myCHOICE BSD Alumni Career Forum 2017

 

The 4th annual myCHOICE BSD Alumni Career Forum will give graduate students and postdocs the opportunity to connect with alumni in one-on-one, small group, and panel discussion settings. Alumni will provide advice about and insight into the process of translating a PhD from UChicago into a number of careers. There will be multiple forums for questions, informal conversation, and feedback.

 

Schedule of Events

10:00 – 11:10 AM: What It Takes to Make a Successful Career Transition 

Your training as a research scientist here at UChicago has value in a wide range of fields. This panel will explore how to position yourself for a successful transition from research training into a career outside of academia. The panelists will offer perspective on the decision-making process, the factors that they considered, how they identified a position, and ultimately got the job.

Panelists include:

  • Alyssa Arata (PhD ’12 Metabolism and Molecular Nutrition), Scientific Communications Supervisor, Weber Shandwick

  • Tim Best (PhD ’12 Cancer Bio), Medical Science Liaison, Juno Therapeutics, Inc.

  • Courtney Kagan Burrows (PhD ’15 Human Genetics), MBA Candidate at Chicago Booth School of Business, former AbbVie Commercial Leadership Program Summer Intern

  • Dan Leventhal (SM’13 Translational Science, PhD ’15 Immunology and Cancer Bio), Scientist, Synlogic

  • Moderator: Abby Stayart (AB ’97 Tutorial Studies, PhD ’12 Genetics), myCHOICE Program Director

 

11:20 AM – 12:30 PM: What Employers Seek 

What do employers really look for when making hiring decisions? How can you make yourself stand out in the recruitment process, from networking to application materials to interview success? Hear from experienced alumni who have hired many advanced degree scientists about what distinguishes the most successful candidates in the hiring process. The objective of this panel is to provide tangible insight from diverse perspectives on “what employers want” while sharing examples of things that work- and things to avoid- when looking for your first job. Beyond this, panelists will also explore how to progress successfully within your career, positioning yourself for promotions, new opportunities and ultimately, professional satisfaction.

Panelists include:

  • Klara Abravaya (PhD ’88 Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), Senior Director, R&D, Abbott Molecular

  • Cathleen Dohrn (PhD ’92 Behavioral Pharmacology), Senior Director of Strategy, Continuum Clinical

  • Wendy Havran (PhD ’86 Immunology), Professor of Immunology and Microbiology, The Scripps Research Institute

  • David Ijaz (AB ’97, MBA ’03), Chief Executive Officer, Effective Therapeutics, LLC

 

12:40 PM – 1:45 PM: “Networking Your Way Into…” Lunch

Themed lunch tables will provide an informal setting for group discussion with alumni who will offer their suggestions for how to get into their specific field.

 

2:00 – 3:40 PM: One-on-one informational interviews with BSD Alumni

Registered attendees who indicate interest in meeting with alumni will be contacted (in order of registration) to sign up for slots with alumni listed below.

 

Meet Our Participating Alumni

The 4th annual myCHOICE BSD Alumni Career Forum will give graduate students and postdocs the opportunity to connect with alumni in one-on-one, small group, and panel discussion settings. Alumni will provide advice about and insight into the process of translating a PhD from UChicago into a number of careers. There will be multiple forums for questions, informal conversation, and feedback.

Klara Abravaya received her PhD from the University of Chicago, Department of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology. Her work was on transcriptional regulation working with Dr. Lucia Rothman-Denes. She then joined the lab of Dr. Richard Morimoto at Northwestern University as a postdoctoral fellow to study the regulation of heat shock (stress) genes. Currently Klara leads the R&D organization for Abbott Molecular and is responsible for the development of molecular diagnostics tests for oncology and infectious diseases. Her team consists of approximately 100 scientists and statisticians responsible for the design, research, development, transfer to manufacturing, FDA approval, and market release of molecular products. Her team is also engaged in the development of Companion Diagnostics oncology tests in collaboration with pharma partners for selection of patients for personalized treatments.

