On Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA) Appointment
Jessica A. Bell is a senior director for NTI’s Global Biological Policy and Programs team (NTI | bio). In this role, she leads the Global Health Security Index, an assessment and benchmarking of 195 countries and their national health security capacities. Jessica is also responsible for NTI | bio’s advocacy efforts, promoting data-driven decision-making around concrete steps to enhance leadership and resources for biosecurity, biosafety, and global health security.
Prior to joining NTI, Bell served as a senior advisor to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, where she helped to shape CTR’s strategic messaging, engage key stakeholders across the nuclear, chemical, and biological threat reduction communities, and coordinate congressional and departmental requirements. She also served in a Booz Allen leadership role supporting the Biological Threat Reduction Program, where she assisted in the development of programmatic guidance, threat-reduction metrics, and requirements documentation while also managing a large team of global health specialists.
At Booz Allen, Bell consulted for multiple offices within the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs. She also served as an operational research and development team member of ‘Project Argus,’ a disease-prevention initiative at Georgetown University focused on detecting catastrophic biological events on an international scale.
She holds an M.S. in Biohazardous Threat Agents and Emerging Infectious Diseases from Georgetown University, a B.S. in Forensic Biology from West Virginia University, and certifications as a Change Management Advanced Practitioner, a Project Management Professional, and an ICAgile Professional.
Despite significant steps taken by countries to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, all countries remain dangerously unprepared to meet future epidemic and pandemic threats.
The first comprehensive assessment and benchmarking of health security and related capabilities across the 195 countries that make up the States Parties to the International Health Regulations.
The GHS Index highlights individual country needs, boost compliance with international standards, and create better understanding of global capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to biological threats.
