Industry Research Postdoctoral Programs

Organizer

Yaihara Fortis-Santiago, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Ronald J. Brachman, PhD

Director, Jacobs Technion–Cornell Institute

Ron Brachman is the Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in New York City, a position he began in October of 2016. He is also a Professor of Computer Science at Cornell University. Prior to moving to the Jacobs Institute, he was Chief Scientist of Yahoo and Head of Yahoo Labs, where he had responsibility for leading all of Yahoo's science activities worldwide. Ron was one of the original leaders who defined and built Yahoo Research in 2005. Prior to that, he was the Director of the Information Processing Technology Office at DARPA; in that role he helped provide $1B in support to the national computer science research community and started the Cognitive Systems initiative, which, among other things, gave birth to Siri. Before that he held various research leadership, management, and research positions at AT&T Labs, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Fairchild/Schlumberger, and BBN.

Ron is an internationally known expert in Artificial Intelligence. He has published extensively and is the co-author of a well-known textbook in Knowledge Representation and Reasoning. He holds a B.S.E.E. degree from Princeton University and S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. He is a Fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery, a Fellow of IEEE, and a Founding Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI). He has won multiple distinguished service awards, was President of AAAI between 2003 and 2005, and serves on the Board of Directors and as Treasurer of the Computing Research Association. He acts as an advisor to Segovia Technology, a NYC-based startup that provides enterprise technology to help relieve extreme poverty in emerging economies and provide rapid and seamless humanitarian relief through secure, reliable cash transfers. Ron is currently serving as the Interim Director of the Runway Startup Postdoc Program at the Jacobs Institute.

Susan D. Croll, PhD

Director, Neuroscience Postdoctoral Program Director, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Susan Croll received her BA from SUNY Geneseo followed by a PhD in Neuropsychology from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). From 1992–2001, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a scientist at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals where she studied the therapeutic potential of protein growth factors. She left her full-time position at Regeneron after 9 productive years in industry (15 publications) to begin an academic career in 2001. She started her own laboratory at Queens College of CUNY where she undertook a focused study of the effects of the growth factors BDNF and VEGF in epilepsy and other neurological diseases. While there, she published 20 articles and one book, obtained NIH funding, won awards for her classroom teaching, spearheaded the establishment of a research-based Neuroscience major, and secured tenure. Throughout her time in academia, she maintained her association with Regeneron, continuing as a consulting scientist. After 10 years at Queens College, Dr. Croll chose to return to Regeneron full-time in 2011 to work toward rapid advances in human health using Regeneron's innovative technologies. In addition to her role in research at Regeneron, she has redefined and directed multiple educational programs within the company such as Regeneron's Postdoctoral Program, Kids' Science Day Program, and High School Mentorship Program. Currently, Dr. Croll plays the dual roles of Director, Neuroscience and Postdoctoral Program Director at Regeneron.

Kenneth G. Geles, PhD

Associate Research Fellow, Pfizer–Oncology, Targeted Therapeutics Group
Governance Team Member and Mentor, Pfizer Worldwide R&D Postdoctoral Program

Ken Geles conducted translational research at the Fox Chase Cancer Center prior to receiving a PhD degree in Cancer Biology from Northwestern University. He was then awarded an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship to study tissue-specific functions of the general transcription machinery in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Tjian at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California–Berkeley. Currently at Pfizer–Oncology, he is a group leader with more than 10 years of pharmaceutical industry experience developing targeted nanomedicines including biotherapeutics, antibody drug conjugates and nanoparticle programs from target ID to clinical testing. He also serves on the Worldwide R&D Postdoctoral Program Governance Team and is a mentor in the Oncology R&D Group. His drug discovery interests are focused on therapeutics that target cancer stem cells, tumor immunology and developing advanced three dimensional co-culture models to screen the next generation of anti-cancer agents. Research in his group focuses on understanding how the tumor microenvironment modulates anti-tumor immunity and key developmental signaling pathways to establish aberrant immune responses and tumor cell hierarchies.

Leslie Pond, PhD

Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Leslie Pond is head of the Postdoctoral Program and a member of the Academic Relations team at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where she supports the postdoc program community and is responsible for program operations across multiple locations. She is passionate about contributing to the development of the next generation of scientists with respect to both scientific and relational skills. She received her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute, California and the University of Dundee, Scotland. She then joined Cell Press as a Senior Editor for the journals Cell and Molecular Cell. Prior to joining NIBR in 2006, she was a Scientific Editor at Virtual Text / Jones and Bartlett Publishers, where she was part of a team that developed online textbooks and the cell biology textbook CELLS.

