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As a Science Policy Analyst and researcher for The Vannevar Group I worked to fulfill the policy group’s mission advocating for implementing good-faith science policy solutions. As a TVG Policy Analyst, I took on the responsibility of preparing leave-behinds and science communication materials for TVG’s Spring 2024 policy sprint and regularly contributed to the TVG Substack. As Content Manager, I coordinated TVG policy and operational teams, ensuring all products fit within the TVG mission, values, and agenda, including managing communications with policymakers and Congressional offices and supporting TVG members as needed.

As a guest lecturer at Georgetown University’s Biohazardous Threat Agents & Emerging Infectious Diseases MS program, I taught two lessons for BHTA 6515: Biological Threat Agents and Emerging Infectious Diseases. My lectures covered the emerging biosafety and biosecurity threats of space fueled pathogens. Our first session introduced the concept of planetary protection and challenged students to consider how biology defines Earth life, and why planetary protection requires understanding life as a general phenomenon in the universe beyond the Earth’s biosphere. With my research collaborator Madeleine Hesselgesser, our second lesson discussed the challenges a backward contamination event would pose to existing FSLTT emergency response frameworks, and why disaster scenarios beyond current imaginability demand novel science, technology, and policy solutions.

As a 2024 Schull Institute Research Scholar, my work focused on space biosecurity and biosafety infrastructure development. As humanity expands its scope of space activities, backward contamination of the Earth’s biosphere is an inevitable consequence with predictable impacts. This project studied the intersection of biosecurity, extraterrestrial biology, policy, and public health, working to preemptively address the unavoidable need for policy and technology solutions to meet the unique biological, chemical, and radiological threats posed by return spacecraft and extraterrestrial materials.

As a member of the STM Working Group: Riding Waves of COVID-19 in Asia, Oceania, and Russia at Georgetown, I specialized in pandemic policy and response research focusing on Russia’s COVID-19 pandemic response and vaccine strategy. I studied Russia’s COVID-19 response through a biomedical lens, focusing on Russian soft power strategies and vaccine science diplomacy for nation-branding and geopolitical leveraging, emphasizing the transition away from Cold War-era collaborative science diplomacy toward global health competition. My work included writing contributions for literature reviews, academic articles, and book chapters.

As Assistant to the Panel Moderator for the Library of Congress 2023 Cancer Moonshot Panel, “AI and Cancer,” I assisted Tomoko Steen, Ph.D., Georgetown University School of Medicine, preparing presentation materials for panel moderators and speakers. I created, finalized, and organized presentation slides for panel moderators. Additionally, I wrote and edited panel speakers’ biographies for distribution. My contributions and organizational skills were recognized by Dr. Sandra M. Charles, the Library of Congress Health Division Chief Medical Officer.

As the Assistant to the Event Chairs, I supported Tomoko Steen, Ph.D., Georgetown University School of Medicine, in organizing and implementing Georgetown’s 11th Annual Nuclear Security Summit. I worked with the Student Lightning Talk Chair, Astrid Lewis, United States Department of State, to organize and manage student speaker presentations. Following the conference proceedings, I took on the role of compiling and editing the Student Lightning Talk presentations for distribution amongst the US Federal Departments and Agencies.

As a conference speaker I presented on non-traditional methods for nuclear waste management and biomedical applications for waste-derived radioactive byproducts. My presentation included a policy proposal on novel biomedical applications for nuclear weapons waste, using waste-derived Actinium 225 in Targeted Alpha Therapies as a case study.

I worked for Dr. Johanna Folland during her Ph.D. fellowship at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, researching the HIV/AIDS epidemic and Eastern Bloc socialist healthcare. I analyzed and built databases using over 1,000 primary documents from the United States, United Kingdom, German Democratic Republic, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and Africa. Additionally, I conducted preliminary searches for domestic and international documents and communicated with institutional archives to organize document access and availability. 

Through my role I took the opportunity to conduct original research on healthcare structures and associated outcomes during the emerging HIV/AIDS epidemic. My resulting comparative study, “Epidemic Expectations: Responses to Fundamental Differences in Healthcare Structures,” investigated the differences in HIV/AIDS epidemic outcomes between the United States and the United Kingdom and the impact of different healthcare distribution structures on community-level epidemic outcomes and won 2nd place in a departmental award.