and Accessible COVID-19 Testing,” which distributed at-home test kits to under-resourced families in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Between December 2021 and August 2022, she conducted interviews with Long COVID patient advocates that are archived on the University of Michigan’s Global Feminisms Project website for research and educational purposes. And since 2022, Dr. Dumes has been conducting a collaborative qualitative pilot study on Long COVID through the University of Michigan’s Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study (MI CReSS).

E. Wesley Ely, M.D., M.P.H., is a physician–scientist and tenured professor of medicine and critical care at Vanderbilt University and the associate director of aging research for the TN Valley VA Geriatric Research Education Clinical Center. He has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) funded for over 20 years and was the principal architect of multiple landmark trials (published in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and The Lancet) that have transformed intensive care unit (ICU) medicine and improved the survival of critically ill patients with and without COVID-19.

In the ICU, Dr. Ely’s evidence-based ABCDEF safety bundle is translated into over 35 languages and is part of daily care for critically ill patients globally. His work defined ICU-acquired delirium and dementia as major public health problems that ruin lives and cost society billions annually. During the COVID pandemic, Dr. Ely conducted the largest international cohort study of acute brain dysfunction which investigated risk factors for COVID-induced delirium. Dr. Ely is an academic member of the National Academy of Medicine’s Forum on Traumatic Brain Injury. He is a leader in studies focused on reducing the risk of post-intensive care syndrome (PICS), which is particularly relevant to Long COVID since both syndromes lead to rapidly acquired forms of disabling cognitive impairment. Dr. Ely hopes to draw on these experiences to improve survivorship for millions of people suffering from the cognitive, physical, and mental health disabilities of Long COVID. Dr. Ely was an unfunded investigator for Eli Lilly who designed the COV-Barrier study of baricitinib. Likewise, he is conducting a combined pilot and phase III investigation of baricitinib for Long COVID, and Eli Lilly is providing study drug for this investigation, which will be called the REVERSE-Long COVID clinical trial. He provided educational lectures (approved continuing medical education activities) within the past 5 years to medical audiences about topics related to clinical outcomes of ICU care and severe COVID-19 infection that were sponsored by Pfizer.

Dennis Larry Kolson, M.D., PH.D., is a professor of neurology and vice chair for faculty affairs in the Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the past chair of the neurological complications of HIV sub-committee of the program committee for the International Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, and he continues to serve as a reviewer of the HIV and COVID-19 neurological complications program. His laboratory research (funded by the National Institutes of Health) is focused on the neuropathogenesis of HIV infection and simian immunodeficiency virus infection in the rhesus macaque model. He is the co-founder and co-director of the Penn NeuroCOVID clinic. His clinical areas of expertise include HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders, the use of immunomodulating therapies for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, and the diagnosis and management of neurological complications of COVID-19. He is a member of the American Academy of Neurology and the American Neurological Association, and he serves as associate editor for Neurology: Neuroimmunology & Neuroinflammation. He completed his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Pittsburgh, his neurology residency at Duke University Medical Center, and his postdoctoral fellowship in neurovirology at the University of Pennsylvania. He joined the University of Pennsylvania faculty in 1992.

Jerry A. Krishnan, M.D., Ph.D., is a physician–scientist with clinical experience caring for people with asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Long COVID. He is a professor and associate vice chancellor for population health sciences at the University of Illinois–Chicago with research expertise in the methods and implementation of pragmatic clinical trials to generate real-world evidence, development of clinical practice guidelines, and the application of human-centered design in research. He is an investigator in the National Institutes of Health (NIH)– and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute–funded research networks, including the NIH RECOVER adult cohort study and clinical trials. Dr. Krishnan previously served as a member of the Pulmonary-Allergy Drugs Advisory Committee for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from 2007 to 2012 (chair, 2011–2012), the National Committee for Quality Assurance’s Respiratory Measurement Advisory Panel (2010–2015), and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Clinical Trials Review Committee (2012–2017; chair 2016–2017). He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed publications in major medical journals, including JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Krishnan received his medical degree from the Baylor College of Medicine, completed his clinical training in internal medicine and pulmonary/critical care medicine at Johns Hopkins, and received a Ph.D. in clinical investigation from the Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In the previous 24 months, Dr. Krishnan received personal consulting fees for the following organizations: AstraZeneca, CereVu Medical, BData, Inc, Goodwin Proctor LLC/TEVA pharmaceuticals.

