Dr. Ashley Piper, research microbiologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, is the Defense Health Agency Research & Development-Medical Research and Development Command’s first Employee of the Quarter award for 2025.

FORT DETRICK, Md. – In the future, biodefense will rely in part on military medicine assets from the Defense Health Agency Research & Development-Medical Research and Development Command to protect Warfighters from current and future threats. Some of those assets are people such as Ashely Piper, the command’s first Employee of the Quarter for 2025, who dedicates herself to advancing emerging research.

As a research microbiologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases’ Viral Pathogenesis Branch, Piper is part of a nearly 60-year history of the institute detecting and defending against current and emerging biological threats. The research that Piper conducts for the institute helps make DHA R&D-MRDC a leader in global health security and in regions where Warfighters are often deployed.

“Ms. Piper’s exceptional technical and leadership skills were keys to the successful planning and execution of pivotal animal model studies in support of the Institute of Infectious Diseases' mission of developing medical countermeasures against emerging biothreat agents,” said Maj. Gen. Paula Lodi, commanding general of DHA R&D-MRDC.

Dr. Ashley Piper, research microbiologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, studies viral samples.

Piper has been fortunate to call the institute her home and career for nearly two decades. Early in her journey, tenured researchers helped her to develop a deep understanding of infectious disease research focused on the Warfighter. But as long as Piper has been at USAMRIID, she feels in a literal sense, she is training the next generation of scientists.

Some of the junior enlisted Soldiers she trains may have hospital or lab experience, but often lack experience operating in a biosafety level environment. Piper addresses this by beginning their training in lower-level labs, and once they are ready, she transitions them to BSL-3 or BSL-4 labs to provide them with more in-depth virology experience.

As she leads the virology division’s animal studies, she teaches junior enlisted one of the most established and reliable methods in virology: plaque assays, a measure of adding virus particles to permissive cells and applying a semisolid overlay that limits the spread of infection to neighboring cells, thus causing cell death leading to the formation of plaques. Plaque assays are a skillset that Sgt. Adam Crawford, a medical laboratory technician at the institute’s Viral Pathogenesis Branch, says is one of things that he and other Soldiers commonly agree what makes Piper, in his words, “simply awesome” in her mentorship.

Dr. Ashley Piper, research microbiologist at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, conducts research in the lab.

“USAMRIID is my first research assignment, which operates differently from my other duty assignments, not just in security, but in practical science. I had never grown cells or produced plates of plaques to count. Ashley helped me learn what works best for me as she is a subject matter expert who I can rely on no matter what virus or procedure we are working on,” said Crawford.

Aspects of chemistry and biology have interested Piper since she was a teenager. Although her work currently focuses on virology, her educational background in chemistry occasionally proves helpful when her team conducts studies. Today, some of the medical countermeasures that Piper is studying includes pathogenic responses to different diseases like Chikungunya, a common mosquito-related virus in tropical and subtropical regions where U.S. military assets are present, and developing treatments for approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

After the initial 1976 Ebola outbreak, the DOD responded with a whole-of-government approach, developing vaccines and diagnostic tools for patient care. As the virus reemerged over the years, Piper became one of the institute’s subject matter experts studying an Ebola viral response, and so much so, in 2014 she traveled from Fort Detrick, Maryland to Fort Campbell, Kentucky to train Soldiers deploying to a region in Africa with a current outbreak, helping them defend themselves against the threat.

“Being a part of the response team those two weeks at Fort Campbell was one of the most memorable parts of my career,” said Piper. “It was a rewarding feeling to know that I had a direct impact in training our military personnel during the Ebola outbreak in 2014.”