The School of Public Health’s Pandemic Center received a $900,000 grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to launch a program for mid-career professionals in Africa designed to provide specialized training on biological threat reduction policy. The three-year initiative is set to launch in summer 2026 and will include a 9–10-week online course and a yearlong fellowship.
“We’re really excited to work with talent on the African continent who will design and discuss public policy measures that can be implemented in their own region,” said Beth Cameron, co-leader of initiative, senior advisor to the Pandemic Center and professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice.
The program buildings on the Pandemic Center’s Biosecurity Game Changers Initiative — a pilot program launched in 2024.
The course will enroll up to 30 students with at least five years of post-graduate experience who are trained in the biological sciences, biotechnology, international security or public health.
Of those 30, at least five early- to mid-career professionals will be selected for fellowships with host institutions, which include the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science and the Biological Weapons Convention Implementation Support Unit. The fellows will spend a year with host organizations, working to design or implement a policy in practice.
The Pandemic Center was chosen for this grant because the initiative aligns with the Carnegie Corporation’s International Program’s emphases on “nonstate actors” and addressing rising biological threats, Omotade Akin Aina, senior program director in the International Program at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, wrote in an email to The Herald.
Through the grant, the philanthropic foundation hopes “to see long-term African-led and driven efforts to address these issues,” he added.
Wilmot James, a co-leader of the initiative, senior advisor to the Pandemic Center and professor of the practice of health services, policy and practice, will lead the initiative’s course with Cameron. James formerly served in South Africa’s Parliament between 2009–2017, including as Shadow Minister of Health.
The course will give students the opportunity to learn how to create policy solutions and “convince decision-makers to take the steps needed to address the public health crises that emerging biothreats cause,” according to class’s program materials sent to The Herald.
Cameron said the program intends to fill a gap in training for early- to mid-career professionals, noting that there are many technical experts and rising leaders across the African continent who may use the course and fellowship to enhance their skills and “become more effective as decision makers.”
The program also aims to build a “pipeline of decision makers” in Africa “that are more well versed in biological threat reduction,” Cameron said, adding that the continent is seeing an increase in biotechnology development.
“At the end of this program, what we hope is that, first and foremost, we will have built an effort that can be more sustainably rooted on the African continent for training the next generation of biosecurity decision makers,” she added.
