Lewis R. Goldfrank, MD (Chair), has worked at Bellevue Hospital Center and New York University (NYU) Medical Center for the last quarter century. He is currently the first chairman and professor of the newly established academic Department of Emergency Medicine at NYU, where his efforts have led to the development of the university’s emergency medicine and medical toxicology residencies. Dr. Goldfrank is also the medical director of the New York City Health Department’s Poison Center. His career has been spent working in the public hospitals of New York City, emphasizing the role of emergency medicine in improving access to care, public health, public policy, and medical humanism. He has assisted in numerous projects in South America, Asia, and Europe in the advancement of emergency medicine and medical toxicology, emphasizing his interests in the improvement of global health. Dr. Goldfrank recently has served on three committees (as chair for two of them) dealing with issues of terrorism: civilian medical response to chemical and biological terrorism; metropolitan medical response teams and preparedness for terrorism; and the psychological consequences of terrorism. Educated at Clark University, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the University of Brussels, Belgium, he graduated from the University of Brussels Medical School in 1970. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center in 1973. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine.

Ann M. Beauchesne is executive director of the U.S. Chamber’s Homeland Security Division, which works to achieve increased homeland security while maintaining the openness and mobility that are critical to U.S. economy. She directs Chamber’s policy on emergency preparedness and response, cargo transportation, and critical infrastructure. She also works to identify and facilitate access to government contracting opportunities for member companies in the homeland security area. Prior to joining the Chamber, she worked for the National Governors Association (NGA) for 10 years. She held a variety of positions, from policy analyst in the Natural Resources Division to program director of emergency management and environment. She also served as NGA’s director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division, identifying policy priorities for governors and their homeland security advisors. Ms. Beauchesne has written extensively on issues related to homeland security, terrorism, emergency management, natural disasters, and nuclear weapons. In addition, she drafted the first Governors’ Guide to Homeland Security.

Joseph C. Becker is senior vice president of disaster services for the American Red Cross, a human service organization in existence since 1881. The American Red Cross is dedicated to providing relief to victims of disasters and helping people prevent, prepare for and respond to emergencies. Mr. Becker leads the organization’s disaster relief. In this role, he has led the Red Cross’ two largest relief efforts to date—the 2004 hurricanes in Florida, and the Hurricane Katrina response. He joined the national headquarters staff on January 1, 2004, as the vice president of response. Before assuming this role, he was the executive director of the Greater Carolinas Chapter of the American Red Cross, starting in February 1997. His Red Cross involvement started much earlier as a member of the chapter Board of Directors from 1992 to 1996. Prior to his employment with the Red Cross, Mr. Becker was part of the management group of Kings Entertainment Company, with five regional theme parks in the U.S. and Canada, which was acquired by Paramount in 1992. At the end of his 23-year career with the company, Joe was the vice president of operations at Paramount’s Carowinds. Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, he received a degree in business administration from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio in 1979. 

Georges C. Benjamin, MD, became executive director of the American Public Health Association, the nation's oldest and largest organization of public health professionals, in 2002. Prior to that, he was secretary of the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he played a key role in developing Maryland's bioterrorism plan, following four years as the department’s deputy secretary for public health services. Dr. Benjamin started his medical career in 1981 in Tacoma, Washington, where he managed a 72,000-patient visit ambulatory care service as chief of the Acute Illness Clinic at the Madigan Army Medical Center. A few years later, he served as chief of emergency medicine at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. After leaving the Army, he chaired the Department of Community Health and Ambulatory Care at the District of Columbia General Hospital. He was promoted to acting commissioner for Public Health for the District of Columbia and later directed one of the busiest ambulance services in the nation as interim director of the Emergency Ambulatory Bureau of the District of Columbia Fire Department. Dr. Benjamin is a member of several committees, including CDC’s director's advisory committee. He is currently serving on IOM’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice, and has served on several other IOM and IOM/NRC committees: training physicians for public health careers; measures to enhance the effectiveness of CDC quarantine station expansion plan for U.S. ports of entry; evaluation of the metropolitan medical response systems program; and research and development needs for improved civilian medical response to chemical or biological terrorism incidents. He also serves on the boards of Partnership for Prevention and Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. Dr. Benjamin is a graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He is board certified in internal medicine and is a fellow of the American College of Physicians. He is an IOM member.

