8th Annual myCHOICE-BSD Alumni Career Forum
Saturday, October 30th & November 5th – 12th

The myCHOICE-BSD Alumni Career Forum is an annual event sponsored by UChicagoGRAD, myCHOICE, and the University of Chicago Medical & Biological Sciences Alumni Association. The Career Forum provides the opportunity for BSD graduate students and postdoctoral scientists to engage with alumni from a broad range of career paths to share their perspectives and advice through panel discussions and industry-specific roundtables. This year’s myCHOICE-BSD Alumni Career Forum will take place in-person on Saturday, October 30, 2021, followed by opportunities to sign up for virtual Zoom 1:1 chats during the week of Friday, November 5 to Friday, November 12, 2021.

There’s no one better than a UChicago alumnae to provide advice about how to grow your career. In-person attendees of the October 30th event will be offered first opportunity to sign up for 1-on-1 informational interviews with our alumni guests. Remaining 1-on-1 appointments will be opened to the rest of the UChicago community on November 3rd. Take advantage of this opportunity and register to attend in-person now!

Saturday, October 30, 2021, 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM

Event will be held in-person @ Gordon Center for Integrative Science.

• Alumni Panel – Keeping Your Feet Beneath You in the Changing Hiring Landscape, featuring:
  • Michael Burrows (PhD ‘15 Immunology) Vice President, Aspire Capital Partners, LLC
  • Andrew Hack (PhD ’00 Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology, MD ’02) Managing Director, Bain Capital Life Sciences
  • Karyl Kopaskie (PhD ’14 Microbiology) Associate Principal, Sg2
  • Jennifer McPartland (PhD ’08 Microbiology) Senior Scientist, Health, Environmental Defense Fund
  • Aparna Vasanthakumar (PostDoc ’15) Senior Principal Research Scientist, AbbVie
• Industry Roundtable Discussions, featuring the following alumni guests, in addition to the panelists above:
  • Courtney Burrows (PhD ’15 Human Genetics) Commercial Leadership Program, AbbVie
  • Larischa de Wet (PhD ’20 Cancer Biology) Senior Consultant, Guidehouse
  • Carolyn Hollands (PhD ’11 Developmental Biology) Senior Scientist, Abbott Molecular
  • Gladys Morrison (PostDoc ’16), Clinical Scientist , AbbVie
  • Mohana Ray (PostDoc ’19) Associate Director, Scientific Communications, HDMZ
  • Natasha Wadlington (PhD ’13 Neurobiology) Medical Writer and Project Manager, SB Pharma Solutions

Friday, November 5 through Friday, November 12 

Virtual 1-on-1 chats. Registration for specific meeting times will open directly following the October 30 in-person event.

Alumni Biosketches – Panel & Roundtable

Michael Burrows (PhD ’15 Immunology)
Vice President, Life Sciences
Aspire Capital Partners, LLC

After completing his PhD in immunology at the University of Chicago in 2015, Dr. Burrows joined Aspire Capital as a healthcare analyst where he now holds the position of Vice President, Life Sciences. Aspire Capital is a Chicago based investment fund that focuses on public biotechnology companies. Burrows’ interest in the biotech industry came from previous work at an immuno-oncology startup, and while at UChicago where he educated himself on the many career paths open for scientists. This exploration involved several programs including: myCHOICE, the UChicago Biotech Association, the Chicago Innovation Mentors fellows program, and the Innovation Fund Associate program. Each of which allowed Burrows to better understand what he might enjoy doing as his career developed.

Courtney Burrows (PhD ’15 Human Genetics, MBA ’17)
Commercial Leadership Program
AbbVie

Dr. Burrows is part of the Commercial Leadership Program at AbbVie. Burrows has marketing and commercial experience on multiple brands including VENCLEXTA, HUMIRA, SKYRIZI, and ORIAHNN. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in human genetics and went on to get her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. During her PhD, she was a Chicago Innovation Mentors fellow, president of the UChicago Biotechnology Association, Innovation Fund Associate, and helped create the myCHOICE program. During her MBA she co-founded a women’s health company, 4Women, that placed fifth in the New Venture Challenge and first in the Forté Power Pitch Competition.

Larischa de Wet (SM ’20, PhD ’20 Cancer Biology)
Senior Consultant
Guidehouse

Dr. Burrows is part of the Commercial Leadership Program at AbbVie. Burrows has marketing and commercial experience on multiple brands including VENCLEXTA, HUMIRA, SKYRIZI, and ORIAHNN. She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in human genetics and went on to get her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. During her PhD, she was a Chicago Innovation Mentors fellow, president of the UChicago Biotechnology Association, Innovation Fund Associate, and helped create the myCHOICE program. During her MBA she co-founded a women’s health company, 4Women, that placed fifth in the New Venture Challenge and first in the Forté Power Pitch Competition.

