Biography

Dr. Gronvall is a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is an immunologist by training.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, she led the Center’s ongoing efforts to track the development and marketing of molecular and antigen tests and serology tests, as well as the development of national strategies for COVID-19 serology (antibody) tests and SARS-CoV-2 serosurveys in the United States. She leads work on improving indoor air quality to reduce pathogen transmission, including guidance for K-12 schools, and is a public health advisor to the Baltimore City Public School system. She also has written about the scientific response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the contested origin of SARS-CoV-2, and the implications for national and international security.

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Dr. Gronvall is a member of the Department of State’s International Security Advisory Board, which provides advice about arms control, disarmament, nonproliferation, and national security aspects of emerging technologies. She is a member of the Novel and Exceptional Technology and Research Advisory Committee (NExTRAC), which provides recommendations to the Director of the National Institutes of Health and is a public forum for the discussion of the scientific, safety, and ethical issues associated with emerging biotechnologies. As of 2023, she is a member of the National Academies’ Forum on Microbial Threats.

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From 2010 to 2020, Dr. Gronvall was a member of the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee, which provided the Secretary of Defense with independent advice and recommendations on reducing the risk to the United States, its military forces, and its allies and partners posed by nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional threats. During 2014-2015, she led a preparatory group that examined the US government response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa as a case study for the Department of Defense’s strategic role in health security and made recommendations for future Department of Defense actions in response to disease outbreaks. She served as the Science Advisor for the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism from April 2009 until the Commission ended in February 2010. She has testified before Congress about the safety and security of high-containment biological laboratories in the United States and served on several task forces related to laboratory and pathogen security. Dr. Gronvall has investigated and presented policy recommendations on the governance of science to the Biological Weapons Convention in Geneva, Switzerland.