Richard E. Besser, MD, serves as director of CDC’s Coordinating Office for Terrorism Preparedness and Emergency Response (COTPER), and is responsible for the center’s public health emergency preparedness and emergency response activities. COTPER is the primary CDC/ATSDR (Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry) organization tasked with oversight of terrorism preparedness, response and protection for the nation from biological, chemical, radiological, and naturally occurring emergencies. Dr. Besser began his career at CDC in the Epidemic Intelligence Service working on the epidemiology of food-borne diseases. He has served as the epidemiology section chief in the Respiratory Diseases Branch, acting chief of the Meningitis and Special Pathogens Branch in the National Center for Infectious Disease, and as the medical director of Get Smart: Know When Antibiotics Work, CDC's national campaign to promote appropriate antibiotic use in the community. Dr. Besser received his B.A. degree (economics) from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a residency and chief residency in pediatrics at the John Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

Kathryn Brinsfield, MD, is the medical director for Homeland Security, Boston EMS, for the Boston MMRS, and for the DelValle Emergency Preparedness Training Institute. She is co-chair of Massachusetts Surge Committee. She is also the supervisory medical officer for the International Medical and Surgical Response Team, and the Massachusetts–1 Disaster Medical Assistance Team. Dr. Brinsfield responded with these groups to Ground Zero on September 11th, as well as to numerous other deployments. She is an associate professor at the Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health. She graduated with honors from Brown University, received her M.D. degree from Tufts School of Medicine, and her M.P.H. degree from Boston University.

Lawrence Deyton, MD, MSPH, became chief public health and environmental hazards officer at the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) in January 2006.  He is also associate professor of medicine and of health policy at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he holds a weekly clinic at the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center, which cares for veterans with HIV, infectious diseases, and hepatitis C. Prior to his current VHA position, Dr. Deyton had served since 1998 as chief consultant for VHA’s public health programs, building policies and programs in HIV, hepatitis C, and emerging infectious diseases on behalf of health care providers and patients in the health system. Before that, he led research programs in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health for 11 years, formulated policy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health of the Department of Health and Human Services for 6 years, and served as a legislative aide with the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. Dr. Deyton is a graduate of Kansas University, the Harvard School of Public Health, and the George Washington University School of Medicine.

Jeffrey Duchin, MD, is chief of the Communicable Disease Control, Epidemiology & Immunization Section for Public Health – Seattle & King County, Washington, and associate professor of medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington. He holds appointments as adjunct associate professor in the schools of Public Health and Community Medicine and Health Services, and Faculty, Northwest Center for Public Health Practice. He is also the director of emergency response for the WAMI Regional Center of Excellence (RCE) in Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Research. Dr. Duchin trained in internal medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital followed by a fellowship in general internal medicine and emergency medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He did his infectious disease subspecialty training at the University of Washington. He is a graduate of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Epidemic Intelligence Service, assigned to the National Center for Infectious Diseases during which time he received the Outstanding Unit Citation for exemplary performance of duty, the Secretary’s Recognition Award for exceptional performance in the investigation of unexplained deaths associated with an outbreak of acute illness of unknown etiology in the Four Corners area of the southwestern United States, and the Achievement Medal, Department of Health and Human Services. Dr. Duchin subsequently worked for CDC as a medical epidemiologist in the Divisions of Tuberculosis Elimination and HIV/AIDS Special Studies Branch before assuming his current position. He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians and of the Infectious Disease Society of America (IDSA), where he chairs the IDSA’s Bioemergencies Task Force and is a member of the Pandemic Influenza Task Force. He is a liaison representative from National Association of City and County Health Officials to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Dr. Duchin was a member of the Department of Health and Human Services 2004 Tiger Team consulting with Government of Greece on health preparations for the 2004 Olympics, Athens, Greece. Since 1999, when the World Trade Organization Ministerial came to Seattle, he has been actively working to strengthen the ties between public health, clinicians and the health care delivery system and to improve the response of the health care system and clinicians to public health emergencies, including biological terrorism and pandemic influenza. He is active in local, regional and national preparedness planning activities for communicable disease emergencies, recently including pandemic influenza. Dr. Duchin’s peer review publications and research interests focus on communicable diseases of public health significance, and he has authored text book chapters on the epidemiology of HIV/AIDS, bioterrorism, and outbreak investigations.

