Dr. Susan Monarez

Different entirely.

And the AAAS, the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellowship, sort of came to my attention.

And it was such a unique opportunity to be part of a group of scientists that joined the federal government.

And they bring that technical depth and complexity, and then they go and help to support policy and science in the federal government.

And I was very, very fortunate to be placed in BARDA when BARDA was just standing up.

Development Authority.

Just, it was a brand new agency.

I think there were seven people on the floor.

I mean, it was tiny at the time.

And I had the opportunity to apply really deep technical science to the portfolio.

We had just been given $5.6 billion through the Project Bioshield Act.

And to be able to make a determination of how do you actually allocate those resources to have the greatest impact to prevent disease and illness from

whether it was intentional use of CBRN or whether it was emerging infectious diseases.

And so, you know, that was such an amazing experience.

And so I worked there for a while.

And then, you know, I went to another ARPA.

I went to the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency.

And that's really where I started to get deeply involved in anticipatory data analytics, AI, ML.

And that was back in 2009.

And at that time, we were working in the