Email Updates
Subscribe to Feeds
Under Secretary for Science & Technology Dr. Tara O'Toole, MD, MPH
Dr. O'Toole was sworn in as under secretary of the Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate at the Department of Homeland Security on November 12, 2009.
Created at the same time as the Department, S&T's mission is to strengthen America's security and resiliency by providing knowledge products and innovative technology solutions for the Homeland Security Enterprise. S&T's partners comprise the Department of Homeland Security's operational components; first responders; the private sector and other members of the Homeland Security Enterprise. As Under Secretary for S&T, Dr. O'Toole oversees the Directorate and serves as the science advisor to the Secretary of Homeland Security.
Dr. O'Toole is internationally known for her work on biosecurity and on health and safety issues related to the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. Prior to serving at S&T, Dr. O'Toole was the CEO and director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) and Professor of Medicine and of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh from 2003 to 2009. Prior to founding the UPMC Center, Dr. O'Toole was one of the original members of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies, serving as its director from 2001 to 2003. At both centers, she created independent organizations dedicated to improving the country's resilience to major biological threats.
Dr. O'Toole was a founding coeditor-in-chief of the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science. She was a principal author and producer of Dark Winter, an influential exercise conducted in June 2001 to alert national leaders to the dangers of bioterrorist attacks. She was also a principal writer and producer of Atlantic Storm, an international ministerial-level biosecurity exercise held in 2005. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as chair of the board of the Federation of American Scientists.
From 1993 to 1997, Dr. O'Toole served as assistant secretary of energy for Environment, Safety and Health. In this position, she was principal advisor to the Secretary of Energy on environmental protection and on the health and safety of the approximately 100,000 workers in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories. She developed the first overall management and safety plan for dealing with the highly enriched uranium, plutonium, spent fuel, and radioactive waste that had been left in place when nuclear weapons production was stopped in the early 1990s. She ran the multi-agency, multimillion-dollar task force that oversaw the government's investigations into human radiation experiments conducted during the Cold War. And she led the U.S. delegation to Russia to establish the U.S./Russia cooperative effort to study radiation exposure and environmental hazards of the Russian nuclear weapons complex.
Prior to her work at DOE, Dr. O'Toole was a senior analyst at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). Dr. O'Toole also practiced general internal medicine in community health centers in Baltimore from 1984 to 1988. She is board certified in internal medicine and in occupational and environmental health.
Dr. O'Toole holds a Bachelor's of Science from Vassar College, an MD from the George Washington University, and a Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. She completed internal medicine residency training at Yale and a fellowship in Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.
This page was last modified on February 10, 2011