Ellen P. Embrey is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Force Health Protection and Readiness in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. She oversees Department-wide efforts to develop and implement policies and programs relating to DoD deployment medicine, force health protection, national disaster support, and medical readiness for 2.3 million Service members. She directs her Health Affairs and TRICARE Management Activity staffs to proactively initiate policies and programs that address deployment-related health threats to the welfare of U.S. Service members and their families, as well as integrate medical lessons learned from previous conflicts into current policy, doctrine and practice. This dynamic process involves all components of the military health care system, emphasizing the relationship between military medicine and the fighting forces it supports. The health care policies and programs overseen or developed under Ms. Embrey’s direction have ensured the health care needs were met for the more than 1.4 million Service members who have deployed to Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom since 2001, as well as providing comprehensive deployment health information to their families. Before coming to Health Affairs, Ms. Embrey held a variety of senior and executive level positions in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs (OASD/RA) from 1987-2002, where she worked to ensure that the reserve components of the U.S. Armed Forces, which make up more than half of the U.S. military, were adequately trained, equipped and ready to serve when required. Prior to her OASD/RA assignments, Ms. Embrey held staff and management positions at the Defense Contract Audit Agency Headquarters (1981-1987) and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (1978-1981). She began her career as a management intern at the U.S. Civil Service Commission (1976-1978), following her graduation from Virginia Tech in 1976 with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Lynn Goldman, MD, MPH, is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Department of Health Policy and Management. She is a pediatrician and an epidemiologist who focuses on environmental health policy, public health practice, and children's environmental health. In 1993, Dr. Goldman was appointed as assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Prevention, Pesticides and Toxic Substances, and she served in that position for more than five years. Prior to joining EPA, Dr. Goldman served in several positions at the California Department of Health Services, most recently as head of the Division of Environmental and Occupational Disease Control.  She has served on numerous boards and expert committees, including the Committee on Environmental Health of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control Lead Poisoning Prevention Advisory Committee, and numerous expert committees for the National Research Council. She currently is Vice Chair of the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences and Chair of the IOM Gulf War and Health Study. Dr. Goldman has a B.S. in conservation of natural resources from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and an M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco. She completed pediatric training at Children's Hospital, Oakland, California.

James J. James, MD, DrPH, MHA, is the director of the American Medical Association’s (AMA’s) Center for Disaster Medicine and Emergency Response. He is responsible for managing and developing a comprehensive medical and public health program for AMA’s response to terrorism and other disasters. He works with the Department of Health & Human Services and state and local medical societies to share information, implement communications strategies, and coordinate medical and public health agencies’ response in the event of a terrorist attack or other sweeping disaster. Dr. James served as director of the Miami-Dade County Health Department from 2000 through 2002. In this role, he was responsible for overseeing public health programs throughout the county, and was instrumental in dealing with the anthrax-related incidents that occurred after the September 11th terrorist attacks. Under Dr. James’s leadership, Florida developed a comprehensive plan to respond to future bioterrorist events. He was appointed to Florida Governor Bush’s Domestic Security Task Force and as lead health agent for preparedness and response for Region 7, which encompasses the counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, and Monroe. During his tenure, the Miami-Dade Health Department was awarded the Governor’s Sterling Award in 2002, which is conferred on businesses and organizations in Florida to acknowledge performance excellence in management and operations. Dr. James served for 26 years with the U.S. Army Medical Department in a variety of roles, including surgeon general (Eight Army, United States Forces Korea) and commanding general (William Beaumont Army Medical Center). He is an epidemiologist and is board-certified in preventive medicine. He holds a doctorate in medicine from the Cincinnati College of Medicine and a doctorate in public health from UCLA School of Public Health. He also holds a master’s degree in healthcare administration from Baylor University. He attended the Armed Forces Staff College and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Harvey E. Johnson, Jr., MS, USCG retired Vice Admiral, became the deputy administrator and chief operating officer of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in April 2006 after serving as commander, Pacific Area of the U.S. Coast Guard, since June 2004. Mr. Johnson has a wealth of emergency and crisis management experience, including support to Admiral Thad Allen and the Coast Guard's Hurricane Katrina response efforts by coordinating and deploying West Coast resources. His operational experience includes various Coast Guard efforts, including search and rescue, freighter grounding, and vessel break-up and pollution response for the motor vessel Selendang Ayu and the tank vessel Seabulk Pride in Alaskan waters. In addition, he participated in multiple Naval War College, Lead Shield, and Rogue Vessel exercises in response to simulated maritime homeland security threats, and the management of hundreds of Coast Guard law enforcement, search and rescue, and pollution response cases in the Pacific. Prior to this assignment, he was the commander, Seventh Coast Guard District, and served as the director, Homeland Security Task Force-Southeast, where he directed Operation Able Sentry, the Department of Homeland Security's response to the crisis in Haiti. In addition to these duties, he served as the executive director of the Coast Guard's transition into the Department of Homeland Security, and director of operations capability and director of operations policy. Mr. Johnson received a B.S. degree at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1975.  He earned an M.S. degree at the Naval Postgraduate School in 1983, and an M.S. degree in management at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993.