Andrew Hack (AB ’95 Biology, PhD ’00 Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology, MD ’02)
Managing Director
Bain Capital Life Sciences

Dr. Hack is a managing director of Bain Capital Life Sciences, a private equity fund that invests in biopharmaceutical, specialty pharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, and enabling life science technology companies globally. Before joining Bain Capital, Hack was the chief financial officer of Editas Medicine (Nasdaq: EDIT). Previously, Hack served as a portfolio manager at Millennium Management, where he ran a healthcare hedge fund focused on biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies. Prior to Millennium, he was an analyst at HealthCor Management as well as at Carlyle-Blue Wave Partners, and a principal of the MPM BioEquities Fund. He started his investment career as an equity research analyst covering the biotechnology sector at Banc of America Securities after serving as director of life sciences at Reify Corporation, a life science tools and drug discovery company. In addition, Hack is a member of the Board of Directors of Affinivax, Dynavax Technologies (Nasdaq: DVAX), Imperative Care, JenaValve Technology, Mersana Therapeutics (Nasdaq: MRSN), Nuvalent (Nasdaq: NUVL), and Xilio Therapeutics.

Carolyn Hollands (PhD ’11 Developmental Neuroscience)
Senior Scientist
Abbott Molecular

Dr. Hollands has worked as a senior scientist at Abbott Molecular for five years. She is an operations scientist in the TPS Group, who supports on market products for design changes, assay-reagent capital gains projects or Quality investigations. She has traveled to customer sites for Supplier Quality investigations and led verification studies in support of new vendors for critical reagents. Additionally, as part of her role in supporting Abbott’s increase in production, due to high demand for their Covid assays over the past year, Hollands has lead or co-lead projects related to scale up of assay reagents needed to run patient specimens on Abbott’s Alinity m instrument (RealTime PCR technology). She has also recently been tasked as the technical lead for the product launch of a new nasal collection kit for the Covid assays. For this product she has coordinated all activities needed for regulatory submission; designing the Product Requirements/User Needs, coordinating the various technical studies (verification, validation, stability, packaging, human factors), written the clinical brochure and material specification documentations, etc. As an operations scientist Hollands has enjoyed the chance to work with many cross functional groups; manufacturing, regulatory, quality, validations, research and discovery, change control, etc. She is a great resource if you have questions about the many different job opportunities in the biotech industry.

Karyl Kopaskie (AB ’07, PhD ’14 Microbiology)
Associate Principal
Sg2

Dr. Kopaskie is an associate principal at Sg2, a Vizient company, and leads the community health team. She and her team develop future focused healthcare strategy for hospitals and healthcare organizations across the country. As a thought leader helping health systems advance health equity and anticipate the future of women’s and children’s care delivery, Kopaskie challenges Sg2’s clients to develop evidence-based and data-driven strategy. She has also co-developed innovative forecasting for healthcare utilization during COVID-19. Previously, Kopaskie was a Chicago Innovation Mentor fellow with Inspirotec, developing an indoor allergen detector for patients with asthma and other respiratory diseases. Kopaskie earned her doctorate studying Yersinia species under the mentorship of Dr. Olaf Schneewind at the University of Chicago.

Jennifer McPartland (PhD ’08 Microbiology/Molecular Biology)
Senior Scientist, Health
Enviornmental Defense Fund

Dr. McPartland focuses on advancing policy, market, and science solutions to protect human health and the environment from harmful chemical exposures at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). She supports EDF’S efforts to ensure health protective implementation of the main U.S. chemicals law. McPartland works with major companies to develop corporate chemical management programs. She serves on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Environmental Health Matters Initiative and the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Board of Scientific Counselors. She was a congressional science policy fellow in the office of Congresswoman Diana DeGette. McPartland earned her PhD at the University of Chicago in Dr. Rothman-Denes’s lab, and her bachelor of science in biochemistry from the University of Virginia.

Gladys Morrison (PostDoc ’16)
Clinical Scientist
AbbVie

Dr. Morrison has been a scientist for more than eight years (including four years in biotech), with experience in oncology and neuroscience biomarker research as well as early phase clinical trial development and management. Her experience includes translational/clinical study design and strategy, protocol development, biomarker identification, project management, electronic data capture management, query resolution, and CRO relationship building. Strong analytical, written, and organizational skills.