Alyssa Arata, PhD
Scientific Communications Supervisor
Weber Shandwick
*Panelist

Alyssa is a supervisor on the Element Scientific Communications team, providing scientific expertise and content development to a variety of clients in the pharmaceutical, healthcare, and technology sectors. Her experience at Weber Shandwick includes strategic planning, scientific storytelling,and media messaging. Her work ranges from creating a presentation that explains the relevance of clinical study results to investors of a small biotech company to writing an animated video that describes immune cells in multiple sclerosis through a martial arts metaphor.

Tim Best, PhD
Medical Science Liaison
Juno Therapeutics
*Panelist

Timothy is a medical science liaison with Juno Therapeutics and supports their CAR-T programs. He brings an approach to medical affairs that is shaped by his unique career path, which includes experience as a hospital strategy consultant prior to becoming an oncology medical science liaison. Timothy received his Ph.D. in Cancer Biology from the University of Chicago in 2012.

Courtney Burrows, PhD
MBA student
Booth School of Business
AbbVie Commercial Leadership Program
*Panelist

Courtney Burrows is an MBA student at the Booth School of Business graduating this June. Last summer she worked with the Venetoclax launch team at AbbVie to develop their healthcare professional outreach strategy. She will be returning to AbbVie full-time in the fall to join their Commercial Leadership Program. Before her MBA, she completed her PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Chicago. In addition to her thesis research, Courtney was active in the Chicago biotech community as an Innovation Fund Associate, Chicago Innovation Mentors Fellow, and served as President of the University of Chicago Biotechnology Association.

Mike Burrows, PhD
Biotech Analyst
Aspire Capital Partners, LLC

Prior to joining Aspire Capital, Dr. Burrows was a biomedical researcher at the University of Chicago where his work focused on better understanding the relationship between autoimmune disease and the microbiota. He has developed expertise in a number of disease models and his research has resulted in several publications in high impact journals including Immunity and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Additionally, Dr. Burrows gained significant experience in the technological and commercial assessment of early stage biotechnology projects while serving as a Chicago Innovation Mentors Fellow and a CIE Innovation Fund Associate. Previously, he worked as a research scientist for an immunotherapeutics company where he was responsible for drug development. Dr. Burrows received a Ph.D. in Immunology at the University of Chicago. He also received a M.S. in Microbiology from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Illinois.

Jack Degner, PhD
Senior Scientist II
AbbVie

I am a Senior Scientist at the global pharmaceutical company, AbbVie, working within the Pharmacogenetics and Pharmacogenomics division where I apply my academic training in bioinformatics, statistics, and genetics to understanding the genetic basis of disease and inter-individual variation in drug response across a wide range of therapeutic areas. I finished my Ph.D. in 2012 in the Committee on Genetics, Genomics, and Systems Biology at the University of Chicago under Dr. Jonathan Pritchard. My Ph.D. research focused on identifying regulatory regions in the human genome and on understanding the molecular mechanisms that link DNA-level variation to heritable variation in gene expression. I spent 2 years as a postdoc in Eileen Furlong’s group at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany and returned to Chicago for one more year to finish research as a postdoc in Matthew Stephens’ lab.  My postdoctoral work used Drosophila melanogaster and aimed to better our understanding of how pluripotent embryonic cells become specified into distinct cell types and to illuminate the mechanisms through which natural DNA variation leads to subtle differences between individuals in this developmental progression.

Cathleen Dohrn, PhD
Senior Director, Strategy
Continuum Clinical
*Panelist

Cathleen is an accomplished business executive with over ​20 years of experience in global experience in marketing, consulting, medical affairs, clinical research, and Business Development & Licensing, which brings a unique perspective to careers in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Dohrn received her BA, MA, and PhD from the University of Chicago, focusing on Behavioral Science and Pharmacology, and completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Neuroanatomy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Over the years, she has used her business experience to mentor new scientists—from her alma mater and within the industry—who are interested in moving their careers beyond the bench.