Jerry Johnston, BA, REMT-P, is the emergency services (EMS) director at Henry County Health Center (HCHC) in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, a countywide all-ALS system. In addition to his duties in Henry County, he also manages a BLS/ALS/Critical Care transport service located in Burlington, Iowa, which is partly owned by HCHC. In 1998, HCHC EMS was the recipient of NAEMT’s Paramedic Ambulance Service of the Year award. In 2001, he was the recipient of NAEMT's William Klingensmith EMS Administrator of the Year award. He has been employed by private as well as hospital based EMS systems. While his current role is that of administrator, he has held positions of EMT-B, EMT-I, staff paramedic, training officer, EMT-B training program and continuing education coordinator, and paramedic instructor. He has instructed all levels of EMS providers, as well as BLS, ACLS, and PALS. Mr. Johnston serves on a variety of local, state, and national organizations and associations. He has presented at numerous regional, state and national EMS conferences. He is currently president of the National Association of EMTs, an organization in which he has served on the Board of Governors, Executive Council, and Board of Directors, and as treasurer and president elect. He is a past president of the Iowa EMS Association, was the first chair of NAEMT’s Pediatric Prehospital Care Executive Council, and is a past BLS national faculty member for the American Hospital Association. Mr. Johnston holds a B.A. degree in business management and economics, and is a nationally registered paramedic.

Robert Kadlec, MD, MTM&H, MA, is the special assistant to the President for homeland security and senior director for biological defense policy in the White House Homeland Security Council. Prior to his appointment, he was the director for Biodefense and Public Health at PRTM Management Consultants. Previously, he served as staff director for the Senate Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health, where he oversaw the drafting of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (PL 109-417). The law, signed by President Bush on December 19, 2006, improves the functioning of Project BioShield of 2004 and reauthorizes the Bioterrorism Preparedness Act of 2002. Before that, he served as director for BioDefense Preparedness and Response at the White House Homeland Security Council from February 2002 until March 2005, where he was responsible for coordinating medical issues pertaining to the threat of bioterrorism with the National Security Council and the Federal Interagency. He conducted the BioDefense End-to-End Assessment and was instrumental in drafting Homeland Security Presidential Directive 10, The National BioDefense Policy for the 21st Century. In his military career, he was assigned to the Joint Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, NC and the 16th Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, Florida. He also served in senior advisory roles in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy and the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Kadlec holds an M.D. and an M.T.M.&H. (tropical medicine and hygiene) from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; an M.A. in national security studies from Georgetown University; and a B.S. from the United States Air Force Academy. He is board certified in Aerospace and Preventive Medicine. He is a graduate of the Air War College.

Lynne Kidder is the senior vice president of Business Executives for National Security. She oversees all operations of the BENS Business Force, providing management support to BENS’ six regional public-private partnerships (New Jersey, Georgia, Kansas City, Iowa, the San Francisco Bay Area, and LA/Orange County in Southern California), and facilitating the development of new homeland security partnerships at the request of key stakeholders. Prior to joining BENS, Kidder served as the executive director of a non-profit business leadership organization in Northern California. Her previous experience also includes executive level management in state government, eight years as professional staff in the U.S. Senate, and corporate government affairs for Bechtel Corporation. She holds a B.A. from Indiana University, a Masters degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and did additional postgraduate study in public administration at George Mason University.

