February 14, 2022 – Today the Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) announced it has selected Dr. Yong-Bee Lim as its new Deputy Director of the Janne E. Nolan Center for Strategic Weapons (The Nolan Center). Dr. Lim had previously served as a Fellow at the Nolan Center.
Prior to joining CSR, he worked in different U.S. government agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Energy, and most recently at the Department of Defense. His work has covered a broad variety of topics that deal with WMD and highly-impactful risk spaces such as emerging and democratized technologies, as well as security concerns at the nexus of climate change, ecological insecurity, and biological threats.
In 2021, Dr. Lim received his PhD in Biodefense from George Mason University by doing a novel ethnographic study that looked at the Do-It-Yourself Biology community in the United States. The novelty of his work in this area reflects his unique bridge-building ethos and activities at the nexus of emerging technologies, innovation from nontraditional spaces, and biosafety and biosecurity.
“Yong-Bee has shown increasing leadership in his time at CSR, and we continue to value his depth of knowledge and experiences in the Nolan Center’s focus areas,” stated Christine Parthemore, the CEO of the Council on Strategic Risks and Director of the Nolan Center. “He also exemplifies the mentorship and collegiality that were core to Dr. Janne Nolan. I’m thrilled that he is taking on this role to help CSR perpetuate her values as we pursue our mission.”
“Yong-Bee has thrived in our CSR start-up culture,” said Senior Fellow of the Nolan Center, Andy Weber. “He is a driving force behind our efforts to take biological threats off the table through a deterrence by denial strategy. His leadership style is bold, creative, refreshing and fun.”
“When we founded the Council on Strategic Risks, it was people like Yong-Bee that we hoped would help fulfill the organization’s mission: forward-thinking, innovative, deeply knowledgeable, committed to anticipating and addressing systemic and underappreciated risks to security, and also just a joy to be around – enlivening Zoom meetings with his wit and wisdom,” said Francesco Femia and Caitlin Werrell, Co-Founders and former CEOs of the Council on Strategic Risks. “We couldn’t be more thrilled to see Yong-Bee continue to lead at CSR as Deputy Director of the Nolan Center. The center’s namesake, the late and great Janne Nolan, would be immensely proud.”
Dr. Lim had this to say about the opportunity to serve as the Deputy Director of the Nolan Center:
“As we enter the third year of a global pandemic, we continue to see how the existing biological threat detection, response, mitigation, and recovery capacities face major gaps: gaps that we must effectively address through a holistic approach to prevent future biological threats from not only natural, but also accidental and deliberate sources.
The Nolan Center is well positioned through its diverse and deep expertise, as well as its global networks of stakeholders from across all backgrounds and walks of life, to offer the research, analysis, recommendations, tools, and convening capabilities necessary to take decisive action across the entire spectrum of biothreats around the world.
It is my great privilege to be a part of this work, and I look forward to continuing the organization’s groundbreaking and critical work in this new leadership position.”
See Dr. Lim’s full bio here.
Read more about the Council on Strategic Risks here, and the Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons here.
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