People

Claire Qureshi leads Sentinel Bio as our CEO, co-founder, and member of the Board of Directors. Claire brings more than 15 years of experience in leadership roles spanning biotech, global health, and strategy consulting positions.

As a Senior Director At Novavax, she co-led the company’s global alliances, including its partnerships with COVAX, CEPI, UNICEF, and PAHO for the international launch of Novavax’ COVID-19 vaccine. Before Novavax, she held leadership roles at the Office of the WHO Ambassador for Global Strategy and the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Health, co-leading efforts to finance and scale community health systems globally. Claire also spent time in the US Treasury, overseeing International Affairs, Terrorism & Financial Intelligence, and Tax Policy as a member of the Office of the Chief of Staff for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Claire began her career at McKinsey & Company, where she supported hospitals, health systems, and pharmaceutical companies. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and her B.A. from Yale University. She lives just outside of Washington, D.C.

Joshua Teperowski Monrad is Managing Director and co-founder of Sentinel Bio, leading our work on nucleic acid governance and ecosystem-building. Previously, Joshua spent two years leading the biosecurity efforts at a major philanthropic advisor, where he managed a substantial grantmaking program. Before that, he was a researcher and consultant with Oxford University and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

He has co-authored scientific articles cited more than two thousand times on topics ranging from biosecurity to epidemiology in leading journals including Science, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature Communications. He has also served as a peer reviewer on various journals, including the Lancet, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and npj Vaccines.

Joshua obtained his M.Sc in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the London School of Economics and his B.A. from Yale University. He lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Janika Schmitt is a Senior Program Officer at Sentinel Bio, leading our work on securing biology services like cloud labs, CROs, and pathogen repositories.

Previously, Janika was a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for Progress, where she worked on U.S. biosecurity and pandemic preparedness policy. Before that, she researched antivirals for her medical doctorate at the University of Cambridge and worked on a pathogen early warning system at MIT. She has held fellowships with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, the German Center for Infection Research, and Foresight Institute.

Janika is a licensed physician in Germany and studied medicine in Heidelberg, Oxford, and at Charité Berlin. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Toby Webster is a Program Director, leading Sentinel Bio's work to reduce risks arising at the intersection of artificial intelligence and engineering biology. 

Previously, he worked at RAND Europe on identifying, assessing, and addressing security implications of biological AI models, and a number of other biosecurity policy projects to inform policymakers in the US, UK, European Commission, and international bodies. Before that, he worked on the regulation of controlled substances as Director of Research at a British drug policy think tank. Alongside his previous roles, he practiced as an emergency medicine clinician.

Toby received his BA in Experimental Psychology from the University of Oxford and his MBBS in Medicine from King's College London. He lives in London, UK.

Emily Ge is Chief of Staff at Sentinel Bio, where she leads our communications and works with partners across the biosecurity field on comms strategy.

Prior to Sentinel, Emily was a consultant at Milltown Partners, where she worked with companies at the frontier of AI, robotics, and biology. She helped lead state and federal policy campaigns for major tech companies, launched AI startups from stealth, and advised biosecurity and AI safety organizations on media relations and science policy communications. 

Emily received her MSc in Modern Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Oxford and a double BA in Humanities and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations from Yale University. She lives in Oakland, CA. 

Gianluca Bangara is Operations Lead at Sentinel Bio, responsible for building the operational infrastructure that enables Sentinel's grantmaking and programmatic work to scale. 

He brings more than 15 years of experience in international operations, contract management, and organizational development across the nonprofit and global health sectors. Most recently, Gianluca served as Director of Global Operations and Corporate Secretary at Connexi, a Chemonics International subsidiary, where he built the organization's operational infrastructure across five countries. Prior to that, he held progressively senior roles at Pact and served as a Program Officer at FHI 360, supporting a $200M USAID nutrition program across 12 country offices.

Gianluca holds a BBA in International Business from George Washington University and is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP). He is trilingual in English, French, and Italian. A Washington, D.C. native, he lives in the city with his family.