Michael G. Kurilla, MD, PhD, is the director of the Office of Biodefense Research Affairs and associate director for Biodefense Product Development for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). His primary role is to provide overall institute coordination for product development of medical countermeasures against bioterror threats. At the University of Virginia, he was an assistant professor of pathology as well as co-director of the Laboratory of Molecular Diagnostics and associate director for clinical microbiology. Dr. Kurilla moved to the private sector working in anti-infective drug development at Dupont Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Wyeth. He subsequently joined NIAID as a medical officer. In 2005, he was named to his current positions within NIAID. He received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He earned his M.D.-Ph.D. from Duke University. Dr. Kurilla took his postgraduate medical training in pathology at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Elliott Kieff at Harvard Medical School as a Life Sciences Research Foundation fellow, followed by a Markey Scholar Award.

James Lawler, MD, MPH, is director for Biodefense Policy for Medicine and Public Health within the Homeland Security Council. He coordinates the development of policies to prevent, protect, and respond to bioterrorism or naturally occurring biological threats, such as pandemic influenza, and to mitigate the medical and public health consequences of weapons of mass destruction. He is an active duty U.S. Navy Medical Corps officer, and simultaneously holds positions as assistant professor of medicine at the Uniformed Services University, principal investigator at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID), and attending physician in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the National Naval Medical Center. Prior to his White House assignment, Dr. Lawler was a physician and principal investigator at USAMRIID, where he directed and collaborated on research with viral and bacterial threat agents. He also served within the Operational Medicine Department as an instructor and subject matter expert for managing consequences of biological warfare. He is board certified in internal medicine and infectious diseases. He completed his fellowship in infectious diseases in DoD’s National Capital Consortium (National Naval Medical Center and Walter Reed Army Medical Center), and his internship and residency in internal medicine at the National Naval Medical Center. Dr. Lawler received an M.P.H. and a diploma in tropical medicine and travelers’ health from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He graduated from Georgetown University School of Medicine, and he completed his undergraduate education at Duke University, where he received a B.S. degree (engineering). 

Patrick Libbey is the executive director of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO), the national voice of local public health serving nearly 3,000 local public health agencies nationwide. Under his leadership, NACCHO works to support efforts that protect and improve the health of all people and communities by promoting national policy, developing resources and programs, seeking health equity, and supporting effective local public health practice and systems. Most notably, he is recognized for his work in the development of performance standards for public health practice. Prior to joining NACCHO in September 2002, he was the director of the Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department in Olympia, Washington. The department includes divisions of personal health and environmental health, as well as assessment, planning, and epidemiology; and social services, including mental health, substance abuse, and developmental disabilities. For more than 20 years, Mr. Libbey was responsible for a mixed urban, suburban, and rural population of 210,000, supervised 115 employees, and managed a budget in excess of $30 million. He currently serves on the National Association of Counties Homeland Security Task Force. In 1993, he received NACCHO's Award for Excellence in Environmental Health and was a co-recipient of the First Annual Jim Parker Memorial Award for Washington State's systematic incorporation of core functions in its public health system. In 2002, he again was a co-recipient of the Jim Parker Memorial Award for work in developing Washington State's public health performance measurements.

Jayne Lux is the Director of the Global Health Benefits Institute of the National Business Group on Health. Previously, she was the Director of Board Operations at the American Psychological Association where she oversaw the activities of the Board of Professional Affairs. She also served as the liaison to the World Health Organization for a collaborative project between the two organizations. Prior to joining the American Psychological Association, Ms. Lux served as a Senior Technical Officer at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland where she coordinated field trials in 18 countries for the development of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, a system used worldwide to describe human functioning in the context of health conditions. Additionally, she oversaw field activities in 19 countries for the development of a cross-culturally applicable measure of disability. Ms. Lux's earlier experience included four years at Washington University School of Medicine where she directed the Professional Development Office in the Program in Occupational Therapy. For the first ten years of her career, Ms. Lux was on staff at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington, DC where she practiced as a supervisory speech-language pathologist in the Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Programs. Ms. Lux is a member of the Global Health Council and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She earned Master and Bachelor of Science degrees in Communication Disorders from the Pennsylvania State University.

