President: |
Ashley Fouts | Membership: |
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Vice-President: |
Urlike Delling | Mentoring: |
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Treasurer: |
Chitra Chakravarthy |
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Secretary:
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Alayne Brunner
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Member-at-large: |
Rachel Harte |
NCC-AWIS Representative: |
Open Urlike Delling (Acting) |
Community Outreach: |
Katy Kuo Korsmeyer | Newsletter |
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Industry Outreach: |
Ana Older Aguilar |
Scholarships: |
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Ashley's scientific interests focus on infectious organisms and host pathogen interactions. I finished my PhD in the Microbiology and Immunology department at Stanford in early 2007. Since that year, I have been doing bench research at Genentech. I joined AWIS in 2006 and have spent the past 3 years coordinating the monthly meetings as Programs Co-Chair. I've really enjoyed hosting the meetings and getting to know many of the members that way. As President I would like to contribute to the great tradition of AWIS in the Bay Area. I plan to work with the other volunteers to offer more benefits for your membership. I look forward to hearing any ideas you have in how AWIS can better serve you. When not in the lab I can be found on a bike or on the ski slopes.
Ulrike joined AWIS in 2007 and has been enjoying the monthly programs and interactions with women from diverse scientific backgrounds. As VP on the board of AWIS Palo Alto, Ulrike looks forward to getting more involved in chapter specific activities. Ulrike will also serve as the Palo Alto Chapter representative for the AWIS Northern California Chapters (NCC). Since 2008, Ulrike has been part of the Stanford Mentoring program, which is a great opportunity to interact with post-docs and graduate students and to get to know their points of view. Ulrike obtained a Ph.D. in biochemistry at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. After working in academic and industry discovery research settings, she transitioned into project management in clinical drug development in 2007 and is currently working at Exelixis.
Chitra became an active member of the Palo Alto Chapter of AWIS when she moved here in 2007, and has been the Treasurer of the Chapter for most of this time. She was already familiar with the Association as she had attended a few meetings of the Chapter during her visits to the Bay Area since 2004. Chitra has a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from Keele University, UK and postdoc training from Manchester University, UK. She is trained in areas of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Immunology. While being passionate about Science and Research, she splits her spare time between hiking, skiing, quilting, and reading.
Alayne is a recent graduate of Stanford, having completed her PhD in December. She studied human gene regulation and DNA methylation using high-throughput genomics in the Department of Genetics. She recently began a postdoc in Stanford's Department of Pathology to study genes involved in the progression of early stage breast cancer. Alayne joined AWIS in 2008 and has enjoyed attending PA chapter events on a regular basis. She is a member of AWIS's Stanford mentoring program, both as a mentor and mentee, and has a strong interest in the topic of professional development. She has been hoping to get more involved with AWIS, and while serving as secretary is looking forward to getting to know the members of the board and learning more about how AWIS is run.
Rachel became involved in AWIS about 9 years ago while working with other AWIS members at PPD Discovery. She has previously served two years as Treasurer, two years as President and two years as Vice President of Palo Alto AWIS. She is the co-Chair for the chapter Scholarships Committees and the Treasurer for the Northern California Chapters(NCC) AWIS Committee. She has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK) and came to the US originally as a postdoc in the Department of Pathobiology at the University of Washington in Seattle. In 2000, she obtained a Masters in Bioinformatics from the University of York (UK) and then spent two years working as a Bioinformatics Scientist at PPD Discovery in Menlo Park. She currently works as a Bioinformatics Engineer at UC Santa Cruz where she works on gene annotation for the human and mouse genomes. Her interests include travelling, reading, biking, and going to the gym.
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Yun finished up her graduate work at The Rockefeller University in 2008. She moved to the Bay Area soon after. Yun enjoys networking and meeting new people through AWIS. She is currently trying to break into the regulatory field while co-chairing the scholarship committee. For fun she enjoys eating, surfing the net for food, running, and cycling.
Hojeong is a physicist working at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. She has extensive experience in leading and managing multiple teams, data mining, analyzing large data sets. She managed t he weekly laboratory-wide seminar over a year and invited many renowned speakers from all over the world. She would like to bring that experience to help attract interesting speakers from variety of fields for our program. Her hands are full with her y oung baby these days, but she used to enjoy flying small airplanes, hiking, squashing, and theater.
Kelly is currently doing research at Genomic Health. She earned her PhD in Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology from UCSB in 2005 and then trained in Cancer Biology at UCSF. Kelly joined PA AWIS in 2007 because she enjoys meeting new people, exchanging experiences and because she is passionate about mentoring. Kelly looks forward to bringing exciting topics to the 2010 program. If you have any ideas for programs you would like to see at AWIS please let us know!