Peter Palese, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna in 1969. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at The Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, New Jersey, he was recruited to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine as an assistant professor. Dr. Palese was the chair of the Department of Microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from 1987 to 2023, and he continues his research as a professor of microbiology and of medicine. His interest is in the area of RNA-containing viruses with a special emphasis on influenza viruses. Specifically, he established the first genetic maps for influenza A, B, and C viruses, identified the function of several viral genes, and defined the mechanism of neuraminidase inhibitors (which are now U.S. Food and Drug Administration–approved antivirals). He was also a pioneer in the field of reverse genetics for negative strand RNA viruses, which allows the introduction of site-specific mutations into the genomes of these viruses. This technique is crucial for the study of the structure–function relationships of viral genes, for the investigation of viral pathogenicity, and for the development and manufacture of novel vaccines. An improvement of this technique has

been effectively used by him and his colleagues to reconstruct and study the pathogenicity of the highly virulent, but extinct, 1918 pandemic influenza virus. Work in collaboration with Adolfo García-Sastre has revealed that most negative strand RNA viruses possess proteins with interferon antagonist activity, enabling them to counteract the antiviral response of the infected host. In recent years most of the efforts by Dr. Palese and by his collaborators at Mount Sinai, Adolfo García-Sastre and Florian Krammer, have been directed at developing a universal influenza virus vaccine. Since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been a shift in direction as work on COVID-19 has become central to his efforts. At present, a major focus is the development of COVID-19 vaccines. In collaboration with Adolfo García-Sastre and Florian Krammer, Dr. Palese has developed a vaccine to combat COVID-19. These vaccines are based on Newcastle disease virus (an avian virus) as a vector expressing the spike protein (S) of SARS-CoV-2. Clinical trials using these SARS-CoV-2 vaccines are going on in five different countries. Dr. Palese is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Dr. Palese is also a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a member of the German Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina).

Caitlin Pedati, M.D., M.P.H., FAAP, is the public health district director of the Virginia Beach Department of Public Health. She is a board-certified pediatrician and started her career working in public health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Epidemic Intelligence Service and then in state public health as a medical epidemiologist for the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services and as the medical director and state epidemiologist for the Iowa Department of Public Health. Dr. Pedati has been a member of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE) since 2015 and has served as co-chair of the Healthcare Associated Infections subcommittee and a state epidemiologist, contributing to a variety of workgroups, case definitions, and position statements, including the CSTE COVID-19 case definition and CSTE’s current long COVID workgroup. During her career in applied governmental public health at the federal, state, and local levels across the United States, she has served as a leader through infectious disease responses, natural disasters, behavioral health crises, and more. Dr. Pedati has several peer-reviewed publications in basic science HIV research, clinical pediatrics, and public health. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the Gold Humanism Honor Society and the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health. Dr. Pedati earned her M.D./M.P.H. from George Washington University and completed a pediatric residency with a Certificate in Global Child Health at Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C.

Dr. Pedati conducts consulting work for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists Healthcare Associated Infections Committee (editing and compiling resources).

Linda Sprague Martinez, Ph.D., is a professor in the departments of Medicine and Public Health Sciences at UConn Health, where she directs the Health Disparities Institute. In addition, she is a faculty affiliate with the UConn School of Social Work. Dr. Sprague Martinez’s scholarly impact has been in the area of community engagement and participatory research approaches. She has been recognized locally and nationally for her work to advance health equity and community engagement. In 2017 she was named a Resident Empowerment Honoree by the Boston Housing Authority, Center for Community Engagement and Civil Rights, and Resident Empowerment Coalition. In 2023 she received the National Institutes of Health’s HEAL Director’s Award for community partnerships. Dr. Sprague Martinez was also named a Society for Social Work Research fellow in 2023.