Margaret M. McMahon, RN, MN, CEN, is the editor of Disaster Management & Response, a journal of the Emergency Nurses Association, and is the emergency clinical nurse specialist at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center - Mainland campus, in Pomona, New Jersey. She has over 40 years of professional nursing experience in clinical, administrative, and educational roles settings, including active and reserve duty in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps, where she served as a nuclear, biological, and radiological defense officer. Ms. McMahon is a past president of the national Emergency Nurses Association, and has lectured and published extensively on disaster and emergency care topics.

Judith A. Monroe, MD, is chair of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) and vice chair of the ASTHO National Preparedness Policy Committee. In December 2006, she traveled to Israel with a delegation from ASTHO for preparedness training with the first international delegation in the history of ASTHO and the start of an ongoing exchange with that country. She was appointed in March 2005 by Governor Daniels as the Indiana state health commissioner and medical director of Medicaid, and is a member of the National Governors Association Health Care Practice Task Force and Center for Best Practices Healthy Communities Work Group. She is a family physician at St. Vincent Hospital, whose medical staff she joined in 1992, serving as director of the Family Medicine Residency Program and the Primary Care Center until 2005. Dr. Monroe was clinical director with the Department of Family Medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine from 1990 to 1992. From 1986-1990 she also served in the National Health Service Corps, providing health care in rural Appalachia, during which she was featured with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop in a documentary on the heath care crisis in America. She is chair of the Executive Board of Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation, and a member of the Boards of Indiana Health and Information Exchange, Area Health Education Cooperative, and Reach Out and Read. Dr. Monroe received her undergraduate degree from Eastern Kentucky University and is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. She did her post-graduate training at the University of Cincinnati, and is a fellow of the American Academy of Family Practice.

Erin Mullen, R.Ph., Ph.D., is the Assistant Vice President, Rx Response for the Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA).  She is responsible for overseeing and managing the Rx Response program, which is an information-sharing forum comprised of pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, hospitals, disaster relief agencies and state/federal government agencies to help support the continuing provision of medicines to patients whose health is threatened by a severe public health emergency.  Rx Response engages during a severe natural disaster, large-scale terrorist attack or a pandemic that disrupts the normal supply of medicines. Prior to leading Rx Response, Ms. Mullen has practiced pharmacy in a variety of settings: as a community pharmacist, clinical adjunct faculty with the Colleges of Pharmacy at the University of Florida and Florida A& M University, and disaster responder.  Ms. Mullen graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy with a B.S. in Pharmacy.  She earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Miami. 

Tara O'Toole, MD, MPH, is CEO and director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), and professor of medicine and of public health at the University of Pittsburgh. UPMC’s Center for Biosecurity is an independent organization dedicated to improving the country’s resilience to major biological threats. Prior to founding the center in 2003, Dr. O’Toole was one of the original members of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies and served as its director from 2001 to 2003. She has served on numerous government and expert advisory committees dealing with biodefense. In 2004, she was elected Chair of the Board of the Federation of American Scientists, and in 2006 she was appointed to the Board of the Google Foundation’s International Networked System for Total Early Disease Detection. From 1993 to 1997, Dr. O’Toole served as assistant secretary for Environment Safety and Health at the Department of Energy. Prior to that, she was a senior analyst at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, where she directed studies of the health impact of pollution resulting from nuclear weapons production, among other projects. Dr. O’Toole practiced general internal medicine in community health centers in Baltimore from 1984 to 1988. She is board certified in internal medicine and in occupational and environmental health. She has a bachelor's degree from Vassar College, an M.D. from the George Washington University, and an M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University. She completed internal medicine residency training at Yale and a fellowship in Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. At the National Academies, Dr. O’Toole served on the Working Group on Biological Weapons Control, and is currently serving on the Committee on Technical and Privacy Dimensions of Information for Terrorism Prevention and Other National Goals.

