Making the Leap: A Non-Academic Career Planning and Job Search Boot Camp

Speakers

Organizer

Thomas Magaldi, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Dr. Tom Magaldi is the Director of Science Alliance, the professional development branch of the New York Academy of Sciences. Tom develops and implements innovative workshops and courses that provide early career scientists with a range of soft and business skills that will be essential for all careers. Tom also gives seminars on career development and exploration at many of the partner institutions of Science Alliance. As Director of Science Alliance, Tom works closely with career development offices and student and postdoc organizations to consolidate resources and implement new ideas for professional development programing. Tom received his PhD in genetics from Yale University and then conducted a postdoc at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Magaldi has worked as a math and science tutor for underprivileged children in New Haven and as an Adjunct Professor of Biology at Montgomery College and the University of the District of Columbia. He has also worked as a virtual intern for the United States Department of State. During his internship, he collaborated with the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia on research project to identify areas in Mongolian undergraduate and graduate STEM education that required improvement. Dr. Magaldi has also worked as an Executive Board Member for the Career Network for Science PhDs at Yale, an organization that provided networking and internship opportunities for young scientists at Yale.

Speakers

Imran Babar, PhD

OrbiMed Advisors

Imran A. Babar, PhD, is a Senior Associate on the Private Equity team at OrbiMed Advisors. At OrbiMed, Imran conducts due diligence on a broad range of private and microcap public companies in the healthcare space. Imran also serves as the VP of Scientific Affairs for Rare Genomics Institute, a nonprofit biotech focused on helping rare disease patients. Prior to joining OrbiMed, Imran was a biotechnology associate analyst at Cowen & Company, where he covered 20+ companies in the therapeutics space. Imran completed his PhD in molecular biology at Yale University, where he researched microRNAs as both causes and treatments for cancers. While at Yale, Imran was a Howard Hughes Fellow, Harvey Fellow, and a fellow for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting for young scholars. Prior to Yale, Imran completed his BA in Biology at Carleton College and conducted research at MIT and NIH.

Sharon Belden Castonguay, EdD

Wesleyan University

Sharon Belden Castonguay, EdD, is a career counselor with over a decade of experience working with professionals at all levels of their careers. She is the currently the Director of the Wesleyan University Career Center, having recently stepped down as the Director of the Graduate Career Management Center at Baruch College's Zicklin School of Business. Previously she served as an assistant director for PhD career advising at Harvard, where she worked with students seeking to transition from academe to business. Prior to Harvard she was an assistant director of graduate career services at the Boston University School of Management, where she taught a course in career development. Through her career consulting practice she has worked with many other top universities, and has been an invited speaker at Columbia, Dartmouth, Harvard Medical School and Princeton, among others. She received her doctorate in human development from Harvard, where her research focused on how businesspeople make career decisions. She also holds an MA in Education from the University of Michigan and a BA in Government from Smith College.

Matthias Birk, PhD

Matthias Birk is a leadership consultant and executive coach. He was a consultant at McKinsey’s Mindsets & Capabilities Practice, advising clients primarily from the healthcare, pharma, telecom, chemical and financial industry on leadership development, change and talent management, performance transformation and merger management. He guest lectures on leadership at Columbia Business School, The Wharton School, and the School of Public Policy at CEU Budapest and facilitates leadership development programs for corporations and NGOs in the US, Europe, South America and Asia and has coached over a hundred executives individually. Matthias received his PhD in Marketing from the Humboldt University of Berlin, was a visiting scholar at Columbia Business School, studied Organizational Psychology at the RWTH Aachen and UC Berkeley and is a CTI- and ICF-certified coach. He published in major academic and business journals such as the Sloan Management Review, wrote a Columbia Business School Teaching case and has held invited talks at various international conferences. He lives in Brooklyn and is a passionate Zen- and Aikido- practitioner. Matthias also recently presented at "What Can you Be With a PhD."

