Yong-Bee Lim is Associate Director on the Global Risk team. He is also a Visiting Scholar in the College of Global Futures at Arizona State University. Previously, he was the Deputy Director of both the Converging Risks Lab and the Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons at the Council on Strategic Risks. He has also worked in research positions at U.S. government offices, including at the Office for At-Risk individuals, Behavioral Health, and Community Resilience (HHS/ASPR), the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Center for Technology and National Security Policy (DoD), and at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DoE).
He is a recognized expert on convergence issues from WMD and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, additive manufacturing, and synthetic biology. He has also conducted ground-breaking work on understanding the risks and opportunities associated with the life sciences and technology democratization. His work also goes into spaces such as risks and opportunities in Bio x AI, Ecological x Biological security, and considering complex governance questions as governments, companies, and society try to find balance in a rapidly changing world.
He has also had the privilege of key fellowships and opportunities, including the John Hopkins Center for Health Security’s Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity Initiative (ELBI) in 2018, the inaugural cohort of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Editorial Fellowship in 2021, and was a speaker in the only open session of the 18th Annual NATO Conference on Arms Control, Disarmament, and Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Non-Proliferation in 2023.
Dr. Lim holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in Biodefense with a specialization in Terrorism and Homeland Security Studies from George Mason University. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the same institution.