Mark Smolinski, M.D., M.P.H., currently serves as president of Ending Pandemics. Dr. Smolinski brings 25 years of experience in applying innovative solutions to improve disease prediction, prevention, and response across the globe. He is leading a well-knit team—bringing together technologists; human, animal, and environmental health experts; and key community stakeholders to co-create tools for early detection, advanced warning, and prevention of pandemic threats. Since 2009, Dr. Smolinski has served as the chief medical officer and director of global health at the Skoll Global Threats Fund (SGTF), where he developed the Ending Pandemics in Our Lifetime Initiative in 2012. His work at SGTF created a solid foundation for the work of Ending Pandemics, which branched out as an independent entity on January 1, 2018. Prior to SGTF, Dr. Smolinski developed the Predict and Prevent Initiative at Google.org, as part of the start-up team at Google’s philanthropic arm. Working with a team of engineers, Google Flu Trends (a project that had a tremendous impact on the use of big data for disease surveillance) was created in partnership with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Smolinski has served as vice president for biological programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a public charity directed by CNN founder Ted Turner and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn. Before NTI, he led an 18-member expert committee of the National Academy of Medicine on the 2003 landmark report Microbial Threats to Health: Emergence, Detection, and Response. Dr. Smolinski served as the sixth Luther Terry Fellow in Washington, D.C., in the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General and as an epidemic intelligence officer with the CDC. Dr. Smolinski received his B.S. in biology and M.D. from the

University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. He is board-certified in preventive medicine and public health and holds an M.P.H. from the University of Arizona.

Andrea B. Troxel, Sc.D., is a professor of population health and the director of the Division of Biostatistics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, leading a growing group of over 60 faculty, staff, and trainees conducting methodological and collaborative research in medicine and population health. Dr. Troxel has extensive experience in the design, conduct, and analysis of all phases of clinical studies and has published on missing data, sensitivity analyses, and statistical methodology for the analysis of clinical trials. She is the author of over 300 peer-reviewed publications in the literature of statistical methodology, behavioral research, and other areas of medicine, and is an expert on randomized trials of behavioral interventions and on adaptive trial designs, with a special focus on pragmatic trials and hybrid effectiveness/implementation studies. She currently serves as multiple principal investigator (MPI) for three data coordinating centers—the National Eye Institute–funded multi-center international randomized Zoster Eye Disease Study; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institutes–funded multi-center Pulmonary Embolism–Thrombus Removal with Catheter-Directed Therapy Trial; and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) HEAL Initiative’s Data Coordinating Center for the Early Phase Pain Investigation Clinical Trials Network. She is also MPI of the Clinical Science Core for the NIH’s RECOVER Initiative to study Long COVID. She is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association and has served on data safety monitoring boards (DSMBs) for randomized trials in cancer, cardiac devices, smoking cessation, and behavioral therapies. She earned her undergraduate degree in applied mathematics at Yale University and her doctorate in biostatistics at Harvard University. Dr. Troxel is the statistical editor for the New England Journal of Medicine. She is also on DSMBs for the NIH’s Roybal Centers, for an National Institute on Aging trial being run by investigators at the University of Pennsylvania, for a trial of CAR-T cell therapy sponsored by Cellectis, Inc, and for a National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases knee osteoarthritis trial being run by investigators at Johns Hopkins.

Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, M.D., is an academic physiatrist and professor and chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health in San Antonio, Texas. She also is currently the clinical chief of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the University Hospital System and the medical director of critical illness recovery and neurorehabilitation at Warm Springs Rehabilitation Hospitals in San Antonio. She previously served as the medical

director of the Brain Injury and Stroke Program at TIRR Memorial Hermann in Houston. Her areas of clinical expertise are traumatic brain injury, stroke rehabilitation, interventional spasticity management, and now the post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 (PASC). She is currently directing a COVID-19 recovery clinic, the first in southern Texas, which aligns with her mission to increase access to interdisciplinary care, optimize function, and improve quality of life for survivors with long COVID. She is a co-principal investigator at one of National Institutes of Health’s RECOVER Initiative sites. As a member of the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation’s Multi-Disciplinary Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) Collaborative, Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez is a coauthor on all six of the collaborative’s current published guidance statements. She is an associate editor of the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation. Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez has current consultancies with AbbVie, Merz, Ipsen, Medtronic, and Piramal, related to her work in interventional spasticity management, and a past consultancy with ReNeuron. She also is an uncompensated consultant to AstraZeneca, addressing outcomes data for patients with cancer and immunodeficiencies. Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez has testified twice in front of Congress on issues pertaining to Long COVID. She has received the Top 25 Women in Healthcare Award from the National Diversity Council and Healthcare Diversity Council and the Distinguished Member Award from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Dr. Verduzco-Gutierrez serves as a consultant for AbbVie, Ipsen, Merz, Piramal, Medtronic.

