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The Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity (ELBI) Fellowship, offered by the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is one of the most distinguished and prestigious fellowship available to those in the biosecurity profession.
Two students in George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government’s highly ranked biodefense PhD program, Janet Marroquin and Katie Dammer, were chosen for this honor and will be joining 29 other young professionals in the fellowship’s 2025 cohort.
During their fellowship, participants will participate in biosecurity workshops, networking events, and research symposiums, in Washington, D.C., and abroad.
Gregory Koblentz, director of the biodefense graduate program, congratulated the students on their accomplishment.
Marroquin graduated in 2019 with a master’s degree in biodefense. Her PhD dissertation examines Russia’s motivation and strategy for using vaccine-related narratives in its disinformation operations.
She currently works as a full-time research analyst for a federally funded research and development center. Her work focuses on analyzing national security challenges related to emerging biotechnologies and chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive (CBRNE) weapons.
“I’m most excited to engage with international perspectives on common problems, especially science communication and public trust in state institutions,” she said.
Her time at George Mason helped prepare her for both her career and the fellowship because of the nature of the program, the diverse student backgrounds, and its comprehensive approach to biosecurity, she said.
“The biodefense courses exposed me to the vulnerabilities that we as a global society have to the spread of disease due, in no small part, to inadequate preparedness,” she said, adding that her favorite classes were Koblentz’s course on biodefense strategy and computational physics and chemistry professor Estela Blaisten-Barojas’s challenging-but-rewarding course on numerical methods.
Dammer is a first-year student in the biodefense PhD program. The ELBI program and those who speak highly of it have surrounded her since her undergraduate studies, so she jumped at the chance to learn more about this ever-changing field.
“I am so grateful to the Center for Health Security for the acceptance and to colleagues and ELBI alumni for all of the kind words I have received since this year’s cohort was announced,” she said. “Every year brings changes, but it is exciting to know that this will be a key piece of my professional development throughout 2025.”
Her focus is on the intersection of national security and science policy, and her current professional role covers a variety of natural, accidental, and deliberate threats.
She said she is most excited to build a biosecurity community and take time away from her career to “nerd out” over the many topics presented during the fellowship.
Dammer hopes her time as a ELBI fellow will both complement and enhance her research and discussion skills, and she looks forward to engaging with pioneers across the public health and policy fields.
She added that she owes a special thanks to her father who, as a career academic, has been an inspiration as she started her PhD journey and now the fellowship ahead of her.
Marroquin and Dammer join a number of other Schar School biodefense students and graduates who have served as ELBI fellows, including Siddha Hover, MS ’14 (ELBI Class of 2016); Francisco Cruz, MS ’15 (ELBI Class of 2016); Saskia Popescu, PhD ’19 (ELBI Class of 2017); Yong-Bee Lim, MS ’13, PhD ’21 (ELBI Class of 2018); Justin Hurt, PhD ’23 (ELBI Class of 2019); and Matthew Ferreira, MS ’22 (ELBI Class of 2023).
The author is a first-year student in the biodefense master’s program with a special interest in terrorism and the use of pathogens as weapons. This story first appeared in the biodefense program’s The Pandora Report.