Pandemic Center
Research Associate Andrea Uhlig smiles at camera while posing in front of a wood textured background.

Andrea Uhlig

Research Associate
andrea_uhlig@brown.edu

Biography

Andrea (Andy) Uhlig (she/her/hers) is a research associate and began working at the Pandemic Center in 2023. Her work primarily focuses on tracking disease outbreaks, better understanding outbreak response, and learning about disease surveillance systems globally. Prior to Brown she worked as a Senior Research Assistant at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Environmental Health and Engineering Department, focusing on researching non-animal alternatives in toxicology studies and creating policies for non-animal methods. Andrea received her MHS in Environmental Health Sciences and a certificate in Public Policy and Risk Assessment in 2019. She completed her undergraduate degree from James Madison University in Public Health Education in 2018.

Recent News

Daily Maverick

Peace-driven science rises from the ashes of apartheid-era bioterrorism

With Project Coast’s records destroyed or missing, researchers estimate that its lead officer, Wouter Basson, led a team of about 20 scientists and 145 employees at the height of its operations. He recruited and carefully selected his science team largely from Afrikaans-language universities, was a persuasive and skilled manager, and put allegiance to a racial killing programme ahead of his ethical obligations as a physician.

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Daily Maverick

How Mbeki’s NPA failed to hold Wouter Basson accountable

In Part Four of our six-part series, legal missteps, political caution, and evidentiary hurdles allowed Project Coast’s mastermind to walk free.

Nelson Mandela stepped down as president of South Africa on 13 June 1999. He wanted to set an example on the African continent and disrupt its tradition of having lifetime heads of state.

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Daily Maverick

How apartheid biological weapons programme emerged from the dust of World War 2

The second of six parts on the apartheid-era biological programmes that went by the benign name of Project Coast – a covert endeavour representing some of the worst practices in building and dismantling a biological weapons capability responsibly. Profound lessons can be learnt about how to – and how not to – govern high-consequence projects.
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Daily Maverick

Apartheid’s covert operation that built and dismantled SA’s biological weapons programme

The first of six parts on the biological programmes that went by the benign name of Project Coast – a covert endeavour representing some of the worst practices in building and dismantling a biological weapons capability responsibly. Profound lessons can be learnt about how to – and how not to – govern high-consequence programmes.
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The Conversation

We study pandemics, and the resurgence of measles is a grim sign of what’s coming

In the three decades between 1993 and 2024, measles in the U.S. was relatively rare – a few hundred cases each year, at most. But suddenly, the disease has become so entrenched in American life that it sometimes fails to make headlines when a new outbreak erupts.

As of March 2026, measles has been continuously circulating around the U.S. for more than a year, starting with an outbreak in Texas that lasted from January to August 2025. Before that outbreak was declared over, an outbreak on the Utah and Arizona border began in August and is ongoing. An outbreak in South Carolina began in September, drastically increased in January 2026, and continues.

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