JENNIFER ALTON

PRESIDENT

ELLEN CARLIN

VICE PRESIDENT

Ellen Carlin is a policy expert in emerging infectious disease, zoonotic pathogens, and policy opportunities to prevent pandemics. Her work in health security is deeply rooted in the science of the problems her work seeks to address. She has worked for the U.S. government, in clinical veterinary medicine, and in field settings in Africa on efforts to advance human and animal health for nearly two decades.

As a consultant, Ellen helps clients develop their policy priorities, execute advocacy plans, draft major proposals, and publish scientific and strategic communications pieces. She specializes in science writing for both technical and lay audiences and analysis of information critical to science policy development. In addition to her applied policy work, she is also actively engaged in scientific studies and believes working across sectors and disciplines allows her to better understand how each can better serve one another.

Education and Previous Work

Ellen received a Bachelor of Science in biology from the College of Mount Saint Vincent and a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine from the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

Her work has long explored the epidemiological underpinnings of infectious disease and opportunities for policy interventions to prevent and manage infectious outbreaks. She began her policy career with the U.S. Congress working on national security threats. From 2007-2013, she staffed the Ranking Member and then Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, where she covered a broad portfolio that included medical preparedness, biodefense, and science and technology. This position began as a congressional science policy fellowship through the American Association for the Advancement of Science-American Veterinary Medical Association. In 2013, Ellen completed an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education fellowship at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Center for Veterinary Medicine where she worked on antimicrobial resistance policy. In 2014, she became a founding staff member of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense and served for several years as co-director of the Commission.

Ellen is also lecturer at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine and previously held a faculty position in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Georgetown University. In 2023, she published the book, Catastrophic Incentives: Why Our Approaches to Disasters Keep Falling Short (Columbia University Press), with co-author Jeff Schlegelmilch. She is a member of the District of Columbia Medical Reserve Corps. She maintains her license to practice veterinary medicine and has worked or volunteered as a small animal clinical veterinarian to serve her interests in animal welfare, public health, and parasitology.

Ellen's top 5 StrengthsFinder themes are: Harmony, Intellection, Learner, Input, Relator

LISA K. BERNHARDT

SENIOR ADVISOR

Lisa Bernhardt has 29 years of experience in the Federal budget process and is the founder of LKB Strategies, a consulting and government relations firm providing insight, advice and policy solutions to the public health community.

Lisa spent 19 years as a Professional Staff Member and appropriations expert for the U.S. Senate Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Subcommittee. She was instrumental in every aspect of the development, consideration, and passage of regular appropriation bills, emergency supplementals and disaster relief bills. Lisa’s expertise cuts across a broad range of Federal public health programs, including: disease control and prevention, substance abuse and mental health, emergency preparedness, and health services research (CDC, PHSSEF, AHRQ, SAMSHA). She managed, and provided oversight for, over $13 billion in Federal public health programs relating to chronic disease, immunizations, global health, substance abuse, mental health, bioterrorism and emergency preparedness.

Among her many accomplishments, she negotiated, and has overseen the implementation of, major public health funding initiatives such as CDC’s Global Health Security Agenda, Combating Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria (CARB), pandemic influenza preparedness, as well as the creation of major opioid prevention and treatment programs at both CDC and SAMHSA.

She has been at the forefront of evidence-based policy; she conceived of and initiated a new funding set-aside to the Community Mental Health Block Grant for individuals with early serious mental illness utilizing research results from National Institute of Mental Health. She also oversaw creation and implementation of an evidence-based Teen Pregnancy Prevention program in conjunction with the establishment of the Office of Adolescent Health.

Prior to working in Congress, Lisa spent 10 years with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, working on budget formulation, execution and legislative proposals. She received her Master’s degree in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She graduated from Georgetown University Magna Cum Laude with a B.S. in Foreign Service.

Justin Yang is a Senior Advisor at Pathway Policy Group. Justin is a Maryland native and has 10+ years of experience in science and technology development for the Department of Defense and Department of Health and Human Services.

During his time in Federal service, Justin held leadership positions at the Uniformed Services University (Chief of Research Administration, Infectious Disease Clinical Research Program) and at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures.

Justin has managed a portfolio of biomedical life science research programs ranging across many disciplines (HIV, Influenza, STI, Antimicrobials, Diagnostics, Devices, Digital Health). During his time with BARDA, Justin successfully completed 3 advanced development programs culminating with FDA approvals (Achaogen Plazomicin™, Cue Health In-Home Diagnostic, Lucira Health In-Home Diagnostic). He also worked across the interagency serving on the Operation Warp Speed and BARDA COVID-19 Incident Management Team. He represented BARDA on the National Biodefense Strategy creation and implementation and launched BARDA Ventures, the first ever venture capital investment fund out of HHS in 2021.

Justin serves as an expert in Government funding and procurement due to his background as an interagency reviewer for grants and contracts (DARPA, DTRA, NIH, BARDA). He advises companies on government and private sector financing and funding strategies, primarily helping to raise either private equity financing or successful applications to the US Government for non-dilutive support.

Justin earned his Master of Business Administration (MBA) from East Carolina University, College of Business, and Bachelors of Science degree from the University of Maryland. 

MATTHEW HEPBURN

SENIOR ADVISOR

Dr. Matthew Hepburn recently completed his tour as the Senior Advisor for the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response.  Previously, Dr. Hepburn was the Chief Medical Officer, Joint Program Executive Office, CBRN Defense, after completing an assignment as the Senior Advisor to Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for pandemic preparedness. Additionally, Dr. Hepburn was the Vaccine Development Lead for the Countermeasures Acceleration Group (CAG), formerly known as Operation Warp Speed, a partnership between the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense (DoD) founded in May 2020 to help accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines. Prior to this position, Dr. Hepburn served as the Joint Project Lead of Enabling Biotechnologies for the Joint Program Executive Office for CBRN Defense. In this role, he was responsible for establishing a start-to-finish capability to develop vaccines and therapeutic solutions against current future biological threats. Due to the creation of this foundational capability, the team implemented the DoD Vaccine Acceleration Project, which provides key investments to advance vaccines and antibody therapeutic efforts, with special emphasis on acceleration of manufacturing these products and clinical trials. Dr. Hepburn served 23 years in the United States Army as an infectious diseases physician, retiring as a Colonel. His final assignment was as a Program Manager at DARPA (2013-2019).

Concurrent with the first two years at DARPA, Dr. Hepburn also served on the research and development team at the newly Research, Development and Acquisitions Directorate at the Defense Health Agency. From 2010-2013, he served as Director of Medical Preparedness on the White House National Security Staff. Additional assignments have included Chief Medical Officer, Level 2 Treatment facility in Iraq (2009-2010), for which he earned a Bronze Star.

Prior to deployment, Dr. Hepburn was Clinical Research Director at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (2007-2009), leading domestic and international clinical research efforts on biodefense products. This role entailed extensive service with the Cooperative Threat Reduction program in the republics of the former Soviet Union. Col. Hepburn was also an exchange officer to the United Kingdom (2005-2007) and internal medicine chief of residents at Brooke Army Medical Center (2000-2001) at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

Dr. Hepburn completed his infectious disease fellowship and internal medicine residency training at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. He received his medical degree and undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from Duke University.