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February 28, 2019

Talk with Dr. Elizabeth Cameron: Integrating Different Perspectives in Global Health

By Vanessa Angelova

I was looking forward to attending Dr. Cameron’s talk because I was interested in hearing more about how her work in biology contributed to her later career. As a PhD student myself, I always want to know more about how others have chosen to apply their education after completing graduate school. Having these conversations will, in turn, help me make a more informed choice about my own career path.

In the beginning of her talk, Dr. Cameron emphasized the importance of pursuing the right opportunities when they arise. After taking a number of interdisciplinary classes in college, around the time when increasingly more people were talking about the Human Genome Project, she became really interested in the broader implications of science. Consequently, Dr. Cameron combined rigorous benchwork in genetics with an interest in bioethics in her PhD program.

I found this part of her talk especially meaningful because it made me think about how I want to structure my own graduate education. Pursuing a PhD at Georgetown University allows me to discuss the interactions between scientific discovery and public health with faculty and students, since I also want to frame my laboratory experience in the context of its significance. When responding to a question later in the talk, Dr. Cameron again underscored the importance of incorporating disciplines like bioethics and anthropology in thinking about biosecurity, in order to better understand the implications of research or health crises for global communities. To me, given how complex both biological and global health questions are, such steps seem proactive and can give scientists new perspectives.

Dr. Cameron then discussed extensively the beginnings of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) and the need for reevaluation of biosecurity preparedness in 2014. At the time, there was a deficiency in applicable and standardized metrics for preparedness, so the first step was designing these metrics. I found the most striking message of this story to be how collaborative the GHSA efforts needed to be. Different countries facilitated the discussion on particular issues, and many agreed to engage in external evaluations of their own practices. In my own education, I often think about metrics as well. A robust system of evaluation is crucial to making scientific discovery a global pursuit. I was, therefore, very interested in hearing about the extensive planning that goes into establishing metrics in a global alliance, especially given how countries oftentimes have different priorities and future goals. 

During the conversation with Dr. Cameron, I learned that global health security issues are multifaceted and require a wide-range of training. Approaching a global health crisis requires a grasp of the science behind it, as well as an understanding of the communities involved and of the assessment methods needed to anticipate the impact. Ultimately, this lesson translates to areas other than global health security as well.

Doctor Elizabeth Cameron is the vice president for global biological policy and programs at the Nuclear Threat Institute. Additionally, she has had an instrumental role in developing the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA). On February 19, 2019, she spoke during the Conversations in Global Health class about her training experiences and how they informed her career choices, as well as about the importance of developing metrics for maintaining biosecurity

Vanessa V. Angelova is a first-year Biology PhD student in Dr. Steven Singer’s lab in the Department of Biology.

This blog was written by a student in Georgetown’s Conversations in Global Health course, which brings leaders in global health to Georgetown to discuss their careers and work.