Gerald Parker, DVM, PhD, MS, is the principal deputy assistant secretary to the assistant secretary for preparedness and response. Since March 2003, he has been detailed to the Department of Homeland Security. During his career, he has held a variety of positions, including assistant deputy for research and development and research director for the Medical Chemical and Biological Defense Research Program at the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. In this role, he led joint service and interagency programs responsible for developing research investment strategies and sustaining unique capabilities to develop a broad range of medical countermeasures. He is a former commander and deputy commander of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, the lead DoD medical research laboratory for medical biological defense. In these positions, he directed the technology based research and development of vaccines, diagnostics, and drugs, along with the development of medical defense strategies and the training of health care providers against biological warfare agents and highly infectious organisms requiring special containment. Dr. Parker graduated from Texas A&M University with a B.S in veterinary medicine and a degree of doctor of veterinary medicine. He holds a doctorate in physiology from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, and an M.S. degree in resourcing the national strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces.

Steven J. Phillips, MD, has served as deputy director for research and education at NLM/NIH since 1999. He is also the principal advisor to the chairman for medical affairs at Global Security Institute. In 2002, he became a founder and the chief medical officer of Cardiovascular Hospitals of America, LLC. He retired from that position in 2001, but remains an NIH contractor. He has been the principal investigator for numerous research projects. Dr. Phillips has enjoyed a highly successful career as a board certified general and thoracic surgeon, and is a business entrepreneur who has established several important programs and laboratories, and has been granted six patents. He established a cardiac surgery program at the University of Oregon to Des Moines, Iowa, which today is the Iowa Heart Center, a private medical group with a highly profitable business that has grown to more than 55 physicians and 300 employees specializing in cardiovascular disease. He developed a funded cardiovascular research laboratory at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Iowa State University. During the past 30 years, his team has implanted the first artificial heart in Iowa, performed the first heart transplant in central Iowa, and invented the technology for percutaneous cardiopulmonary bypass. Dr. Phillips received the Governor of Iowa Science Medal for his scientific efforts and he served as the national science advisor to the Iowa Department of Health. He retired from active medical practice in 2005, but he has active medical licenses in Iowa and Colorado. He is a graduate of Hobart College and Tufts University School of Medicine.

Jeffrey W. Runge, MD, is the first assistant secretary for the DHS Office of Health Affairs. He is also the department’s first chief medical officer, for which he serves as the principal advisor to the secretary for public health and medical issues across the department. He is board certified in emergency medicine and holds the title of clinical professor of emergency medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At DHS, he is responsible for coordination with other federal departments and agencies and the Homeland Security Council on issues of biodefense and medical preparedness. From March to August 2006, Dr. Runge served as the acting under secretary for the DHS Science and Technology Directorate. In 2001, he was appointed by President Bush as the twelfth administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for the nation’s highway and vehicle safety programs.  Prior to this, he practiced and taught emergency medicine as assistant chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte. He was also the director of the Carolinas Center for Injury Prevention and Control, where he spearheaded injury prevention initiatives that were national in scope. His academic interest is in the field of trauma care and injury prevention. Dr. Runge earned his B.A. (magna cum Laude) in 1977 from the University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, and received his M.D. degree from the Medical University of South Carolina in 1981.

Phillip Schneider is president of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS). He also is executive Director of the Sun Safety Alliance, a non-profit coalition co-founded by NACDS and Schering-Plough HealthCare, with the mission of increasing public awareness of sun safety to reduce the incidences of skin cancer in the United States. Prior to his current position, he was vice president for external affairs and program development at NACDS. Mr. Schneider was vice president for public affairs for a group of five hospitals operating in Washington, D.C., from 1986 - 1991; director of public relations for the Dow Chemical Company from 1976 – 1986; and editor-in-chief of a daily newspaper in the state of Michigan from 1971 - 1976.

Roslyne Schulman, MHA, MBA, has been a senior associate director for policy development at AHA since January 1999. In this capacity, she is responsible for policy development related to hospital preparedness for disasters. She is the co-lead of the AHA’s staff team for hospital readiness and helps to lead AHA’s efforts in this area. Ms. Schulman is AHA’s liaison to CDC’s Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. In addition, she has primary policy development responsibility in a number of other areas, including the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act; Medicare hospital outpatient, physician, and ambulatory surgical center payment policy, and other Medicare Part B issues; Medicare contracting reform; rural health clinic issues; FDA policy issues regarding drugs, blood and devices; and other areas. Recently, she was principal investigator for AHA’s federal contract with the Health Resources and Services Administration on hospital implementation issues and solutions on Emergency Systems for Advanced Registration for Volunteer Healthcare Professionals, and served as an ex-officio member of the Hospital Incident Command System National Working Group. From 1992-1999, she worked for the American College of Emergency Physicians as regulatory representative, and from 1990-1992, she was a legislative assistant with the American Group Practice Association. Ms. Schulman received her M.H.A. and M.B.A. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1989, and her B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984.