Mohana Ray (PostDoc ’19)
Associate Director, Scientific Communications
HDMZ

Dr. Ray is associate director of scientific communications at HDMZ, a communications agency with expertise in life sciences and healthcare. She received her PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Ray went on to become a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Chicago where she led genomic studies for the Chicago Pancreatic Cancer Initiative. During her time at the University of Chicago, Ray was co-chair of the BSD Postdoctoral Association Seminar Committee. Ray is also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research. 

Aparna Vasanthakumar (PostDoc ’15)
Senior Principal Research Scientist
AbbVie

Dr. Vasanthakumar is a senior principal research scientist in the Genomics Research Center in AbbVie, where she directs pharmacogenomic and exploratory genomic studies in the Neuroscience, General Medicine, and Virology spaces. She currently serves as the programing chair in the International Society to Advance Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment (ISTAART) Alliance of Women Researchers (AWARE) Professional Interest Area. She was the 2019 chair of the Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) private partners Scientific Board (PPSB), which manages the companies and private institutions that provide advice from the industry scientific perspective on the ADNI consortium. She also leads the ADNI DNA methylation working group, a sub-team within the ADNI Genetics core, which has as its objective the longitudinal epigenetic analysis of ADNI subjects to identify novel biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease progression. Before joining AbbVie in 2015, Vasanthakumar was a research assistant professor at The University of Chicago specializing in utilizing genetic and epigenetic methods to characterize normal cell development and disease-specific mechanisms, specifically in amyloid leukemias. She received an NIH Ruth Kirschstein post-doctoral fellowship to elucidate the role of epigenetic changes in hematopoietic stem cell function. She worked with Dr. Lucy Godley in the Department of Medicine at The University of Chicago during her post-doctoral research. Prior to that, she received her PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The University of Wisconsin, Madison in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Eisenstein.

Natasha Wadlington (PhD ’13 Neurobiology)
Medical Writer and Project Manager
SB Pharma Solutions

Dr. Wadlington has a biological sciences background with a bachelor’s of science in General Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a PhD in Neurobiology from the University of Chicago. She has extensive experience as a freelance writer for health science content and is currently a medical writer and project manager at SB Pharma Solutions. Her services include writing scientific and regulatory documents such as grants, journal articles, standard response letters, Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy dossiers, and continuing education materials. In her free time, she enjoys watching anime, listening to music, playing video games, and learning photography. In addition, she is an active member of the LGBTQ+ and African-American communities.

Alumni Biosketches – Virtual 1-on-1 Chats (only)

Minal Caliskan (PhD ’13 Human Genetics)
Associate Director
Daiichi Sankyo, Inc.

Dr. Caliskan is an associate director at Daiichi Sankyo, a drug discovery and development company. Her research utilizes human genetic and omics datasets to identify novel drug target genes as well as biomarkers and patient subgroups that are associated with response to treatment. Prior to joining Daiichi Sankyo, Caliskan held various research roles spanning from early-stage drug target identification to post approval clinical studies at Bristol Myers Squibb. She completed her postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania and her PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Chicago. During her graduate and postdoctoral studies in academia, Caliskan broadly focused on understanding how genetic variation influences disease risk as well as disease relevant quantitative traits.

Bryan Clay (PhD ’08 Immunology)
Principal Scientist
Pfizer – Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics

Dr. Clay received his bachelor’s of science in Biological Sciences from DePaul University and his PhD in Immunology from the University of Chicago. During his tenure at the University of Chicago he researched costimulatory signals into T cells and dendritic cells that augment Th2 differentiation and Th2-mediated lung inflammation in the laboratory of Dr. Anne Sperling. He is currently a principal scientist at Pfizer in Cancer Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics. While at Pfizer, he has researched the effectiveness, mechanism and safety of novel therapeutic vaccines in various diseases including asthma and cancer. He has used his research experience in T cells and dendritic cells to investigate topics such as how adjuvants can influence the development of T follicular helper cells and how different cancer vaccine platforms, monoclonal antibodies and small molecule immunomodulators can augment the anti-tumor immune response. His current primary research focus is oncolytic viruses and how modulating the virus can improve the tumor microenvironment and T cell response resulting in tumor growth inhibition.

Brett Engelmann (PhD ’13 Biochemistry & Molecular Biology)
Senior Data Scientist II
AbbVie

Dr. Engelmann is a biology-driven data scientist and biochemist with over ten years of experience developing innovative experimental, computational, and data visualization solutions that yield biological insight from high-throughput assays. Currently applying this passion towards the development of an open-source software tool called OmicNavigator.

