15 Facts About Crystal Watson

Crystal Watson is a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering.

Crystal Watson is an expert in health security, biodefense, and risk assessment and preparedness for emerging infectious diseases.

Crystal Watson is currently working on the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Crystal Watson attended University of Colorado Boulder, where she received her Bachelor of Arts degree in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology in 2004.

Crystal Watson then joined the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in 2004.

Crystal Watson's thesis, entitled Risk-Based Decision Making During Public Health Emergencies Involving Environmental Contamination, centered on developing a framework to guide decision makers as they respond to contamination emergencies.

Since joining the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in 2004, Watson has focused her work on public health risk assessment, biodefense, and emerging infectious diseases preparedness and response.

Crystal Watson has since analyzed the public health response to a number of other outbreaks and health emergencies, including Dengue fever, Zika fever, and Ebola virus disease.

Crystal Watson worked to assess the Strategic National Stockpile, the United States' repository of antibiotics, vaccines, and other critical supplies needed to address chemical and biological threats.

Crystal Watson is a budget expert, analyzing the impact of proposed Federal budgets on public health preparedness and health security capacity.

Crystal Watson has been critical of proposed Presidential budgets that have reduced the ability of public health officials to effectively respond to health emergencies.

Early in the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, Crystal Watson warned that the downward trend of federal funding for state and local officials to prepare and respond to health emergencies would strain the healthcare system as the outbreak progressed.

Crystal Watson was a lead author on an April 2020 report from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Association of State and Territorial Health Officials that outlined a national plan to enable comprehensive contact tracing to identify COVID-19 cases and their close contacts.

Crystal Watson has suggested training those who were recently unemployed to become contact tracers and contribute to the mass effort.

Crystal Watson has noted that contact tracing efforts can leverage technologies like Bluetooth that can identify close contact with those infected with COVID-19 while still preserving privacy.