Linda J. Stierle, MSN, RN, CNAA, BC, is chief executive officer of the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the American Nurses Foundation. In this capacity, she develops and implements programs designed to meet the vision and goals of the association. She was instrumental in the creation of ANA’s newest constituency for nurses in the uniformed services, the Federal Nurses Association (FedNA). In 2002, President Bush appointed her to a five-year term on the Board of Regents of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, on which she currently serves as vice-chair. She was a long-time member of the Texas Nurses Association until February 2000. Ms. Stierle retired as a brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps. She began her military career in 1970 as a staff nurse in intensive care. During her career, she held various clinical and management positions, including chief nursing officer at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, the Air Force’s largest medical center (1,000 beds) and at the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing Hospital, Royal Air Force, in Lakenheath, England. Ms. Stierle has both regional and national headquarters corporate experience. From 1995 until her retirement in 2000, she was assigned to Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C., as director, medical readiness, and was the twelfth Chief of the U.S. Air Force Nurse Corps. She is a member of the consumer advisory board of the American Academy of Family Physicians. She earned her M.S. in nursing from the University of California, San Francisco; her B.S. in nursing from Incarnate Word College, San Antonio, Texas; and a diploma in nursing from Spartanburg General Hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

Margaret VanAmringe, MHS, is vice president for Public Policy and Government Relations at the Joint Commission, and heads the Joint Commission’s Washington, D.C. office. She is responsible for developing strategic opportunities for The Joint Commission in both the public and private sectors. To accomplish this, Ms. VanAmringe works with health care professional organizations, government agencies, the Congress, consumer organizations and large purchasers of health care. The Washington office is office is the Joint Commission’s interface with the federal government and with public policy issues, such as patient safety, building a national health information infrastructure, emergency preparedness, and quality of care. It is also the office concerned with Medicare and Medicaid oversight of quality and its relationship to private sector accreditation; relationships with the Department of Defense; the Veterans’ Administration; and the Public Health Service agencies. Prior to taking a position with the Joint Commission, Ms. VanAmringe was director for research and dissemination and liaison at the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (now the Agency for Health Research and Quality) in the U.S. Public Health Service. There she established programs to communicate health services research findings to a wide array of professional and public audiences. She established the agency’s first health information dissemination program to bring practical information gleaned from health services research into the hands of consumers and their families, and to have more health services research information indexed into the National Library of Medicine. She also established an external grants program to explore effective methods for disseminating new medical information to physicians, and for changing medical treatment behavior to reflect evidence-based medicine. Between 1989 and 1990, Ms. VanAmringe was a legislative fellow in the office of the majority leader, Senator George Mitchell. From early 1987 through 1989, she held various positions in the Immediate Office of the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, including senior advisor, and acting deputy chief of staff. While there, she provided advice on the full range of social and health policy issues. Before joining the secretary’s staff, she spent ten years working in the Health Care Financing Administration (now CMS), DHHS, where she was Director of the Office of Survey and Certification, the component which was then responsible for developing health and safety standards for health care organizations reimbursed by Medicare/Medicaid, and for assuring that such federally funded entities met the government’s expectations for delivering quality care.  She also worked in the contractor oversight division that dealt with payment operations. Ms. VanAmringe holds a Master of Health Sciences degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Theresa L. Wiegmann, JD, is director of public policy and special counsel for the AABB (formerly known as the American Association of Blood Banks). She represents AABB before Congressional offices and federal agencies, where she advocates the interests of the transfusion medicine and cellular therapy communities on a variety of public health issues, including blood safety and availability, Medicare inpatient and outpatient reimbursement, patient safety initiatives, and disaster preparedness. Prior to joining the AABB in 1998, she practiced in a Washington, D.C., law firm specializing in Food and Drug law and health-related legislative and regulatory matters. Ms. Wiegmann received her bachelors degree from Duke University and her law degree from George Washington University.