Jane Bliss

JBCC

Jane Bliss is an executive coach and consultant with more than 18 years of experience in training, development, communications and coaching in the corporate world. On the management team at Google’s New York office, Jane created an in-house coaching program to foster a mentoring culture within Google’s sales leadership team and regularly coached the leaders in private sessions. For multiple teams at Google, she facilitated MBTI-based personality assessments and coached leaders on their teams’ profiles to increase self-awareness, improve communication and minimize conflict. After leaving Google, Jane founded Jane Bliss Coaching + Consulting (JBCC) to help executive and personal clients find clarity, develop critical life and professional skills, and set goals to transform into their highest, most productive selves. Jane also consults with professional and entrepreneurial organizations on strategies for increasing training efficiency and effectiveness. A few examples of Jane’s corporate and organizational engagements include: training and coaching leaders at JPMorgan Chase, PwC, Google and entrepreneurial firms on executive presence and presentation skills or consulting a boutique media/communications firm on revamping its internal training program. Jane holds a B.B.A. in Marketing and is a CTI- and ICF-certified coach. She is continually engaging in ongoing professional training, currently becoming a certified facilitator of Brené Brown’s “The Daring Way,” to help private clients and executives to live braver lives through practicing vulnerability. She lives in Brooklyn with her four-year old son and loves Anusara Yoga and kickboxing. Jane also recently presented at "What Can you Be With a PhD."

Victoria Blodgett

Yale University
Director of Graduate Career Services (More information to follow shortly)

With 28 years experience working in Higher Education, the last 23 working with graduate students and postdocs at Cornell and Yale Universities, Victoria brings considerable understanding of the job market trends, and how to successfully strategize and navigate the transitions from from gown to town.

Benjamin Dach, PhD

Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP

Benjamin Dach was born in Hollywood, FL in 1984. He graduated from Hillel high school in 2002, and went to Duke University to study biomedical engineering. After one year at Duke, Benjamin decided to journey to the East for spiritual growth. He spent a year and a half studying ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts in Israel. Benjamin then transferred to Yeshiva University where he completed a Bachelors of Arts in Chemistry. He then went on to complete an M.A., M.Phil., and PhD in Chemistry at Columbia University under the mentorship of the late Nicholas J. Turro. His thesis was on the synthesis of designer polymer superstructures from solid phase 'click' chemistry.

Benjamin is currently a scientific advisor in the New York office of Frommer Lawrence & Haug LLP and focuses on three main areas: advising on scientific issues related to pharmaceutical litigation, prosecution of patents, and due diligence on patent related issues. He specializes in the fields of pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology, medical device, polymer, and materials sciences. Dr. Dach leverages his litigation work with his prosecution experience to provide clients with complete insight for any case or issue that they bring to the firm. He is also adept at identifying experts on specific scientific issues for the firm’s clients, navigating the various issues associated with identifying an expert. Benjamin is also currently at Fordham Law School in the evening program and expects to complete his J.D. in 2017.

Jeanne Garbarino, PhD

Rockefeller University

Jeanne Garbarino earned her PhD in metabolic biology from Columbia University, followed by a postdoc at the Rockefeller University, where she now serves as Director of Science Outreach. When she is not conducting research, Jeanne works as a science communicator, acting as chief editor of Rockefeller's The Incubator blog, co-organizer of SpotOnNYC, Biology Editor for Double X Science, and Director of Science Outreach for NEURODOME. You can find her on multiple social-media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

Barbara Gebhardt

Oppus Staffing

Barbara Gebhardt has spent her entire career securing talent for her clients and advancing the careers of her applicants. As a search executive and President of Opus Staffing, Gebhardt and her firm work with all levels of scientific professionals throughout the country. She is on the Board of Directors of the New York Biotechnology Association, the Stony Brook University Corporate Education and Training Advisory Board, and the Advisory Board of the Advanced Energy Training Institute. Gebhardt is the author of The Essential Career Guide for the Scientific Professional.

Ross Grossman, PhD

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (2002-2013)

Ross Grossman was Vice President, Human Resources, at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, in Tarrytown, New York, from 2002 to 2013. In his time leading Regeneron’s Human Resources function, Regeneron has grown from a few hundred employees to over 2,300 and, with a market capitalization of almost $30 billion, Regeneron has become one of the largest and most successful biotechnology companies in the world.

Regeneron has been recognized for its unique culture and honored as one of the best companies to work for in the biopharmaceutical industry, including being ranked by Science Magazine as the #1 Employer in the world for 2012 and 2013, after being ranked #2 in 2011. Dr. Grossman is a frequent speaker on corporate culture as a strategic advantage.

Before joining Regeneron, Dr. Grossman was a senior Human Resources executive for Prudential, Novartis Pharmaceuticals, and PaineWebber. He received his B.A. in English from California State University, Fullerton, an M.A. and Ph.D in English and American Literature from Claremont Graduate University, and an MBA in Finance and Marketing from UCLA.

