22 April 2024 Press Release 

Brown Pandemic Center “Game Changers”: New Fellowship Offers Ground-Breaking Opportunity for Biosecurity Leadership Training

Applications now open for new fellowship training “Game Changers,” the next generation of health security leaders

PROVIDENCE, RI - The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health is launching the Biosecurity Game Changers Fellowship, to train and network “Game Changers,” the next generation of leaders who will be responsible to make decisions and develop policies and programs to prevent and prepare for worst case scenarios. 

The Pandemic Center is partnering with global change-making and normative organizations to offer this opportunity, which includes a fellowship rooted in operational experience and implemented in parallel with targeted training workshops. In 2024, the first year of the fellowship, up to ten fellows will be selected from early- to mid-career biosecurity professionals in Africa and the United States.

The fellowship builds on a new curriculum developed by the Pandemic Center to drive its “Game Changers” course offered at the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, RI and, this fall, at the Pandemic Center’s office in Washington, DC. “Pandemic Game Changers, Preparing the Next Generation of Decision Makers for Emerging Biological Threats” provides students a new and unique opportunity to take on the role of pandemic decisionmakers by learning from biosecurity and public health experts.

At the Pandemic Center, this effort is being led by Senior Advisers and Professors of the Practice Beth Cameron, PhD, and Wilmot James, PhD.

“Through the Biosecurity Game Changers Initiative and 2024 Fellowship opportunity, we aim to begin to fundamentally change how biosecurity leaders are trained and to help them build the global networks they will need,” said Cameron.

Said James: “Next generation health security leaders will be making decisions about globally consequential biological threats and pandemic risks, and must be  internationally networked and highly capable of envisioning, preparing for, and preventing biological emergencies.”

The Biosecurity Game Changers fellowship seeks to provide next generation decision-makers with the skills and abilities to:

• Quickly assess emerging biological risk scenarios and identify actions to prevent, detect, and respond more quickly.
• Deeply understand different types of emerging biological risks (e.g., naturally occurring outbreaks, laboratory accidents, deliberate biological weapons use.)
• Take recommendations and put them into action in governmental and non-governmental contexts, nationally and internationally.
• Develop and pitch options and solutions to senior leaders.
• Complete an impactful project focused on prevention and preparedness for worst case scenarios – in partnership with leading global institutions focused on biosecurity, biosafety, and/or pandemic preparedness and response.

Each fellow’s project will be conducted in collaboration with a partner institution. The project will be focused on a specific aspect of improving biosecurity, biosafety, and/or pandemic preparedness and response. 

In 2024, operational placement opportunities will include: 

• The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) 
• The International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS)
• The Pandemic Action Network (PAN)
• Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (Gavi)
• The Biological Weapons Implementation Support Unit (BWC ISU)
• The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health
• Additional placement options to be determined

The Biosecurity Game Changers Fellowship is being implemented by the Pandemic Center in partnership with collaborating institutions focused on solutions at the intersection of biosecurity and global health, including CEPI, IBBIS, the Pandemic Action Network, the BWC Implementation Support Unit, and Gavi, and in consultation with international and normative entities, including the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization Global Health Emergency Corps.

Job parameters, application requirements and submission information are available at: https://apply.interfolio.com/144652. The application deadline will be May 29, 2024. Successful candidates will be interviewed virtually beginning June 3, 2024 and all applicants will be notified of final selections no later than the first week of August. Questions may be directed to gamechangers@brown.edu.