Michelle Holko is a strategic innovator who works at the intersection of biology, technology, and security. She recently served as a Principal Architect and Scientist at Google, where she worked on healthcare and science solutions with Google Cloud Public Sector. Previously, Holko was a Presidential Innovation Fellow (PIF) and worked with various government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the Department of Defense (DoD) Chemical and Biological Defense Program (CBDP), the NIH’s All of Us Research Program, HHS Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and the National Security Council (NSC). Holko also worked at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and HHS BARDA’s Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe) before joining the PIF program. In addition, Holko was a fellow in the 2018 cohort of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security’s Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative and served as a Staff Scientist at NIH’s NCBI, where she worked to promote re-use and re-analysis of biomedical research data.
Holko’s technical expertise lies in genomics and bioinformatics, and she has experience in research and development of capabilities for pandemic prevention and preparedness, infectious diseases, cancer, biosurveillance, biosecurity, data science, emerging technologies, digital health technologies, precision medicine, cybersecurity, and machine learning/artificial intelligence. She currently serves as the Director of U.S. Markets for Airfinity, a leader in disease forecasting and intelligence, and is building strategic alliances for UCSF’s Quantitative Biosciences Institute. Additionally, Holko is a PI at the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley.