Dr. Grossman is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, CA and of the Youth Development Clinic in Newark, New Jersey. He is also a member of the Advisory Committee of the Rutgers University Professional Science Master’s Program in New Jersey.

Keith Micoli, PhD

NYU Langone Medical Center

Keith is the Postdoctoral Program Director at NYU Langone Medical Center, as well as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the National Postdoctoral Association. He received his BA in marine biology/neurobiology from New College of Florida in 1993 and his PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2001. Keith continued at UAB as a postdoc on an NRSA T32 fellowship, additionally serving as a research associate and Instructor in the Department of Pathology and an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Biology at Samford University.

Keith's interest in postdoctoral training at a national level was developed by volunteering with the National Postdoctoral Association, where he was Chair of the Policy Committee, Strategic Planning Committee, and a member of the Outreach, Membership, Finance, and Meeting Committees. He served on the NPA Board of Directors for four years and was Board Chairman from 2004 to 2006. During this time, the NPA transitioned from a special project of AAAS into an independent 501(c) non-profit corporation. During his tenure as Chair, the NPA successfully worked with the NIH to start the K99/R00 grant mechanism and helped NIH and NSF develop a unified definition of a postdoc. Keith rejoined the NPA Board in 2013, and was elected Chairman for 2014.

He left academic research to pursue a full-time position with New York University School of Medicine as Postdoctoral Program Director in 2008. Since that time, the program has developed numerous formal programs to foster postdoc training, including a grantwriting course, lab management series, and a course in pedagogy. He has also expanded his role to include career development programs for graduate students and organized a popular career discussion series that brings PhDs who have chosen a wide variety of careers together to discuss what their transition was like and how people can position themselves to be competitive when opportunities present themselves. His biggest challenge has been the organization of What Can You Be with a PhD?, a career symposium that brings together over 1000 graduate students and postdocs from New York City for two days of talks and workshops. This program featured over 80 speakers and covered 20 different career options and numerous career development workshops in 2013.

His passion is encouraging postdocs and graduate students to take responsibility for their own success and providing the resources they need to develop their own careers.

Professionals who will be attending the networking reception on Friday 3/21*

Anthony J. Annunziata, PhD

IBM Research

Dr. Anthony J. Annunziata is a Manager and Research Staff Member at IBM T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. His research group focuses on design and fabrication of nanomagnetic memory devices and integration with standard silicon integrated circuit technology. He has led research projects in thermally-assisted magnetoresistive random access memory and magnetic nanowire “Racetrack” memory. His group is also working on power management technologies for high performance processors that would enable lower power consumption for both servers and mobile devices.

Before IBM, Anthony was a graduate student at Yale University. At Yale, he held a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and graduated in 2010 with a PhD in Applied Physics. His dissertation focused on superconducting nanowires used as single photon detectors and for quantum computing. Anthony was also deeply involved in the entrepreneurship community at Yale, helping co-found a sleep analytics company called Perfect Third. He also advised several other start-ups as an associate of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute.

Before Yale, Anthony was an undergraduate at Colgate University, graduating in 2005 with a BA in Physics and a minor in Political Science. He has also worked at MIT and at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. In his spare time, he enjoys traveling, hiking, boating, cooking, and skiing.

Daniel Ciznadija, PhD

Champions Oncology, Inc.

Dr. Daniel Ciznadija, originally from Melbourne, Australia, completed a PhD in 2005 at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Center, where he was a University of Melbourne Research Scholar. His research there focused on the regulation of important colon cancer genes through the convergence of two transcription factor networks. Following his PhD, Dr. Ciznadija served as a Senior Research Officer at the small biotechnology company, Sienna Cancer Diagnostics, working on developing novel diagnostic tools for detecting bladder and colon cancer. He then moved on to a post-doc in the laboratory of Professor Andrew Koff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in 2007, where he studied the influence of the cyclinD1-cdk4 cell-cycle axis in glial brain tumor development and progression. During his time at MSKCC, Dr. Ciznadija successfully applied for numerous fellowships and grants, totaling over $230,000, and is now a former fellow of the Brain Tumor Center, MSKCC, an alumnus of the American Brain Tumor Association fellowship program, and a former recipient of a Voices Against Brain Cancer grant. He is also an alumnus of the "From Scientist to CSO" course here at the NYAS. Dr. Ciznadija was recruited to the biotechnology company Champions Oncology in 2013 to serve as their new External R&D Liaison and Grants Officer.