Following undergraduate studies at Duke University, Wendy Havran received training in immunology at the University of Chicago where she received her Ph.D. in 1986. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. James Allison in the Cancer Research Laboratory at the University of California Berkeley where she studied T cell development. In 1991 she joined the faculty of The Scripps Research Institute where she is currently a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology and Associate Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies. She is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Havran was a Lucille P. Markey Scholar in Biomedical Science and a Scholar of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. In 2001 she received the Stohlman Scholar Award from the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She received an honorary doctorate in 2010 from the University of Copenhagen. She has demonstrated a novel role for intraepithelial T cells in tissue repair in the skin and intestine. Current research in the Havran lab is focused on gaining a mechanistic understanding of the first line of defense provided by intraepithelial T cells in barrier tissues and aims to develop new therapeutic approaches targeting these cells to improve healing of chronic wounds, inflammatory bowel disease and skin cancers. Dr. Havran serves on the editorial board of several journals and grant review panels for the NIH and Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and is Past President of the Board of Trustees of the San Diego/Hawaii Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Carolyn Hollands, PhD
Senior Scientist
Abbott Molecular

Carolyn Hollands received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2011, worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with Dr. Lazarovat The University of Illinois at Chicago, and recently joined Abbott Molecular as a Senior Scientist. At Abbott she helps drive projects in the Molecular Diagnostics Division for qPCR and HIV-1 Sequencing Technical Product Support. She supports on market products for Design changes, Assay-reagent capital gains projects, or Quality investigations. She is a great resource to learn about scientist positions outside of R&D departments or to discuss the job search as she recently transitioned into industry. Carolyn has also volunteered in the past for Capio Biosciences, an early stage biotech startup, and would be happy to discuss her experience with the startup industry in Chicago.

David Ijaz, MBA
CEO; CFO & Director
Effective Therapeutics, LLC; Complementum Therapeutics
*Panelist

Senior executive with extensive global experience and commercialization of portfolios for boards and investors with special emphasis upon Finance, Strategy, Operations Management, Corporate Development, and Business Development. Commercialization that increased revenue from $2.8B to $5B from a $275M asset purchase. Increased revenue from $75M to $2.3B through acquiring, repurposing, and redeveloping innovative technologies complementary to the existing business and new indications. Directed M&A Integration: $10M to $50B+; M&A Transaction: $10M to $1B+. Commercially launched various potential patents within materials science, bio-tech, medical, software, business process modeling, proprietary licensing, and algorithm based analytic models.

Denise Lau, PhD
Computational Biologist
Tempus

Denise Lau is a computational biologist at Tempus, a cancer genomics startup in Chicago. She began working there in early 2016, when the company was just getting off the ground, and has helped lead the development of immunotherapy related products. Her work focuses on building computational tools to analyze RNA and DNA sequencing data from tumor biopsies with the goal of empowering physicians to make data driven treatment decisions. Before Tempus, Denise completed her PhD in immunology at the University of Chicago, where she used RNA and BCR repertoire sequencing to characterize a novel B cell population.

Dan Leventhal, PhD
Scientist II
Synlogic
*Panelist

Daniel is currently working as a Research and Development Scientist for Synlogic, a synthetic biology startup based in Cambridge Massachusetts. At Synlogic Daniel is working to create and evaluate immune-modulating, engineered strains of bacteria to treat cancer and autoimmunity. Prior to Synlogic, Daniel was working as a R&D Scientist at Agenus where he helped to develop their cellular immunotherapy platform from the ground up. Daniel has degrees in Cancer Biology (PhD, 2016) and Translational Sciences (MS, 2013) from the University of Chicago where he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Savage studying the development and antigenic specificities of tumor-associated regulatory T cells. During his time at University of Chicago he was also heavily involved in the UCBA, Chicago Innovation Mentors and MyCHOICE.

