Shrestha Rath

Shrestha Rath is a member of the Safety and Security Committee at iGEM and was previously a Biosecurity Researcher at the Effective Ventures Foundation. She has been part of the Youth For Biosecurity Fellowship organised by the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) and has co-authored a report on existential risks from emerging technologies for the UN Office for Disaster and Risk Reduction (UNDRR). With interests in biosecurity and biotechnology governance, Shrestha and her team won the Sixth Annual Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition organised by the Nuclear Threat Initiative for their modular-incremental approach to verifying compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention. She has presented her work at the Global Health Security Conference and Regional Preparatory Meetings for the Biological Weapons Convention. In her past role as the Asian Regional Program Coordinator at iGEM, Shrestha actively led and promoted initiatives to improve awareness of synthetic biology and biological risk assessment amongst iGEM teams. Shrestha holds a Biological Sciences dual BS-MS degree from the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Bhopal, India.