Brenda Huneycutt, PhD, is a senior director at the Milken Institute, where she directs the expansion of MI Health programmatic work internationally across all MI Health portfolios. Prior to joining MI Health, Huneycutt was director of global regulatory policy at Merck and Co., focusing on shaping the regulatory environment for vaccines and infectious disease treatments and exploring regulatory flexibilities used during the COVID-19 pandemic. Previously, Huneycutt worked as director of regulatory innovation at FasterCures and as vice president of regulatory strategy and FDA policy at the consulting firm Avalere Health. Huneycutt has also worked as a patent attorney focused on biotech and pharmaceutical litigation and as a research scientist studying cell cycle control in yeast model systems. Huneycutt holds a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, a JD from the George Washington University School of Law, and a master’s in public health from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.