Cassandra Kelly-Cirino is Director of Emerging Threats at the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND). She joined this organization in 2017 with over 20 years of experience working in Canadian and US public health and private sector settings.
Most recently, Cassandra was responsible for multiple initiatives to bring simple collection and stabilization solutions to the global public health and outbreak response fields at DNA Genotek.
She has supported the development of public health policy for infectious diseases with a focus on emergency response and preparedness. Other achievements of her career have involved developing novel diagnostic assays for multiple pathogens and she has served as a development partner for commercial companies developing novel tools to combat infectious diseases.
Cassandra began her career at the Canadian National Microbiology Laboratory where she worked on emerging infectious diseases. As Deputy Director of the Biodefense Laboratory in the New York State Department of Health, she completed a PhD in immunology and infectious diseases and developed vaccine and passive immunotherapeutic candidates for anthrax infections.