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE FELLOWS

Paule Joseph, Ph.D., M.B.A., CRNP, FAAN, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Lasker Scholar and Distinguished Scholar. She is the chief of the Section of Sensory Science and Metabolism in the Division of Intramural Clinical and Biological Research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, with a dual appointment at the National Institute of Nursing Research. She is an international expert in chemosensation (taste and smell) and metabolic diseases, and she bridges the intersections of nursing, science, nutrition, public health, policy, and health disparities. She is also co-director of the NIH National Taste and Smell Center. Dr. Joseph leads a multidimensional translational research program combining basic and clinical research focused on chemosensation, obesity, and substance abuse. Her interdisciplinary laboratory team conducts research focused on understanding neurological and molecular mechanisms underlying chemosensation and motivational pathways of eating behaviors and how they might differ among individuals with obesity, alcohol, and substance use disorders. When

individuals reported taste and smell loss during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Joseph and her team began investigating the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus on the chemical senses, and she currently also studies Long COVID effects on these senses. She co-founded the Global Consortium for Chemosensory Research. Her work has been showcased in top-tier academic journals and captured the attention of the media, such as Time, National Public Radio, and The New York Times. Dr. Joseph has been honored with multiple awards from several global organizations such as the Friends of the National Institutes of Nursing Research, the National Minority Quality Forum 40 under 40 award, the National Association of Hispanic Nurses, the Johnson & Johnson–American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and The Rockefeller University Heilbrunn Nurse Scholar. She has been recognized with the Ajinomoto Award for Young Investigators in Gustation from the Association of Chemoreception Sciences. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, a fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, a fellow of the Transcultural Nursing Society, and a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, United Kingdom. She is the 2022–2024 Inaugural American Academy of Nursing Fellow at the National Academy of Medicine. Dr. Joseph is a certified nurse practitioner with clinical privileges at the NIH Clinical Center and outside NIH. Dr. Joseph is a leader of national and global nonprofit organizations dedicated to decreasing health disparities and increasing minority health promotion and access. She received an A.A.S. in nursing at Hostos Community College, a B.S.N. from the College of New Rochelle, a master of science with a specialty as a family nurse practitioner from Pace University, a Ph.D. in nursing and genomics from the University of Pennsylvania, and an executive M.B.A. from Quantic School of Business and Technology.

Ben Weston, M.D., M.P.H., is an associate professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin. He serves as the chief health policy advisor for Milwaukee County and was the medical director for the regional COVID-19 Unified Emergency Operations Center. In addition, Dr. Weston is the chief medical director for the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management, directing medical services for 15 fire departments with 120,000 annual patient encounters. He was recently among seven selected fellows to the National Academy of Medicine as the Fellow to Advance State Health Policy. He has been featured on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, and in The New York Times and provided medical oversight for the NFL, NBA, MLB, Indycar, and USA Triathlon. He practices clinically in the emergency department at Froedtert Hospital, a level 1 trauma center and is a National Institutes of Health–funded researcher with a focus on prehospital care, resuscitation, health equity, and public health surveillance.

STAFF AND CONSULTANT

Lisa Brown, M.P.H. (Study Director), is a senior program officer on the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (the National Academies) and develops and manages projects at the National Academies related to solving the nation’s most pressing health security issues. She currently serves as a director for the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats and the Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies. She has directed several projects, including the Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus, the Committee on Data Needs to Monitor Evolution of SARS-CoV-2, the Committee on Evidence-Based Practices for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response, and the Committee on Strengthening the Disaster Resilience of Academic Research Communities. Prior to the National Academies, Ms. Brown served as senior program analyst for public health preparedness and environment health at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). In this capacity, Ms. Brown served as project lead for medical countermeasures and the Strategic National Stockpile; researched radiation preparedness issues; and was involved in high-level Centers for Disease Control and Prevention initiatives for the development of clinical guidance for smallpox, anthrax, and botulism countermeasures in a mass casualty event. In 2015 she was selected as a fellow in the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative at the Center for Health Security, a highly competitive program to prepare the next generation of leaders in the field of biosecurity. Prior to her work at NACCHO, Ms. Brown worked as an environmental public health scientist at Public Health England (PHE) in London, England. While at PHE, she focused on climate change, the recovery process following disasters, and the impact of droughts and floods on emerging infectious diseases. She received her master of public health from King’s College London in 2012 and her bachelor of science in biology from The University of Findlay in 2010.

