Melinda Hamer MD, MPH serves as Operating Partner at GHIC, leveraging expertise in medical, clinical, biodefense, and US government biomedical research domains to help drive value for the organization and investment strategy via operational and strategic support to portfolio companies and strategic engagement with government and private sector partners. She previously served as Deputy Director at Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, and at the Department of Health and Human Services, BARDA. She also served as Director of the Clinical Trials Center at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and was principal and associate investigator for more than 20 FDA regulated and other clinical trials, including multiple first-in-human vaccine trials and the largest in history controlled human malaria challenge trial. Dr. Hamer served as a U.S. Army flight surgeon and is a board-certified emergency physician, and an Associate Professor in the Department of Military and Emergency Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. She received an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, completed residency in emergency medicine at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and holds an MPH from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.