Tara O'Toole served as the Under Secretary of Homeland Security for Science and Technology from 2009 to 2013. She is currently a senior fellow and executive vice president at

In-Q-Tel In-Q-Tel (IQT), formerly Peleus and In-Q-It, is an American not-for-profit venture capital firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It invests in high-tech companies to keep the Central Intelligence Agency, and other intelligence agencies, equipped with ...

Background

Prior to her confirmation as Under Secretary (November 4, 2009), O'Toole founded, and served as chief executive officer and director of, the

Center for Biosecurity The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (abbreviated CHS) is an independent, nonprofit organization of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The center works to protect people's health from epidemics and pandemics and ensures ...

at the

University of Pittsburgh Medical Center The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is a $23billion integrated global nonprofit health enterprise that has 92,000 employees, 40 hospitals with more than 8,000 licensed beds, 800 clinical locations including outpatient sites and d ...

. Concurrently, she was a Professor of Medicine and of Public Health at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the univers ...

. She stepped down from her position as Under Secretary on September 23, 2013 From 2006 to 2007, she chaired the board of the

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who w ...

. In 2006, she was appointed to the board of the Google Foundation's International Networked System for Total Early Disease Detection. From 2001 to 2003, she directed the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. From 1993 to 1997, she served as the Assistant Secretary for Environment Safety and Health in the

Department of Energy A Ministry of Energy or Department of Energy is a government department in some countries that typically oversees the production of fuel and electricity; in the United States, however, it manages nuclear weapons development and conducts energy-re ...

. From 1984 to 1988, she practiced general internal medicine in community health centers in

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

Disaster response exercises

O'Toole is best known for her disaster response exercises. She was a principal author and producer of Dark Winter (2001) and

Atlantic Storm ''Atlantic Storm'' was a ministerial exercise simulating the top-level response to a bioterror incident. The simulation operated on January 14, 2005, in Washington, D.C. It was created in part to reveal the current international state of preparednes ...

(2005), both of which simulated a covert outbreak of smallpox in the United States. Many experts applauded these exercises for publicizing the country's surprising vulnerabilities, including a vaccine shortage. Critics charged that these exercises exaggerated the bioterror threat, leading to an unnecessary increase in the number of research labs. In her nomination hearing, O'Toole said that this controversy stemmed from her estimated "secondary transmission rate"; that is, the number of smallpox infections caused as a result of the initial infections. O'Toole claimed that her rate of 10 derived from "the available empirical data" and coincided with data from a 2001 article in the peer-reviewed journal, ''Nature''."The Pathology of Experimental Aerosolized Monkeypox Virus Infection in Cynomolgus Monkeys (Macaca fascicularis)," ''Nature'' (May 2, 2001)
/ref>

Education

O'Toole holds a bachelor's degree from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely foll ...

, an MD from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presi ...

, and a Master of Public Health degree from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

References

External links

Official biography

Congressional testimony for nomination as Under Secretary

WhoRunsGov.com profile
* {{DEFAULTSORT:OToole, Tara George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni Living people Physicians from Maryland United States Department of Homeland Security officials University of Pittsburgh faculty Vassar College alumni Year of birth missing (living people)