Tequam Worku, M.P.H., is a program officer for the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Her previous work with the National Academies includes directing a study on Improving the CDC Quarantine Station Network’s Response to Emerging Threats with the Board on Global Health. Prior to that, she worked at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials as a senior analyst for Clinical to Community Connections, managing federally funded projects on community health workers and ending the HIV epidemic. Her past experience also includes working on projects related to chronic diseases and the development of healthy communities, including

the promotion of healthy aging and hypertension prevention and control (the Million Hearts Initiative). Ms. Tequam has worked on various research projects on topics including breast cancer disparities and cultural competency in health care. Additionally, she has worked internationally supporting knowledge management and data analysis efforts at the national level. She is committed to efforts aimed at bridging disparities in health and has been actively involved in health-equity initiatives. She earned her B.A. in biology from University of Maryland Baltimore County and an M.P.H. from The George Washington University; she is currently a Dr.P.H. candidate at Morgan State University.

Shalini Singaravelu, M.Sc., is a program officer at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine with the Board on Health Sciences Policy, where she supports the Standing Committee on Emerging Infectious Diseases and 21st Century Health Threats and the Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies. Before joining the National Academies, Ms. Singaravelu managed a portfolio of digital health tools as a program manager at IBM. From 2015 to 2019, she was a consultant for the World Health Organization Health Emergencies Pro-gramme in Geneva. In this role, she supported preparedness and response to emerging infectious disease epidemics with a focus on operational data systems, risk communication, and community engagement. Prior to this, she worked on psychosocial support programming for HIV-affected orphans and vulnerable children in South Africa. Ms. Singaravelu was a 2022 Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) fellow with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. She has a graduate certificate in risk sciences and public policy from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2021), where she is currently a Dr.P.H. candidate in environmental health and health security. She received her M.Sc. in global mental health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2014) and a B.A. in anthropology from Union College (2012).

Matthew Masiello, M.P.H., is an associate program officer on the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine where he supports projects that focus on health security and public health emergency preparedness and response. He completed his M.P.H. in May 2021 at Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, where he focused on disaster epidemiology and COVID-19 vaccine uptake. His thesis measured COVID-19 vaccine intent among the Emory student body and captured predictors for vaccine uptake and hesitancy. While completing his M.P.H., Mr. Masiello interned at the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists where he supported the Tribal Epidemiology Subcommittee and the Epidemiological Capacity Assessment. Prior to his

M.P.H. program, Mr. Masiello spent 3 years at the National Academies supporting four consensus studies across the Health and Medicine Division. He earned his B.A. at American University in May 2016.

Margaret McCarthy, M.Sc., is a research associate with the International Networks and Cooperation Theme within the Policy and Global Affairs Division. For the last 2.5 years, she worked with the Board on Health Sciences Policy within the Health and Medicine Division on projects related to health security and pandemic preparedness. Before joining the National Academies, Ms. McCarthy worked at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the Division of Infectious Diseases. She graduated from American University with a B.A. in international studies and a master’s degree in global health and development from University College London. She is currently pursuing an online, part-time master’s degree in global security from King’s College London.