Alida Coppi, PhD

Regeneron

Alida Coppi is currently a Staff Scientist in the Infectious Disease Department at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals in Tarrytown, NY. She received her Bachelors of Science from Iona College and her Masters of Science from NYU, both in biology. She completed her Ph.D. in the Department of Medical and Molecular Parasitology at NYU School of Medicine studying encystation in parasitic amoeba, specifically Entamoeba sp. Her postdoctoral work, focused on studying proteolytic cleavage of the major surface protein of the malaria parasite and its role in hepatocyte invasion, was also performed at NYU School of Medicine. Dr. Coppi has been at Regeneron for 4 years and her research has mainly focused on antibody therapeutics for bacterial infections.

Cynthia Duggan, PhD

New York Academy of Sciences

Cynthia Duggan joined The New York Academy of Sciences Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Initiative as co-Associate Director in the fall of 2013. She brings 17 years of academic and industry research experience to the initiative, most recently investigating mechanisms of neurodegeneration at the Rockefeller University and Genentech. Her work has led to international research collaborations and numerous articles in top peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Duggan earned her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley and maintains an affiliation with the Rockefeller University as a Visiting Fellow. She continues research, science outreach and teaching activities and is excited to bring her passion for moving science forward in the fight against Alzheimer’s to the ADDI team.

Antonia Florio, PhD

Cold Spring Harbor DNA Learning Center

As an undergraduate student at the Macaulay Honors College at CUNY City College, Dr. Antonia Florio was able to travel abroad and study animals in the Galapagos Islands, French Guiana, and South Africa. After these experiences, she received a Ph.D. from the program at the American Museum of Natural History where she studied several chameleon species in Madagascar. For her dissertation, she used genetic, morphological, and environmental data in order to better understand how new species are formed.

It was during graduate school that Dr. Florio began to appreciate science as a tool for answering questions in a logical and practical manner. She became interested in the positive way science education could influence how a person interprets information, not only for research purposes, but also for everyday life. Dr. Florio is now a conservation genetics instructor and Urban Barcode Project Manager at the DNA Learning Center. She views working at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory DNA Learning Center as a way of expanding both my interests in science research and science education. As a native New Yorker, she is especially excited about taking NYC students out of the classroom and outside to study animals, as she remembers these instances being her favorite learning experiences.

Avalon Garcia, PhD

Thieme Publishers

Avalon Garcia is a Senior Developmental Editor in the Educational Products Division at Thieme. In her current role, she writes, edits, and develops content (text and art) for educational products designed for medical students and their instructors. Prior to joining Thieme, Avalon completed a postdoctoral fellowship in breast cancer research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Division of Hematology and Oncology. Her research involved using mouse models to study the role of CRBP-1 and retinol signaling pathways in the development and progression of breast cancer. Avalon received her Ph.D. from the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center while performing her doctoral research in cancer cell signaling at Hunter College.

Anissa Igoudjil, PhD

CKM Advisors

Anissa Igoudjil obtained her PhD. in 2006 in Biology and Pathology of the Epitheliums from University Paris VII (France). In 2007, she came to the United States to work as Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Weill Cornell Medical College (NY). In 2012, she joined the department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at NYU. Since November 2013, she has been working as a Data Science Analyst at CKM Advisors (NYC) (ckmadvisors.com).

Nicole Sabaliauskas, PhD

Healthcare Consultancy Group

Before joining HCG, Nicole worked as a postdoctoral researcher at NYU’s Center for Neural Science. Her work focused on elucidating the neurobiological basis of anorexia nervosa. Nicole graduated from Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA with a B.S. in Biology, and worked as a research technician in a cancer genetics and experimental pathology laboratory at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, PA before pursuing her Ph.D. at NYU School of Medicine’s Sackler Institute for Graduate Biomedical Sciences. Her thesis research focused on the hormone fluctuation-dependent expression of hippocampal GABA receptors, and the resultant effect on spatial learning.

Since joining HCG in 2012, Nicole has worked on a number of therapeutic areas on agents across multiple phases of the drug developmental pipeline. At HCG, she primarily develops medical and scientific promotional materials for a wide range of project types, with additional responsibilities including development of internal training resources and participation in advisory board meetings. Nicole’s areas of expertise include endocrinology, dermatology, and cardiology.

*Additional reception attendees and bios to follow shortly.