Saskia Popescu
Dr. Saskia Popescu is an infectious disease epidemiologist and global health security leader with expertise in global incident and outbreak response, preparedness for high-consequence diseases, pandemic preparedness and disaster response, biodefense, AI-bioweapons risk assessments, and bioresilience.
She has experience providing health security and geopolitical threat analysis across healthcare, private industry, think tanks, local and national government agencies, and global organizations. Her experience includes frontline healthcare response during COVID-19, building and leading the Netflix global health and pandemic response, supporting the WHO on COVID-19 protocols, bioweapons deterrence efforts through NGOs, and enhancing biosecurity policy implementation with RAND.
Saskia holds a PhD in biodefense, a MPH in infectious disease epidemiology, and a MA in international security studies. From frontline outbreak reasponse to operationalizing biosurveillance programs and strategies to address the AMR-security polycrisis, Saskia thrives in working in complex environments with diverse stakeholders. She is currently a term member within the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of PREZODE pillar 3 working group on spillover prevention, and an ELBI Fellow of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
Outside of work, she enjoys co-authoring publications with colleagues and teaching graduate courses at the University of Maryland. In her free time, you can find her walking her dogs, delving into a new book while crossing timezones, and serving as a movie trivia aficionado.