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Dr. David W. Siegrist, Research Fellow

Dr. Siegrist is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of Studies for Countering Biological Terrorism of the Institute's National Security Health Policy Center (NSHPC). NSHPC sponsors and participates in a series of studies, activities, and events that create a forum for the presentation and analysis of issues that help forge new linkages between the changing global and national health environment, technological capabilities, and the formulation of effective national health policies and strategies.

Most recently he has been the principal investigator for a project sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) to evaluate how effectively medical biosurveillance can support outbreak detection around the nation in an effort called the BioWatch Signal Interpretation and Integration Project (BWSIIP). The DHS BioWatch program maintains a series of environmental samplers in the top 30 metro areas to detect airborne pathogens that may be an indication of a terrorist attack. The analysis effort led by Dr. Siegrist is evaluating medical biosurveillance systems as a way to confirm or deny biosensor reports of a pathogen release. Dr. Siegrist is continuing to work closely and provide liaison with Health Departments across the country in support of BWSIIP, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles County, five cities and the state authority in Texas, and three cities and the state authority in Florida.

Dr. Siegrist is currently serving on the Technical Working Group for the DHS Biological Warning and Incident Characterization System. He has also served on an expert panel for the DHS Zophiel project on biodetection countermeasures, and has served as a biosurveillance evaluation expert in the past for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr. Siegrist has previously performed an evaluation and leadership role with the Bio-ALIRT medical intelligence program, in which he directed one of the first ever large-scale quantitative evaluations of the leading medical surveillance systems in the country. The complex study he led involved organizing and coordinating the efforts of over 50 representatives of eight organizations, including the CDC, IBM, University of Pittsburgh/Carnegie Mellon University consortium; Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory; Stanford University Medical Informatics; General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems; the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research; and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The competitive teams performed a temporal analysis of millions of de-identified historical medical records covering months of time across five metropolitan areas and monitoring, screening and fusing three data streams for initial signs of disease outbreaks that were consistent with the early symptoms of a biological attack. The evaluation was used by the Department of Defense to accept one of the systems (ESSENCE) into the military’s sustaining base. It was also instrumental to DHS in its selection of the RODS and ESSENCE systems to support the BWSIIP project.

Dr. Siegrist also recently led a biosurveillance architectures study for MIT Lincoln Laboratories in cooperation with Stanford University’s Medical Informatics group. The project is developing a simulation to characterize how quickly medical biosurveillance could be expected to detect a deliberate anthrax release. Potomac and Stanford’s initial results were presented at a national syndromic surveillance conference in November 2004.

Dr. Siegrist played a key analytical role in an in-depth study on new approaches to detection technology for chemical, biological radiological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Dr. David Kay led the study for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Dr. Siegrist coordinated his research and independently conceptualized and drafted the chapter on “WMD Data Fusion and Analysis.” In addition to the technical issues, Dr. Siegrist also assessed terrorist groups regarding their capabilities and intentions to develop and use weapons of mass destruction.

Dr. Siegrist previously managed all aspects of three studies at the Institute on biodefense supported by private foundations and government agencies, and been a leading contributing author. He directed a study for a private foundation on the most promising approaches for Technologically-Based Biodefense. The study features chapters on biosensors; information systems and interoperable communications; vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics; modeling and simulation; and the technology base. The first study was a collected volume in-depth study on the multi-disciplinary challenge of countering biological terrorism, including analyzing terrorist groups and capabilities to use biological agents. The second study was conducted in coordination with the National Defense University (NDU) and included sponsorship by the Department of Justice. It identified and prioritized advanced technology needs for biological terrorism consequence management using a tabletop exercise environment that featured operational users from Policy, Medical, and Public Safety fields. The Institute identified a number of developmental technologies and conducted a seminar game with users to prioritize needs and begin to develop a national investment strategy. Copies of HotZone’99 were ordered by a Department of Health and Human Services contractor to distribute to all the cities developing a Metropolitan Medical Response System for mass casualty care.

Dr. Siegrist previously served as a consultant to DARPA on biological terrorism threats in which he assisted in the development and transition of the Enhanced Consequence Management Planning and Support System (ENCOMPASS) information tool. ENCOMPASS has been used at the Inaugural, and was made available to the Joint Forces Command, the Third Fleet, and the Republic of Korea, among others.

Dr. Siegrist won the Institute’s President’s Award in 2002. He has been published in the Jane’s Defense Review and the Journal of Defense Research, and briefed the Defense Science Board. He has been interviewed on television and radio and by the CBS and ABC Evening News, NPR and various cable news shows, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Congressional Quarterly, London’s Guardian, Baltimore Sun, San FranciscoChronicle, the Voice of America, BBC, Australian National Radio, Radio Israel, Asahi Shimbun, Le Figaro, Corriere Della Sera newspapers; Nature magazine, National Journal, Photonics Spectra, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Environmental Health, Scientific American, The Scientist, etc. His research has been sited in publications by Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, NDU, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the USAF Air University, the Gilmore Commission on Domestic Preparedness, and others.