Vice President, Global Biological Policy and Programs
Expertise Biosecurity
Jaime Yassif serves as Vice President of NTI Global Biological Policy and Programs (NTI | bio). In this role she oversees NTI | bio’s work to reduce global catastrophic biological risks, strengthen biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, and drive progress in advancing global health security.
Prior to this, Dr. Yassif served as a Program Officer at the Open Philanthropy Project, where she led the initiative on Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness. In this role, she recommended and managed approximately $40 million in biosecurity grants, which rebuilt the field and supported work in several key areas, including: development of new biosecurity programming at several leading think tanks; cultivation of new talent through biosecurity leadership development programs; initiation of new biosecurity work in China and India; establishment of the Global Health Security Index; development of the Clade X tabletop exercise; and the emergence of a new discussion about global catastrophic biological risks.
Previously, Yassif was a Science and Technology Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she focused on oversight of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and East Asia security issues. During this period, she also worked on the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) at the Department of Health and Human Services, where she helped lay the groundwork for the WHO Joint External Evaluations and the GHSA Steering Group.
Yassif’s previous experience includes work with Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance, Chatham House, NTI, the Federation of American Scientists and the Tsinghua University Institute for International Studies.
She holds a Biophysics Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, an MA in Science and Security from the King’s College London War Studies Department, and a BA in Biology from Swarthmore College.
Testimony of Jaime M. Yassif, Ph.D. before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation. Hearing on “Biosecurity for the Future: Strengthening Deterrence and Detection.” Wednesday, December 8, 2021.
A new NTI | bio report released today on the sidelines of the Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of States Parties, “Strengthening Global Systems to Prevent and Respond to High-Consequence Biological Threats,” outlines actionable recommendations for the international community to bolster prevention and response capabilities for high-consequence biological events.
NTI | bio convened senior leaders from around the world for a scenario-based tabletop exercise designed to identify gaps in global capabilities to prevent and respond to high-consequence biological events.
Rapidly assessing origins of high-consequence global biological events
Establishing an international Common Mechanism for DNA Synthesis Screening
Safeguarding modern bioscience and biotechnology so it can advance and flourish safely and responsibly
Preventing global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRS)
Advances in biotechnology outpace national governments’ ability to provide needed oversight to prevent accidents or deliberate misuse of dangerous biological agents.
