Stay tuned for future updates, in the meantime, please take a look at the conference archive to check out past panels!
Panelists from January 8th 2022 conference:
The Next Generation of Scientists: Post-Grad Pathways in Science
1 pm EST, 01/08/2022
May Hui, M.D./Ph.D. candidate at University of California
May Hui is an M.D./Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at University of California, Irvine, where she seeks to identify novel neural circuit targets for pain therapeutics in Dr. Kevin Beier’s laboratory. For her graduate work, May was named a UCI Public Impact Fellow and was chosen for the Dr. Lorna Carlin Scholar Award. She is passionate about undergraduate mentorship and promoting an inclusive future for all - within UCI, May chairs Women in MSTP and is active on the Diversity Committee. Outside the lab, May enjoys thrift shopping and doing ceramics.
Marcus Lee, Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology
Marcus recently completed his PhD in mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology, where he investigated the effect of spin rate on the flow over a spinning disk. During his time at Caltech, he was president of the Mechanical and Civil Engineering (MCE) department’s graduate student committee and organized various social and professional events and workshops. He also cofounded the MCE Student Climate Committee and advocated for improved diversity, equity and inclusion within the department. After serving as a teaching assistant for various courses, Marcus discovered his passion for teaching and is excited to pursue a career in education.
Vy Nguyen, Ph.D. Developmental Biology at Stanford University
Vy Nguyen is a 5th year PhD candidate in Developmental Biology at Stanford University. Her research explores molecular and genetic mechanisms regulating pancreatic function, and how their dysregulation may result in diabetic phenotypes. Prior to beginning her graduate studies at Stanford, she graduated from Bowdoin College with a dual degree in Biochemistry and Government & Legal Studies and worked as a lab technician at Boston Children’s Hospital. Outside of lab, she is passionate about helping other trainees explore different career paths in the biosciences, baking, gardening, and hunting for the best ice cream in the Bay Area.
Dr. James Truong, M.D. Family Medicine
Dr. James Truong is a Family Medicine, Emergency and Hospitalist physician working in North Bay, Ontario. His undergraduate was in biochemistry with an accidental minor in psychology. He has a side interests in postgraduate education, resiliency and preparedness medicine and occasionally works as a ringside doctor at MMA, jiu-jitsu and kickboxing events. Along the road to his current career, he has been a Young Investigator and unpaid, last author on published articles including “A Splice Variant of the ITF-2 Transcript Encodes a Transcription Factor That Inhibits MyoD Activity” and “Furby does not interfere with medical devices.”
Scientific Panel: Scientific Thought And Process
2:30 pm EST, 01/08/2022
Dr. Denise Stockley, Professor of Higher Education and Health Sciences at Queen’s University
Denise Stockley completed her Doctorate in the Psychology of Education at Simon Fraser University and since that time has accumulated extensive experience in promoting both classroom-based and online learning. Denise joined Queen’s University in January 2001. She is currently a Professor and Scholar in Higher Education with the Office of the Provost (Teaching and Learning Portfolio) and the Faculty of Health Sciences. She was part of the award-winning team that led the Post-graduate Medical Education towards a competency-based curriculum. Denise is the President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) and the former Vice-President of the International Consortium for Educational Development (ICED).
Dr. Nafisa M. Jadavji, Professor of Neuroscience at Midwestern University
Dr. Nafisa M. Jadavji is a Neuroscientist. She is an Assistant Professor at Midwestern University and Research Professor at Carleton University. In 2012, she completed her doctoral training at McGill University in Montréal, Canada. Her laboratory investigates how the brain responds to different biological processes throughout the lifespan. More specifically, her lab studies the brain, maternal nutrition contributions to offspring neurodevelopment, neurological diseases (e.g. stroke and vascular dementia), and aging. Dr. Jadavji was in the research department at Journal of Young Investigators (JYI) from 2004 until 2008. In 2011, she returned to JYI as a Board of Directors, and is currently the Finance Chair. She is also theChair of the Advisory Board for Reproducibility for Everyone (R4E).