Katy is a biochemist by training (protein chemistry and post-translation modifications of proteins, research on FMO and P450) and a passion for science education outreach through volunteering wh ile at UCSF. Her current research is concentrated on raising two bright beautiful girls and promoting science education through community outreach. She is President and Executive Director of Bay Area Biotechnology Education Consortium (http://www.babec.org) and Program Director of Santa Clara County Biotechnology Education Partnership (http://www.science.sjsu.edu/sccbep/); non-profit organization dedicated to bringing biotechnology into secondary education classrooms. Her other interests include needlepoint, stamp collecting, and Chinese food.
Susan is Associate Director in Technical Affairs at Elan Pharmaceuticals. Susan started at Elan in summer of 2003 and Tech Affairs represents a new career emphasis. Previously Susan worked for m ore than 15 years as a manager in downstream process development-in protein purification, characterization and scale-up of therapeutic protein products. Susan joined AWIS Palo Alto in 1995, has held several Board positions including co-Chair of Program s ('95-'97), President ('97-'99) and currently a volunteer on the Program committee. Susan has been co-Chair of the Mentoring program since 2000. Her co-Chairs have been Kay Brown, Fong-Yih Bih, Helen Moore, Adina Paytan, and, most recently, Jennifer Saltzman and Lucia Mokres. Susan says "AWIS offers many great opportunities for leadership, and Mentoring in particular is a chance to connect and share experience with others. I really love it!"
Maytal has lots of experience on editing and has recently been Editor-in-Chief for SJSU's Health Sciences Department bi-annual publication, The Harbinger.
Ana is a postdoc in the Structural Biology Department at Stanford University and received her PhD from Stanford’s Immunology Program in 2009. She studies interactions between Natural Killer cell receptors and their MHC class I ligands in humans and other primates. Ana hopes to help connect the members of AWIS with the many different companies and opportunities of the Bay Area. Ana is new to AWIS and would love to hear any ideas or requests.
Lucia Mokres is a Program Specialist at Hantel Technologies, a medical device consulting company in Hayward, CA, where she serves as a subject matter expert to product development teams; supervises engineers, machinists, and technicians in the design development and manufacturing of medical devices; and collaborates with medical device clients to define and direct their project requirements. She is also the co-Director of Stanford's Medicine and Horses Program, an elective for Stanford medical students that uses horses to teach bedside manner, teamwork, and communication skills to future physicians and other healthcare practitioners. Lucia has happily participated with the Mentoring Commi ttee since 2005, and in 2007 began to share co-chair responsibilities of the Mentoring Program with Susan Bernhard and Jennifer Saltzman.
Pinal is one of the experienced members of the Board.
Anita's interaction with AWIS began in the nineties when she was at Stanford and was actively networking to pursue a career in biotech industry. She obtained her PhD in Cell Biology/Immunology a nd came to the US for her postdoctoral training. Anita is currently working as an Independent Consultant with Juvaris Biotherapeutics, Inc. She enjoys being a part of the AWIS Palo Alto Chapter, meeting new and familiar faces at our monthly meetings, an d recently got involved as a volunteer. Anita's other interests include reading, hiking, gardening, traveling and making jewelry.
Nitzan attended many AWIS events while doing graduate work in Developmental Biology at Stanford, and got more actively involved with AWIS in 2008. She is currently working in clinical oper ations at XDx, and busy juggling her two little kids, a career, and other fun activities.
Monique is the founder and principal consultant of Epiphany Oncology Consulting. She initiated her focus in oncology in 1994 while a consultant at SRI International (later SRI Consulting), becom ing fully dedicated to the field in 1999 as a founding employee of the cancer consultancy, DaVinci Healthcare Partners (later acquired by The Mattson Jack Group). Her projects have included developing epidemiology-based forecast models, assessing the e volution of global treatment practices, and analyzing new cancer products in development. Monique joined AWIS to connect with more people involved in the sciences, and she looks forward to learning web skills as the new webmistress for the Palo Alto ch apter. When momentarily diverted from science-related activities, Monique enjoys time with friends, music (especially opera), films, food, skiing, hiking, cycling, and travel.
Shibing is a Ph.D student in Applied Physics in Stanford Universeity. Her research is studying material properties under extreme conditions in the field of condensed matter physics, material physics, physical chemistry with practical application in hydrogen storage and high-temperature superconductor. She joined AWIS in year 2008 as a secretary. Prior to that she had participated in the AWIS mentoring program as a protege. Shibing enjoys working with AWIS members, and would like to contribute to promoting minority groups in sciences.
This webpage was updated on June 26, 2010.