Meet Our Staff

Dr. Rocco Casagrande

Rocco Casagrande is a founder and current managing director of Gryphon Scientific. He holds a BA in chemistry and biology from Cornell University and a PhD in experimental biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From December 2002 to March 2003, Rocco worked as a United Nations biological weapons inspector in Iraq, where he participated in more than 50 inspections and acted as the chief of the U.N. biological analysis laboratory. In a prior post, Rocco led a team of biologists and engineers at Surface Logix, a Boston-based biotechnology firm, to develop and test real-time detectors for biological agents. In his most recent position, he led the homeland security practice at Abt Associates, one of the nation’s largest public policy research and consulting firms. He has published numerous articles on biological defense and has consulted on chemical and biological warfare and defense for several congressional offices and government agencies.

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Ms. Joan Mullen

Joan Mullen is a founder and current managing partner of Gryphon Scientific. With an undergraduate degree in economics, Joan interrupted her law school plans to take a job at Abt Associates, then a young firm designed by Clark Abt to bring the analytic techniques of the defense industry into civilian public policy decision-making. Over the next 35 years, she held almost every position in the organization, ultimately heading all of the firm’s domestic public policy practices. Under her leadership, domestic research and consulting nearly doubled, moving to $100 million in 2001. Joan launched many new practice areas, including a group devoted to law and criminal justice issues, behavioral health, clinical trials and epidemiology, and homeland security. Throughout most of her tenure at Abt Associates, she continued to manage projects and to publish on issues related to sentencing and incarceration. Joan now leads many of Gryphon’s strategic planning and workforce development  projects for biomedical, environmental, and human service organizations.

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Ms. Lauren Bell

Lauren Bell is a Senior Associate at Gryphon Scientific and has over 8 years experience with humanitarian assistance and disaster relief research. She received her Masters of Environmental Engineering and Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, focusing on national security and environmental policy. As an Associate at Gryphon, she leads projects ranging from assessing catastrophic event preparedness planning to planning and evaluating humanitarian assistance missions. Prior to working at Gryphon, Lauren was a Research Analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) where she deployed with and conducted analyses of several international humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations. In addition, she has been involved in both domestic and international avian influenza health exercises. Lauren also served as a subject matter expert to the US Department of Health and Human Services and the Navy Bureau of Medicine on issues such as pandemic preparedness, exercise planning, and disaster relief.

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Dr. Jennifer Byers Corbin

Since joining Gryphon Scientific in 2007, Jennifer has supported the federal government by providing evidence-based analysis in public health, biodefense and science policy. As a Scientist with the company, she has lead projects in health effects modeling, literature review, and risk analysis for several federal agencies including the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Health and Human Services. Her primary focus is currently on biological and radiological medical countermeasure modeling. Prior to joining Gryphon, Jennifer worked as a Recruiting Editor for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She has a bachelor’s degree in microbiology from Iowa State University and earned her PhD in biomedical science through the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at New York University School of Medicine.

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Mr. Frank Dolan

Frank is a Principal Consultant and the head of Gryphon Scientific’s Commercial Strategy practice serving biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical technology companies by building evidence-based commercialization plans.  He graduated from Western New England University with degrees in Leadership Management and Pre-Pharmacy.  Frank started his fifteen year career at Parke-Davis, became a charter member of Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America, served at Kos Pharmaceuticals, and most recently served in various leadership positions at Amylin Pharmaceuticals.  His experience spans multiple commercial roles with a focus on sales and marketing efforts of first-in-class product launches.  Frank frequently addresses industry events on the topics of innovative marketing channels and disruptive commercialization models.

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Dr. Ellie Graeden

Ellie Graeden, a Scientist with Gryphon Scientific, holds a PhD in Developmental Cell Biology from MIT and a BS in Microbiology from Oregon State University. Her previous research experience includes studies of cell shape change during vertebrate brain development, pathogenicity in Chlamydia spp., and antibiotic resistance in Salmonella typhi and typhimurium. Ellie’s focus at Gryphon is in infectious disease: modeling medical countermeasure efficacy; improving public health responses to outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics; and developing effective regulatory frameworks and defense against biowarfare agents. She has performed comprehensive analyses of dual-use biological research, characterizing virulence enhancement in human pathogens for the Department of Homeland Security, including an assessment of the current regulations and response systems for responding to threats from such pathogens. In addition, Ellie is modeling the contagious spread of threat agents and the effect of medical countermeasures on spread and casualties.

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Dr. Anna Kushnir

Anna Kushnir, a Scientist with Gryphon Scientific, holds a PhD in virology from Harvard University; her graduate work was focused on the role of cellular stress pathways in herpes simplex virus type 1 latency and reactivation. Following the completion of her PhD, Anna worked as a science writer and online community manager at Nature Publishing Group (NPG). In the course of her work at NPG, she contributed research highlights to select Nature reviews journals and wrote short featured articles for Nature’s Signaling Gateway, an online, peer-reviewed compilation of cellular signaling proteins, their functions and interactions. During her time at Gryphon, Anna has brought her extensive background in virology and well-honed scientific writing skills to research and write reports on rescue systems for various families of viruses, to develop taxonomy and sequence-based assays to classify novel and emerging pathogens, and to lead other projects relating to virological and microbiological subjects. She also leads Gryphon’s grant support efforts for small biotech and high-technology companies, in which she advises on grant strategy, researches, writes and edits grants for government funding agencies such as NIH and DoD.