Dr. Marc Riedel, Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota
Marc Riedel is Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Minnesota. From 2006 to 2011 he was Assistant Professor. He is also a member of the Graduate Faculty in Biomedical Informatics and Computational Biology. From 2004 to 2005, he was a lecturer in Computation and Neural Systems at Caltech. He has held positions at Marconi Canada, CAE Electronics, Toshiba, and Fujitsu Research Labs. He received his Ph.D. and his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering at Caltech and his B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering with a Minor in Mathematics at McGill University. His Ph.D. dissertation titled "Cyclic Combinational Circuits" received the Charles H. Wilts Prize for the best doctoral research in Electrical Engineering at Caltech. His paper "The Synthesis of Cyclic Combinational Circuits" received the Best Paper Award at the Design Automation Conference. He is a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award.
Career Panel: Non Academic Pathways In Science
4 pm EST, 01/08/2022
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki AM, Science communicator and popularizer, author, and a science commentator on Australian radio and television.
Dr Karl Kruszelnicki AM just loves science to pieces, and has been spreading the word in print, on TV and radio, and online via social media for more than thirty years. The author of 47 books (and counting) Dr Karl is a lifetime student with degrees in physics and mathematics, biomedical engineering and medicine and surgery. He has worked as a physicist, labourer, roadie for bands, car mechanic, filmmaker, biomedical engineer, taxi driver, TV weatherman, and medical doctor at the Children’s Hospital in Sydney. Since 1995, Dr Karl has been the Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at the University of Sydney. In 2019 he was awarded the UNESCO Kalinga Prize for the Popularisation of Science.
Diana Saville, Co-Founder and CCO at BrainMind
Diana studied biochemical sciences at Harvard College and began her creative work as a scientific animator while pursuing a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley. Diana Saville is the co-founder and CCO of BrainMind. Diana also cofounded and leads a science and technology entrepreneurship program for low-income college students called Entrepreneur of Your Own Life, and she is the Director of the Global Leadership Incubator, a partnership with the H. H. Dalai Lama which provides scholarship opportunities for exceptional Tibetan refugees.
Abraham Dada, Clinical Operations Manager at Dreem
Abe is an aspiring physician entrepreneur, who aims to use tech to expand access to healthcare. During his gap year, he’s serving as the Clinical Operations Manager at Dreem, a neurotech company reshaping sleep care. Based in the Bay area, he’s working to launch a digital sleep clinic and provide accessible care to those suffering from sleep disorders. Abe discovered his passion for neurotech at Harvard, where he graduated this past spring with a B.A. in Neuroscience and a minor in Medical Anthropology. Interning at BrainMind and having met pioneers in the neurotech industry, Abe realized that entrepreneurship is a viable route to effect meaningful change. He intends to create his own startup in the health tech industry in the near future.
Dr. Alexander N. Patananan, Medical Communications Manager at Amgen
Dr. Alexander N. Patananan is a native Californian. He attended UCLA for his Bachelors of Science degree and majored in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics. At UCLA, Alexander conducted drosophila genetics research under the guidance of Drs. Utpal Banerjee and John M. Olson. After graduating in 2008, he was accepted into the doctoral studies program in the Chemistry and Biochemistry Department at UCLA, and joined the Dr. Steven Clarke laboratory in the spring of 2009. Alexander’s thesis uses several model organisms, including the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus nidulans, the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, and mice, to discover and characterize novel regulatory, repair, and biosynthetic enzymatic functions. Alexander obtained his Ph.D in 2014 and is a postdoctoral fellow in the Dr. Michael Teitell laboratory at UCLA. He now works as the Medical Communications Manager at Amgen.
a presentation on How to communicate science to the general public by Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki AM
5:30PM EST, 01/08/2022
Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki AM, Science communicator and popularizer, author, and a science commentator on Australian radio and television.
Join us for a fantastic presentation by Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki AM, where he will teach you how to communicate science effectively for the general public! Dr. Karl is an expert science communicator and has many years of experience under his belt communicating science to the Australian public and the world! The author of 47 books (and counting) Dr Karl is a lifetime student with degrees in physics and mathematics, biomedical engineering and medicine and surgery.