Peter Salmon, PhD

Merck Research Laboratories

Peter Salmon is a Distinguished Scientist in the Biologics & Vaccines area of Merck Research Laboratories, and is currently responsible for the Sterile Product and Analytical Development department whose responsibilities include development of drug product formulations, manufacturing processes, and analytical methods to support the biologics pipeline. Prior to assuming this role, Dr. Salmon headed the Fermentation & Cell Culture department, whose responsibilities included development and characterization of cell lines and of fermentation and cell culture processes for the production of vaccines and recombinant antibodies. In previous roles, Dr. Salmon has also had responsibilities for process implementation to prepare clinical supplies, and for technology transfer into manufacturing. Dr. Salmon has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. He has 30 years of industrial experience, and is the author or co-author of more than 50 journal articles or book chapters.

Panelists

Michael Oropallo, PhD

Merck Research Laboratories

Michael Oropallo is an immunologist currently working as a postdoctoral fellow in the safety assessment organization at Merck & Co. His current work involves the development and characterization of novel in vitro and in vivo models to predict immune system related adverse events to both biologics and small molecules. Prior to joining Merck & Co. he received his PhD in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania in 2013 while working in the lab of Dr. Michael P. Cancro. During this time he led the investigation of novel B cell tolerance mechanisms and their roles in preventing the accumulation of autoantibodies. Following this work, he spent 2 years in the lab of Dr. Andrea Cerutti at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai as a postdoctoral fellow. He was responsible for planning and executing multiple independent research projects related to B and T cell mucosal immunology, liver resident B cells, IgE in allergy, and related diseases. In addition to his work in lab, he has served on the postdoctoral executive committee at Mount Sinai, the biotechnology club executive committee at Mount Sinai, and the Postdoctoral association at Merck & Co.

Natasha Emmanuel, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow, Oncology Research Unit, Pfizer Worldwide R&D Postdoctoral Program

Natasha received her BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University. Prior to graduate school she worked as a Research Associate at the University of California San Francisco where she studied the role of mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress in neurodegeneration. Her work in understanding the unique features of and effects of GATA3 mutations in breast cancer pathogenesis formed the basis of her PhD thesis at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 2015. Continuing her interest in cancer research at Pfizer's post-doctoral fellowship program, she investigates the regulation of mTORC1 pathway in non-small cell lung cancer. In 2015, Natasha was the recipient of the AACR Women in Cancer Research Scholar Award. Natasha is currently a peer mentor and Next Scholar mentor at the New York Academy of Sciences.

Noreen Rizvi, PhD

Merck Research Laboratories

Noreen Rizvi received her BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell University, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University. Dr. Rizvi is currently working in the Pharmacology and Structural Chemistry groups at Merck Research Laboratories as part of the Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. As a postdoc, she is investigating the druggability of non-coding RNA with small molecules. Her experience as a postdoc is highlighted here.

Jonathan Goodwin

Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

Jonathan joined the Novartis postdoctoral program in 2015 and is focused on understanding and uncovering regulatory nodes governing mammalian selective autophagy. Jonathan earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. He then worked at Massachusetts General Hospital as a research technician studying oncolytic viruses and mechanisms to improve viral biodistribution within the tumor microenvironment. He pursued his doctoral degree in the laboratory of Reuben Shaw at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, CA, studying novel substrates of the LKB1-dependent kinases involved in invasion and metastasis. He has a strong interest in cell signaling pathways, target identification, and vesicular trafficking. Outside of lab, he enjoys fishing, hiking, and live music.

Jonathan Cruz, PhD

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals

Jonathan Cruz received his BS from Rutgers University in 2007 in Food Science and Microbiology. During his time as an undergraduate he studied how antimicrobial peptides affect spore viability in food systems. After graduating, he entered a PhD program at the Graduate School of Biological Sciences at Rutgers University. He studied small stress response operons in bacteria known as toxin–antitoxin (TA) systems. TA systems are highly enriched in certain organisms, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis and may play a role in the ability of this bacterium to enter a latent state. Jonathan received his PhD in 2015 and then began a postdoc at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. He is currently in his second year of this program working in the infectious disease department.

Assaf Glazer Jacobs

Technion–Cornell Institute