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On the defense Armed with a Ph.D., a young scientist makes a career switch to working with the U.S. military.
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COURTESY OF EMILY OVERHOLSER
ly from what [another] person decides,” dent contractors, not government emuring her second year of graduate she says. “Learning the scientific methployees.” school at the Johns Hopkins Uniod and being able to ask the right quesAs a research staff member of IDA’s versity School of Medicine, Emily Overtions have really helped me.” Operational Evaluation Division, Overholser knew that handling Eppendorf Overholser received a B.S. from Butholser works on three projects. The first tubes wasn’t her calling. She wanted ler University in 1998. As a graduate one involves the acquisition of chemical more interaction with people than she student at Johns Hopkins University, she and biological instruments for the Penexperienced by working at the bench. studied the infection of the simian imtagon. The second project, for DHS, So, after obtaining her Ph.D. in 2004, provides risk and litigation protection to munodeficiency virus (the macaque monOverholser accepted a position at the key version of HIV) in astroInstitute for Defense Analyses cytes, a specific type of brain (IDA). cell. However, during her job At IDA, Overholser works interview at IDA, Overholser with the various branches of was surprised to learn that it the U.S. military in the Dewasn’t only her research in partment of Defense (DOD) microbiology that landed her as well as the Department of the interview. Her undergradHomeland Security (DHS) to uate minor in journalism had assess their analytical instrucaught the eye of the person ments and procedures. And reviewing résumés for the posishe knows she’s made the tion, because it indicated that right decision in making the Overholser probably had excelmove. lent communication skills, as “You can’t talk to tubes well as scientific expertise, to very well!” she says. “I enjoy offer. sitting in on meetings and Making the switch from rewatching the interactions besearch to IDA posed a steep tween different branches of the learning curve. “The biggest military and different branches problem I had was the acroof the government.” Putting instruments through their paces. Overholser stands in front nyms. The sheer amount of IDA, a nonprofit corporaof the tents in which different branches of the military subjected acronyms [in the military] is tion, was established in 1958 RT-PCR machines to various field tests. ridiculous. I thought bioloto administer three federally gists were bad,” Overholser chuckles. companies working on antiterrorism funded research and development cenTo further confound matters, she says, technologies, such as biosensors. The ters that help the U.S. government ad“What one acronym means to one perthird, associated with DOD, oversees dress national security issues. In particthe effectiveness of systems and the safe- son may not necessarily be what the ular, IDA focuses on the security issues same acronym means to another person. ty procedures at chemical weapons dethat require scientific and technical That’s always difficult. I have had to militarization facilities. expertise. “I’m one of the few biololearn to speak up and ask for the full Overholser knows that her scientific gists,” Overholser says. “The majority definition of the acronym!” training has been critical for the job. “I of people [at IDA] are physicists, engiFor the project involving instrument think the most important thing I’ve carneers, and chemists. We evaluate some acquisition, Overholser provides supried over is how to ask the right quesof the programs at the Pentagon. IDA port to the Director of Operational tions. You have to be able to look at employees work for the U.S. government, but they are considered indepen- something empirically and independent- Testing and Evaluation (DOT&E) at © 2005 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
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Overholser the Pentagon. DOT&E oversees all of the operational testing at DOD. For a given type of instrument, the Pentagon acquisition staff picks several vendors to showcase their technologies. The vendors compete for the military contract. After a vendor wins the contract, its instrument goes through developmental and operational testing. IDA’s members support DOT&E by observing and analyzing the operational testing of the instrument. Overholser is currently assessing realtime PCR (RT-PCR) machines as biological weapons detectors. She must determine whether the instrument chosen is best suited to the U.S. military’s needs. Certain features of the instrument are critical, such as portability. “If the troops are out in middle of the desert, they need to be able to set up a small lab” to process any samples that come in, she explains. The instrument’s durability is also tested to ensure it can tolerate being tossed around or flown on a military plane. Overholser recently went to a site near San Antonio, Texas, to observe the performance of an RT-PCR machine under test conditions. Seventy people representing all the military services—Army, Marines, Navy, and Air Force—were present. The vendor was not allowed on the site because the instrument’s performance had to be independently assessed by IDA personnel and the other service test agencies. “We were out in tents and little trailers,” says Overholser. “It was pretty hot when we were down there!” Overholser and a colleague oversaw the testing of the instrument as the different military services set up their labs and performed the assigned tasks. “They had to isolate DNA from various ‘things’ that they were given,” she says. Once the DNA was isolated, it was run through the RT-PCR machine, and the data were collected. The testing of the instrument took 13 days for 12 hours each day. The first 3 days were a pilot test to make sure the setup would run as planned. The remaining 10 days were the full-fledged operational testing of the RT-PCR machine by the military. Overholser says that her role 292 A
knows that her scientific training has been critical for the job.
was to “keep my ears out to hear what might be going wrong with the system . . . [and] make sure everything gets reported that should get reported.” When the two-week testing period was over, Overholser was left with a nasty head cold and a pile of data to sift through. “We know what the machine was supposed to find,” she says. “And we know what it found. We now have to go back and calculate specificity and sensitivity data.” Overholser must take into account the number of false positives and false negatives in the data to assess the performance of the instrument. Several reports will be written that include data generated from the test. “First, the services have to write up their report. So, the Army, Navy, Air Force, and the Marines all get together and write one report. They will deliver that to my sponsor, the Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation, and that’s when he’ll write the beyond low-rate initial production report that gets sent to Congress. Then a full-rate production decision may be made by the acquisition decision authority,” explains Overholser. On the basis of all the assessments, the services will decide whether the instrument is ready for military field use. Occasionally, an instrument must undergo further development and testing after the reports are issued to meet the military’s requirements. Overholser says that she will probably participate in instrument tests about once a year. “These chem–bio systems have a quick turnover because the technologies are already out there. If you were working in a program like the F-22s or one of these fighter jets, you would have initial operational test and evaluation once in 10 years.” Overholser’s second program is associated with DHS. Congress introduced the Support Anti-terrorism by Fostering
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Effective Technologies (SAFETY) Act in 2002. The act was established to provide risk and litigation protection to vendors that develop antiterrorism technologies and companies involved in the supply and distribution chain. Overholser is the technical evaluation administrator for the instruments based on biological applications, such as microbial detectors. “We take the evaluation very seriously. We don’t want just to give blanket protection to everybody. We make sure that the [technology] works,” says Overholser. “We find reviewers for the applications and then give DHS the findings as to whether or not the reviewers think the technology will work, whether or not it’s effective, whether or not it will prevent or deter terrorism.” The third program Overholser is working on is the chemical weapons demilitarization program. In 1997, the U.S. and 65 other countries signed the Chemical Weapons Convention. The convention prohibits the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. Because of the enormous amounts of money involved in the program, Congress mandates that DOT&E perform an independent analysis of the procedures put in place at the chemical weapons demilitarization facilities. “Any time a facility . . . opens up for the destruction of some of these chemicals, they send me out to the site to observe the testing of their facilities and systems that they use,” Overholser says. When Overholser is at a facility, the staff undergoes a series of mock contingency exercises. She assesses the steps that they would take in the event of an agent release or an accidental exposure of a staff member. She says, “It’s interesting, because I didn’t come from a background dealing with [chemical weapons], just to see the technological advances that they are using and the amount of manpower. There are probably 300 people working at a plant at a time to maintain operations.” Overholser’s enthusiasm shows that she doesn’t regret her decision to turn away from the bench. “I love my job. It’s fantastic!” she exclaims. “It’s the best job ever!” a —Rajendrani Mukhopadhyay
