Stephen Tarnacki

Stephen Tarnacki

Stephen Tarnacki

Stephen Tarnacki

Stephen Tarnacki

Stephen Tarnacki has been supporting federal agencies for over 20 years in a vast range of CBRN Consequence Management projects. After serving 10 years in the US Army in CBRN defense, he returned to the public sector supporting CBRN logistical and technical support activities. Some of his key roles have been supporting the National Guard WMD Civil Support Teams at the consequence management support center and the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) CBRNE Response Team (CRT). At Gryphon, Mr. Tarnacki manages CBRN technical, logistics, and training management support activities for PFPA/CRT. He’s a subject matter expert in CBRN COTS equipment life cycle management.

Stephen is a craftsman who works in wood and clay. He’s made countless gifts ranging from retirement shadow boxes to hand sculpted statues of emergency responders in hazmat suits. 

Louise Sumner, MPH

Louise Sumner, MPH

Louise Sumner, MPH

Louise Sumner, MPH, has supported federal agencies on projects to improve public health for over a decade, with a particular interest in biosurveillance, emerging infectious disease, and population health. Her work has focused on the interplay between biology and human behavior with the goal of developing evidence-based disease models, risk assessments, and surveillance applications. Her work in population health has included chronic and infectious disease epidemiology, and evaluations of healthcare needs following an outbreak or attack. Ms. Sumner holds a BS in Biology from the University of Virginia and an MPH concentrating in Epidemiology from Harvard University.

Dance with our star, Louise, a competitive ballroom dancer specializing in “Latin” (cha cha, rumba, samba, paso doble, and jive) and “Standard” (waltz, tango, foxtrot, quickstep, and Viennese waltz).

Glen Noble

Dr. Glen Noble

Dr. Glen Noble

Glen Noble

Dr. Glen Noble

Dr. Glen Noble brings to Gryphon over 20 years of experience in medicinal chemistry and 17 years in chemical database management. Dr. Noble holds a PhD in medicinal chemistry, and his research interests include developing radiopharmaceuticals useful for mapping biological receptors. Dr. Noble was first introduced to chemical database management at GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly and Company. At Gryphon, Dr. Noble supports NIAID’s ChemDB database, a chemical structure-based database containing quantitative biological information on compounds tested against HIV, tuberculosis and other related opportunistic pathogens.

You’d expect an incredibly methodical data base manager to like crossword and jigsaw puzzles. But his love of Sci-fi and fantasy books breaks the mold.

Laurel MacMillan

Laurel MacMillan, MS

Laurel MacMillan, MS

Laurel MacMillan

Laurel MacMillan, MS

Laurel MacMillan, MS is a statistician with extensive experience in statistical inference and computing problems. Since joining Gryphon in 2016, Laurel has worked on a diverse range of health-related research, including differential diagnosis of infectious diseases, spatially explicit disease risk in the US, and biological changes resulting from acute radiation exposure. Laurel’s graduate research focused on the development of novel statistical methods to share error in sequential multiple hypothesis problems. Laurel holds a BA in mathematics from the University of Virginia and an MS in statistics from American University.

Laurel is a puzzler, long-distance runner, and super fan of The Lord of the Rings. She is also an avid student of Italian – going on a 2000+ day streak on Duolingo. 

Froggi Jackson

Dr. Froggi (Shawn) Jackson

Dr. Froggi (Shawn) Jackson

Froggi Jackson

Dr. Froggi (Shawn) Jackson

Dr. Froggi (Shawn) Jackson brought a unique blend of experience in environmental and biomedical sciences when she joined Gryphon in 2013. With an undergraduate degree in marine science from Duke, Froggi earned a PhD in Virology from Harvard, studying HIV vaccine immunology in animal models. She combined her interests in immunology, virology, and marine biology in post-doctoral studies of anti-viral immunology in fish, sharks, and frogs, with an emphasis on viruses important to the aquaculture industry. At Gryphon, Froggi has expanded her expertise, leading a variety of studies of chemical and biological risk assessment.

Froggi is a real-deal “soccer mom”. When she’s not ferrying around 2 boys, she’s kicking the ball herself, refusing to give in to age and injury. The supply of dark chocolate in her office may or may not be directly related.

Mikaela Finnegan

Mikaela Finnegan, MPH

Mikaela Finnegan

Mikaela Finnegan

Mikaela Finnegan

Mikaela Finnegan holds a BS in biology from the University of Virginia and is currently pursuing her MS in epidemiology from George Washington University. Joining Gryphon in 2013, she has supported many disease risk assessments and decision-support tools and has gained experience in the curation and standardization of data to support those projects. Her primary interests lie in emerging infectious diseases and neglected tropical diseases.

Mikaela is an American and English football fan and a die-hard Potterhead who can tell you everything about the Harry Potter series. She knows all the rules of Quidditch and wishes she could travel with capacity enhancing extension charms.

Kent Duke

Kent Duke

Kent Duke

Kent Duke

Kent Duke

Kent Duke comes from a strong military background with 22 years’ experience as a logistician, 5 years in hazmat management and 10 years as a hazmat first responder. He then became a Government contractor for Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) logistical and technical support activities on military installations throughout the United States, Japan and Korea. Currently Mr. Duke is the Operations technical and logistics support lead for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA) CBRNE Response Team (CRT).

Kent is a history buff and former Civil War Reenactor who portrayed a Union Soldier in parades and small skirmish battles. He also taught the public about Civil War history as a living historian

Audrey Cerles

Audrey Cerles, MS

Audrey Cerles, MS

Audrey Cerles

Audrey Cerles, MS

Audrey Cerles graduated from Cornell in biological sciences with a concentration in microbiology and holds an MS in food safety from Michigan State University. Joining Gryphon in 2013, she has supported efforts in various fields, including risk assessments of emerging infectious diseases and emerging biotechnologies. She also worked on a vulnerability assessment of critical food additives and holds a special interest in food and agricultural safety and defense.

Audrey is a scuba diver interested in shipwrecks and marine megafauna. Despite diving alongside many sharks, she’s only ever been bitten by a damselfish.

Grace Adams, MS, CHP, CIH

Grace Adams, MS, CHP, CIH

Grace Adams, MS, CHP, CIH

Grace Adams, MS, CHP, CIH is an experienced health physicist with a particular interest in developing models of radioactive and nuclear effects to inform national security and emergency response plans. With a BS in nuclear engineering from RPI and an MS in Radiation Health Physics from Oregon State University, she joined Gryphon in 2013 where she has investigated the consequences of radioactive fallout on critical industries, developed new models to assess the inhalation risk of radionuclides, and estimated the consequences of nuclear detonation on a variety of environments—projects all designed to improve the nation’s preparedness and response to radiological and nuclear events. Grace became a Certified Health Physicist (CHP) in 2019.

Grace is a self-professed “okay” cook (that others might describe differently), an avid biker, and has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the tv-series Futurama.