Burgess Manobah, M.D., M.P.H., is a research associate at the Health and Medicine Division (HMD) Executive Office. He is from Liberia, West Africa, and a physician by training. He obtained his undergraduate degree in biology (B.Sc.) from Cuttington University in Suakoko, Liberia, in 2010 and subsequently enrolled at the A.M. Dogliotti College of Medicine, University of Liberia, where he obtained his doctor of medicine (M.D.) degree in 2016. He worked at multiple hospitals in different regions within his native country (Liberia) and completed a general surgery residency at the J.F.K. Memorial Hospital in Sinkor, Liberia, in June 2021. In August 2022, he obtained a master of public health (M.P.H.) degree from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland. He has had several international trainings and certifications and holds a professional membership with the Liberia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He has worked with multiple nongovernmental organizations and international organizations, with the World Health Organization (WHO) being top of the list. His areas of interest include trauma/injury prevention, food and nutrition research, and the use of Health in All Policies (HiAP) approach in bettering the lives of the population.

Rayane Silva-Curran, B.S., is a senior program assistant on the Board on Health Sciences Policy, with the Forum on Medical and Public Health Preparedness for Disasters and Emergencies. Before joining the National Academies, Ms. Silva-Curran worked as a COVID-19 contact tracer for the Fairfax County Health Department. She received her B.S. in community health with a concentration in global health from George Mason University. She also holds a B.S. in biology from the Universidade Estadual de Goias (Brazil).

Julie Pavlin, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., is the director of the Board on Global Health at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine where she coordinates analyses of health developments beyond U.S. borders and areas of international health investment that promote global wellbeing, security, and economic development. Prior to this position, she was a research area director at the Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program and the deputy director of the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center. She is a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army with previous assignments including the Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases. She concentrated most of her time with the Department of Defense in the design of real-time disease surveillance systems and was a co-founder of the International Society for Disease Surveillance. Dr. Pavlin received her A.B. from Cornell University, M.D. from Loyola University, M.P.H. from Harvard University, and Ph.D. in emerging infectious diseases at the Uniformed Services University.

Clare Stroud, Ph.D., is senior board director for the Board on Health Sciences Policy at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. In this capacity she oversees a program of activities aimed at fostering the basic biomedical and clinical research enterprises; addressing the ethical, legal, and social contexts of scientific and technologic advances related to health; and strengthening the preparedness, resilience, and sustainability of communities. Previously, she served as director of the National Academies’ Forum on Neuroscience and Nervous System Disorders, which brings together leaders from government, academia, industry, and nonprofit organizations to discuss key challenges and emerging issues in neuroscience research, the development of therapies for nervous system disorders, and related ethical and societal issues. She also led consensus studies and contributed to projects on topics such as pain management, medications for opioid use disorder, traumatic brain injury, preventing cognitive decline and dementia, supporting persons living with dementia and their caregivers, the health and well-being of young adults, and disaster preparedness and response. Dr. Stroud first joined the National Academies as a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow. She has also been an associate at AmericaSpeaks, a nonprofit organization that engaged citizens in decision making on important public policy issues. Dr. Stroud received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park, with research focused on the cognitive neuroscience of language, and her bachelor’s degree from Queen’s University in Canada.

Ilana Goldowitz, Ph.D., supported the study as the science writer and is a scientific writer and consultant and the owner of Striga Scientific, LLC. She obtained her Ph.D. from Harvard University’s chemical biology program in 2015 and her B.S. from Cornell University’s plant sciences program in 2008. Her Ph.D. dissertation research at the Harvard School of Public Health focused on malaria transmission biology. Ilana writes about a variety of topics but is especially interested in infectious diseases, immunology, drug development, host–pathogen and host–microbe biology, and agricultural plant pathology.

Jacqueline Brenner, B.S., supported the study as an intern and is an M.D./ M.P.H. candidate at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, class of 2026. As part of her M.P.H. Capstone project, she supported the activity on examining the working definition for Long COVID with Lisa Brown and Dr. Harvey Feinberg as her advisors. She was an elected National Institutes of Health IRTA Summer Fellow in 2023, and worked under Dr. Bradford Wood, melding technology, AI, and immunology in interventional radiology. She is a cofounder of SIA Precision Education, which harnesses Al to revolutionize medical education; founder and CEO of Scope, an AI-based medical social media platform; and founder of STEM Potential, a science-based mentorship network. She continues to conduct research on the importance and future applications of AI in medical education under Dr. Gauri Agarwal at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Additional research in neurosurgery at the University of Miami Neurosurgery Lab delves into advanced applications of focused ultrasound for treating neurological diseases in the scope of global health and investigates the use of connectomics to understand the effects of brain tumors.