Our Team

Dr. Jacob Swett is an expert and leader in the fields of biosecurity and nanotechnology. As the Executive Director and founder of Blueprint Biosecurity, he spearheads efforts in technological and policy interventions for pandemic prevention.

Previously, Jake co-founded altLabs, a research non-profit focused on advancing biosecurity technologies, and was the Chief Technology Officer and Vice President for an early-stage startup developing novel biosensors interfacing semiconductor electronics with synthetic biology. He served as a consultant to the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense and worked for several years at Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center as a Research Scientist on nanotechnology and biomedical applications. Jake has had fellowships with the Foresight Institute, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and the Council on Strategic Risks, where he focused on topics from biosurveillance to health security to mitigating biological weapons.

With a PhD in Nanotechnology from the University of Oxford, Jake’s research encompassed molecular diagnostics, nanoelectronics, and biosecurity innovations. He has contributed to over 60 articles and patents and authored op-eds for the New York Times and STAT. Jake’s academic background includes Bachelor’s degrees in Physics and Applied Mathematics from Missouri State University, with minors in Astronomy and Environmental Physics technology.

Siobhan Brenton is the Chief Operating Officer at Blueprint Biosecurity, where she oversees the organization’s business operations, HR, finance, communications, and stakeholder development. Siobhan brings over seven years of operational experience across project management, strategic development, finance, and grantmaking logistics. In her most recent role leading operations at Rethink Charity, Siobhan spearheaded the development of their fiscal sponsorship program to provide operational support to new initiatives while they focus on their core missions. She has a passion for implementing solutions to complex problems and has helped launch multiple charities in the US and Canada.

Siobhan received a Bachelor’s in Nutritional Biochemistry from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Masters of International Public Health from the University of New South Wales.

Carly Tryens supports senior leadership at Blueprint Biosecurity as well as advancing operational priorities and fostering the organization’s culture. Carly has more than six years of experience in a wide range of operations roles. Previously, she supported the executive team at Alvea, a vaccine development startup that set the record as the fastest biotech company to move a new drug from idea into a Phase 1 clinical trial. There, her responsibilities extended beyond executive support, ranging from managing legal operations to office management.

Previously, Carly served as Associate Director for Housing Operations at Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where she led a team of 11 professionals and over 50 student workers through large scale and quickly evolving processes. These events involved meticulously orchestrating 1,500 students into campus life while adhering to social distancing, testing and contact tracing protocols and sensitively handling student needs regarding gender, financial, and medical concerns through various committees. Observing the pandemic’s effects on the microcosm of on-campus student life motivated Carly to redirect her operational skills towards pandemic prevention.

Her academic background is in art from The Fashion Institute of Technology, where she studied Illustration and Fashion Design.

David Carel is the Priorities Lead at Blueprint Biosecurity where he designs and spearheads the core strategy for arriving at new Blueprints for especially promising biosecurity interventions, leads expert interviews, and develops key technical partnerships to carry out our work.

David has spent the last decade building and supporting nascent, fast-growing organizations that aim to solve some of society’s most pressing problems. In 2012 he co-founded Panorama Education, a Y Combinator-backed data analytics startup that currently helps tens of thousands of public schools across all 50 states answer critical questions about student experience and growth, school climate, parent engagement, and educator professional development. David then lived in South Africa for several years where he helped create and run Funda Wande, an organization that works closely with the government to design, evaluate, and scale early grade literacy and math interventions. Immediately prior to joining Blueprint Biosecurity, David served as the Data Director for a US Senate campaign and helped grow a new philanthropy and incubator for innovative political strategies.

David received a Bachelor’s in economics from Yale College and studied Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the University of Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship.

James Montavon is a Research Analyst at Blueprint Biosecurity, where he conducts research on Far-UVC germicidal light to suppress transmission of respiratory pathogens.

James previously served as a specialist for Colorado’s Communicable Disease Training Team, designing and delivering trainings on topics such as measles, viral hemorrhagic fever, and highly pathogenic avian influenza. His previous experience includes wastewater pathogen testing, timely infectious disease modeling, contact tracing, and university biosafety. Prior to his work in communicable disease, James worked in judgment and decision making psychology and served in the US Marine Corps.

James has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Masters of Public Health in Epidemiology from the Colorado School of Public Health.

Richard Williamson is Program Director at Blueprint Biosecurity, where he leads the Blueprint project on the use of Far-UVC germicidal light to suppress transmission of respiratory pathogens. Richard has over ten years of management and leadership experience in the private sector across strategy consulting, finance, strategic sourcing, and operational supply chain. Most recently he was Head of Technical Operations at Alvea, a vaccine biotech startup, where he was also a member of the R&D leadership team.

Richard led strategic sourcing teams at two of the UK’s largest supermarkets, which involved diving deep into complex value chains and re-engineering optimal supply chains based on those findings. When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, Richard saw first hand the profound disruption that pandemics bring to the essential infrastructure we rely on every day. Motivated by this experience, Richard decided to take the expertise he developed in the private sector and turn to biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. In September 2022, he published Pandemic prevention as fire-fighting at Works in Progress, laying out an approach to pandemic prevention that takes inspiration from the progress made in preventing great city fires.

Richard has a Bachelor’s degree with first class honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Oxford.

Rose Hadshar is a Senior Researcher at Blueprint Biosecurity, where she conducts interdisciplinary research into a range of fields to address complex questions and problems in biosecurity which guide Blueprint Bio’s priorities.

Previously, Rose researched strategic and practical questions in AI governance, modeling future scenarios and using empirical data to bound uncertainty and generate potential interventions. Before her work as a researcher, Rose worked in a diversity of different roles, including as a project manager at an Oxford Institute, a translator of German history books, and a charity consultant. The combination of these gained skills and experiences has prepared Rose to disentangle, analyze and model the most promising interventions in biosecurity.

Rose has a Bachelor’s degree with first class honors in History from the University of Oxford, and a Masters in History from the University of York.