Emerging Leader Award

Jasmine Guillet currently serves as the Division Director of Health Safety and Training at the Massachusetts State Public Health Laboratory (MA SPHL) and is a recent graduate of the APHL Emerging Leader Program Cohort 17. In addition to serving on APHL's Biosafety and Biosecurity committee, she also serves in the regional APHL Northeast Environmental and Public Health Laboratory Directors Biosafety committee. She has more than two decades of laboratory experience as a Microbiologist in Mycobacteriology and Biological threat agent testing, from which she gained critical experience in BSL-2 and BSL-3 practices. 

Guillet coordinates various events among all sections of the public health laboratory, playing a critical role in keeping staff members safe and ensuring that testing and laboratory service is provided in a safe and secure facility. Because of her excellent incident management qualities, she was assigned the important responsibility to lead and coordinate all laboratory renovation activities between the Operations Division, the Laboratory Director, and the Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of infectious disease and Laboratory Science. She also serves as the Responsible Official for MA SPHL's Division of Select Agents and Toxins (DSAT) program. In this role, she performs a vital function of coordinating all Biosafety and Biosecurity activities in the laboratory as well as other incidents arising from the renovation project. 

Guillet has spearheaded the implementation of several processes and procedures at MA SPHL, including a respiratory protection program; a risk assessment program for HPAI, TB and rabies virus sequencing; first responder training for HAZMAT personnel; an mpox vaccination program; and all DSAT operating procedures. She continues to demonstrate extraordinary leadership qualities which she shares with colleagues of both committees as well as other partners.

The mantra "Sequence All the Things!" embodies Kelly Oakeson's approach to public health in his role as the Utah Public Health Laboratory's Chief Scientist of Bioinformatics and Next Generation Sequencing. Oakeson joined Utah Public Health Laboratory in 2016, bioinformaticians in public health laboratories were often working alone. Since then, Oakeson has been on the forefront of advancing sequencing technologies and genomics applications in public health to democratize access to high quality standardized bioinformatics pipelines and provide readily deployable solutions. Through connections with other bioinformaticians, he also helped establish the State Public Health Bioinformatics Group, aka StaPH-B, and he continues to be a Steering Committee Member. StaPH-B is a consortium of public health scientists interested in addressing the common barriers impeding bioinformatics implementation in state public health laboratories.

Oakeson holds multiple regional and national leadership roles in this field, including the Bioinformatics Regional Resource and Bioinformatics Training Lead for the Mountain Region, Agile Architecture Requirements Domain Lead for the AMD Platform, and is an instructor for the CDC AMD Academy. Notably, Oakeson, in collaboration with the Wyoming Public Health Laboratory, was the first Bioinformatics Training Lead to provide a hands-on long read sequencing and bioinformatics training for public health. He has worked diligently to bring new scientific talent into Public Health by serving as a selection committee member for the APHL Bioinformatics Fellowship for several years, along with serving as a mentor for two Bioinformatics Fellows in Utah who have continued on to public health careers.

In addition to these roles, he is an active contributor and committee member of the APHL Infectious Diseases Committee and APHL Food Safety Committee, serves as the Chair of the CDC/APHL Healthcare Associated Infections/Whole Genome Sequencing Working Group, and is a member of the CDC Next-Generation Sequencing Quality Initiative Technical Coordinating Committee.

Oakeson's significant contributions, mentorship, and leadership are exemplary of what an Emerging Leader in Public Health should be and merits the recognition that this award brings.

Emily McCutchen has worked for the Nebraska Public Health Laboratory since 2017, first as a molecular technologist, then as the supervisor for the Biology Section, and more recently as the manager for both the Biology and Chemistry Sections. Her rapid promotions at the laboratory occurred due to her strong leadership skills and her ability to work effectively with her colleagues.

Michael Perry began his public health career in 2010 as a research scientist in the Biodefense Laboratory in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health. He was promoted to associate director of the Biodefense Laboratory in 2017. In this capacity he supervises eight scientists who perform microbial and molecular techniques for the detection of select agents. Perry also serves as the principal investigator responsible for Food Emergency Response Network and Laboratory Response Network activities at Wadsworth.

Lauren Turner, PhD, has worked at the Virginia Division of Consolidated Laboratory Services for nearly 10 years beginning her tenure after completing her APHL-CDC Emerging Infectious Diseases Postdoctoral Fellowship. She currently serves as the Lead Scientist responsible for advanced molecular detection testing for the Commonwealth.

Turner is active in the APHL community providing expertise and consultation while also serving on several APHL working groups and steering committees. Due to her technical expertise, she often provides presentations at regional and national APHL conferences. Furthermore, she has actively sought opportunities to recruit and mentor APHL fellows and university interns, ensuring the training and development of the next generation of public health scientists.

Fayram was a CDC/APHL Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory Training Fellow from 2013-2014, where he received extensive training and experience in pathogens and emergency preparedness. He tirelessly devotes his time towards biosafety efforts and public health laboratory outreach, and plays an active role in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programming in local schools to help encourage student interest in these areas and promote the field of public health. He is currently the Chair of the SHL’s Safety Committee and a member of the University of Iowa’s Safety Committee, the Midwest Area Biosafety Network, the APHL Biosafety and Biosecurity Committee and the ABSA Public Health Committee. He has two peer reviewed publications related to the biology of Francisella tularensis and regularly volunteers to help with biosafety-related projects within Iowa and across the US through APHL and the various committees and workgroups he participates on.

Fayram has rapidly progressed in his career thus far; he is motivated, determined and empowers others through his natural leadership qualities. He has a strong and tremendous future in public health and has earned his recognition as an emerging leader within our community.