Dinner & Dialogue Hopkins Series: Building Community in Public Sector Professions with Joycelyn Tate, J.D., SAIS '05 (CERT) and Dr. Rashid Chotani, M.D., BSPH '96 (MPH)

Joycelyn Tate is a leading expert on digital equity with a record of developing digital equity advocacy strategies to advance racial and gender equity, civil rights, and social justice in the use of, access to, and ownership of technology. She is the founder and CEO of TS Strategies, and she is also the co-founder of Make Innovative Technology for Change (MakeIT4Change) Innovation Hub.

Joycelyn’s public service includes appointments to serve on the Communications Equity and Diversity Council at the Federal Communications Commission and as a board member of the Universal Service Administrative Company. She also served as a member of the U.S. delegation to the United Nation’s World Conference on International Telecommunications.

Joycelyn earned a Bachelor of Arts from Howard University, a Juris Doctor from Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, a graduate certificate of specialization from the Law and Technology Institute at the Columbus School of Law, and a graduate certificate in international studies from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Dr. Chotani has a career spanning over two decades as a preeminent figure in biodefense, infectious disease epidemiology, public health, and emergency management. He is an internationally recognized authority in medical countermeasure development, healthcare management, and diagnosis of human and zoonotic diseases, has received prestigious accolades such as the NATO Scientific Award for Counterterrorism, inclusion in Pakistan’s Honor List for his global COVID-19 work, and in 2022 received the Pride of Pakistan Medal of Honor from the President of Pakistan for his public health, humanitarian and charitable work. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic he led the missions in 6 states to vaccinate 1.7M people, treat over 80,000 with mAb, test over 400,000 and stand up two field hospitals. He has served as a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine & Public Health and; Adjunct Professor, at the George Washington University. Dr. Chotani has provided key leadership to the Chemical Biological Defense Programs as the Chief Scientist at the Joint Program Executive Office (JPEO), and the Joint Science & Technology Office’s (JSTO) for applied research and development projects focused on developing FDA-compliant therapeutics, vaccines and diagnostic devices.  In 1999, after finishing his fellowship in Hospital Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, he was selected as a DARPA postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory to develop the first Early Detection of Bioterrorism System. He completed a 2-year proof-of-concept challenge in 8 months, and then led to operationalizing the concept. Ultimately, this program became operational as ESSENCE at the DoD and was adopted by the CDC in their BioSense program. 

Currently, Dr. Chotani holds appointments as the Chief Medical Officer, IEM International; and Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.