Ben Marcus, PhD
Scientific Communications Specialist
HDMZ

Ben is a public relations specialist at CG Life, a marketing firm in Chicago that specializes in the life sciences. His passion for science communication began in graduate school at the University of Chicago. He realized that while scientists have much to offer to society, they do not have enough advocates out there who could accurately and effectively share their message. Now, as a professional communicator, Ben gets to share the latest advancements in biotechnology with the world.

Brittney McClymonds, PhD
Senior Medical Writer
Abbott

I am a Senior Medical Writer at Abbott who loves my new position involving pharmaceutical science and communication skills in a fast-paced environment while still allowing for work/life balance. During my postdoc at the University of Chicago, I realized I wanted to transition into industry, so that I could have a more direct impact on the community as well as establish a lifestyle with more flexibility and opportunities. Through networking events, it was brought to my attention that communication skills were one of my strengths, and I was encouraged to explore “non-traditional” science career paths –ultimately leading me to the position I hold today at my top choice company. If you are interested in a career involving science communication and want to hear more about my challenging year of job hunting and networking experiences, I would be happy to discuss more with you in person.

Sao-Mai Nguyen-Mau, PhD
Associate Project Manager
Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

As an associate project manager with the Technology Commercialization and Licensing team at the University of Chicago’s PolskyCenter for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Sao-Mai evaluates and secures intellectual property protection around discoveries arising from university research. She oversees a diverse portfolio of technologies, ranging from clean energy to therapeutics. Her goal is to identify and partner with industry and start-ups who will further develop these technologies and take them to market. Her role involves communicating with scientists, patent attorneys, and business development partners to successfully move technologies forward. Prior to joining the office, Sao-Mai completed a doctoral program in Microbiology with Dr. Olaf Schneewind. Her thesis focused on components involved in surface assembly of macromolecular proteins of Bacillus anthracis.

Ana Shulla-Mesi, PhD
Senior Scientist Technical Support
Abbott Diagnostics

I received my PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from Loyola University Chicago in June, 2011. For my PhD thesis I studied SARS respiratory virus and elucidated the mechanism by which this virus enters human cells and causes disease. In July, 2011 I started my post-doctorate work in the Department of Microbiology at the University of Chicago (Glenn Randall’s lab). My postdoctoral work was focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which Hepatitis C virus replicated and assembled inside cells and was funded through an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship. As a postdoc at the University of Chicago I participated in several myCHOICE internships and events which helped in my transition into industry. In June, 2016 I started my current position as a Senior Technical Support Scientist at Abbott Diagnostics. In my current role I support Abbott’s PRISM Blood Screening Assays for Hepatitis C virus and Chagas.

Courtney Stepien, PhD
Senior Associate
Blueprint Research Group

After spending the time I had outside lab/field at UChicago working on student healthcare initiatives for the university, I joined BluePrint Research Group to explore my interests in healthcare further. BluePrint is a market research consulting firm specializing in informing strategic choices for new launch pharmaceutical products – I’ve been there 6 months and have completed 6 oncology projects spanning global interview projects to single-market quantitative surveys. I’m really happy with the social research skillset I’m developing and look forward to moving into Women’s Health and Neuroscience projects in the future.

Kristen Voorhies, PhD
Biologist
US Fish and Wildlife Service

I come to Chicago from the East Coast, a Maryland Native who grew up loving the ocean and studying seashells. I spent my undergrad in North Carolina at Duke University and then a gap year doing marine research in the Puget Sound at the University of Washington and then overseas in northern Germany before starting my PhD at the University of Chicago. In August 2015, I finished my PhD which was focused on studying historical patterns of change and variation in marine communities off the coast of Oregon. My transition to working with the US Fish and Wildlife service stemmed from a desire to apply the lessons I learned from studying change in the marine system to current challenges of species loss and conservation in the terrestrial system. Currently, as a Fish and Wildlife Biologist in the Chicago Ecological Services Field Office I work to conserve threatened and endangered species while also researching the population status of species being evaluated for listing, like the monarch butterfly. My work with monarchs extends from the local level in Chicago up to the national and tri-national levels to incorporate current science with our conservation planning.

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