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Ms. Jessica Drum

Jessica Drum, a Senior Analyst at Gryphon Scientific, has several years of analytical experience reviewing and assessing policy related to international security and nonproliferation. Jessica holds an MA in International Policy Studies with a Certificate in Nonproliferation from the Monterey Institute of International Studies. While at the Monterey Institute, she worked at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies as a Research Assistant evaluating critical open source literature on developments in Egypt’s nuclear and missile programs for publication. She also authored a paper for the Nuclear Threat Initiative titled: “Vying for Influence: Saudi Arabia’s Reaction to Iran’s Advancing Nuclear Program.” Following completion of her graduate work, Jessica went on to serve as a Nonproliferation Graduate Fellow with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) International Nonproliferation and Export Control Office. She concentrated on their Middle East portfolio, coordinating export control outreach and trainings with technical experts from the National labs, foreign governments and domestic partners. Prior to earning her MA, she studied Arabic for a year at the American University in Cairo. She also holds a BA from Colorado State University in Political Science.

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Ms. Jenna Groman

Jenna Groman is a Senior Analyst at Gryphon Scientific focusing on emergency preparedness, humanitarian assistance and disaster response. Jenna has a Master of Arts in Economics from Boston University and has completed graduate coursework at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Jenna has experience evaluating humanitarian assistance missions, including mission goals, requirements and approaches; writing emergency preparedness plans; planning and evaluating emergency preparedness exercises, including complex multi-jurisdictional exercises through the National Exercise Program; and analyzing domestic and international public health surveillance systems. She has worked with federal and local agencies, including the Department of Defense, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, and a variety of local health departments.

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Dr. Mark Kazmierczak

As a Senior Analyst, Mark Kazmierczak brings to Gryphon Scientific experience in food safety and microbiology. Mark earned a PhD in microbiology from Cornell University studying gene expression and virulence of the food borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes. He then worked at Harvard Medical School researching the human microbiota and its interactions with the immune system. Immediately prior to joining Gryphon, Mark was a Commissioner’s Fellow at the Food and Drug Administration in the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. While there, he developed a rapid molecular assay to identify strains of Salmonella, a leading cause of food-borne disease. As a fellow, he also studied policies and regulations of the FDA. At Gryphon Scientific, Mark is analyzing strategies for a food contamination detection system for the Department of Homeland Security.

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Ms. Kimberly Legrow

An Abt Associates alum with over fifteen years of experience in business operations, Kimberly supervises Gryphon’s accounting and administrative functions and provides management and logistical support to our projects. She is also an exceptionally capable ally for planning and managing meetings and conferences.

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Dr. Glen Noble

As Senior Analyst, Glen Noble brings to Gryphon Scientific ten years experience in medicinal chemistry and ten years experience in chemical database management. Glen holds a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and a BS in Pharmacy from the University of Illinois. After earning his PhD, Glen was recruited to work on developing novel organic synthetic methods at the University of Florida as a Postdoctoral. He received a fellowship at the Johns Hopkins University to work on the development of novel organic compounds as radiotracers useful for mapping receptors by Positron Emission Tomography. The University of Missouri offered him a postdoctoral to develop novel peptidomimetic radiopharmaceuticals. Glen was introduced to chemical database management at Eli Lilly and he refined his skills as registrar at GlaxoSmithKline. Before joining Gryphon Scientific, Glen was providing scientific support for the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease’s Anti-HIV/OI/TB database (ChemDB), a chemical structure-based database containing quantitative biological information on compounds tested against HIV and related opportunistic pathogens. Since joining Gryphon, Glen is using his medicinal chemistry and database management skills to assist Dr. Rush and her team in the development of the chemical and biological information contained in ChemDB.

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Dr. Margaret Rush

Margaret Rush holds a PhD in Biological Sciences in Public Health from Harvard University and a BS in Biochemistry and a BS in History from North Carolina State University. As a graduate student, Margaret designed and executed a high throughput screen to identify anti-malarial agents and characterized several novel families of small molecules discovered through her screening campaign. Margaret’s graduate research was supported by a fellowship from the Department of Homeland Security.

As Principal Investigator, Margaret is responsible for management of ChemDB HIV, Opportunistic Infection and Tuberculosis Therapeutics Database for National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. This comprehensive database is continually updated with information extracted from scientific literature on the structure and activity of compounds that have been tested against HIV, HIV enzymes or opportunistic pathogens. Working with SRA, Margaret is overseeing the redesign of ChemDB’s public face, http://chemdb.niaid.nih.gov, in order to improve functionality and ease of use. Margaret has built additional expertise at Gryphon in the areas of science writing and editing, disease outbreak modeling and biosecurity.

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