Gail Farfel (PhD ’93 Neuropsychopharmacology)
EVP, Chief Development Officer
Zogenix

Dr. Farfel serves as executive vice president and chief development officer of Zogenix, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company in Emeryville, California, overseeing development and registration of the company’s portfolio assets. In 2020, the lead asset Fintepla (fenfluramine) was approved for treatment of Dravet syndrome, an intractable form of juvenile epilepsy. She is on the board of directors for Durect Corp. and AvroBio, and is a founding member of CNS Summit and the Epilepsy Research Roundtable. Formerly, she was chief development and regulatory officer at Marinus Pharmaceuticals, and vice president, neuroscience at Novartis Pharmaceuticals. She enjoys skiing, gardening, and hiking with her dog.

Jeffrey M. Goodenbour (PhD ’09 Human Genetics)
Principal
Corsica Life Sciences Consulting

Dr. Goodenbour is an experienced biopharma consultant, utilizing analytical rigor, creative analysis, and strategic insight to help clients advance commercial strategy in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Goodenbour has more than seven years of experience in commercial strategy consulting, covering launch strategy, strategic planning, market access and reimbursement, and orphan drugs. His background in genetics provides the scientific and analytical basis for evidence-based insight synthesis and decision-making.

Ben Krinsky (SM’10, PhD’14 Committee on Evolutionary Biology)
Associate Director for Federal Relations
Yale University

Dr. Krinsky is the Associate Director for Federal Relations at Yale University. Previously he was Associate Director for Legislative Affairs at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB). In his role at Yale, Krinsky works to advance the university’s teaching, scholarship, clinical care, and research missions through government outreach and advocacy. At FASEB, Krinsky led the organization’s initiatives to promote federal support for life sciences research. Before joining FASEB, Krinsky was a Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellow at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. He completed his PhD in 2014 in the Committee on Evolutionary Biology at the University of Chicago. During graduate school, Krinsky participated in several science policy-related activities, including advocacy for increased federal funding for basic science. Prior to graduate school, Krinsky worked as a research technician at 454 Life Sciences Corporation in Branford, Connecticut, where he helped to develop new DNA sequencing technologies. He also spent a year as a research intern at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He holds a BS in biology from Yale University.

Dan Leventhal (SM ’13, PhD ’16 Immunology & Cancer Biology)
Senior Scientist and Lead Immunologist
Generate Biomedicines

Dr. Leventhal is currently working as a senior scientist and lead immunologist for Generate Biomedicines, a startup based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Generate, Leventhal is helping to create new methodologies and approaches to developing proteinbased therapeutics using computational modeling and artificial intelligence. Prior to Generate, Leventhal worked at Synlogic where he helped to create and evaluate immune-modulating, engineered strains of bacteria to treat cancer and autoimmunity. Leventhal has degrees in translational sciences (SM’13) and cancer biology (PhD’16) from the University of Chicago where he worked in the laboratory of Peter Savage, PhD, studying the development and antigenic specificities of tumor-associated regulatory T-cells. During his time at University of Chicago, Leventhal was also heavily involved in the University of Chicago Biotechnology Association, Chicago Innovation Mentors, and myCHOICE.

Sahar Mozaffari (SM ’18, PhD ’18 Genetics)
Data Scientist
Maze Therapeutics

Dr. Mozaffari received her PhD from the University of Chicago in 2018 in Carole Ober’s lab in the Department of Human Genetics. After graduate school, she held roles in both the Computational Biology and Statistical Genetics teams at 23andMe. There she worked on eQTLs, GWAS, PRS, and genetic evaluations for targets. Mozaffari is currently a data scientist at Maze Therapeutics on the Human Genetics team working on integrating functional and genetic data and contributing to the identification of therapeutic targets.

Noumaan Shamsi (SM ’11, PhD ’15 Chemistry & Chemical Biology)
Senior Director
Tempus Labs

Dr. Shamsi is a scientist turned healthcare strategist with broad experience in players across healthcare and the drug value chain. He has deep expertise in biopharma, biotech/providers, and health systems, with knowledge across medical technology, pharmacy business management, payors, and healthcare IT. Shamsi is also experienced in strategy development and digital innovation, having successfully led and implemented projects across a range of topics including: (1) strategy – growth, corporate, therapeutic area, governance, operating model, and digital innovation and (2) digital: patient engagement platforms and digital therapeutics in oncology. He is passionate about science and innovations in digital technologies which improve patient lives, experiences, and outcomes. Additionally, he is interested in global perspectives, languages, and economies, with a particular interest in emerging markets.

Tamara Williams (PhD ’06 Molecular Genetics & Cell Biology)
Strategic Partner
EQUITAS Life Sciences

Dr. Williams is an accomplished leader with deep expertise in the global pharmaceutical industry, oncology and rare disease market dynamics, patient care, and pathophysiology of disease. Her background in oncology research and medical education as adjunct faculty at the University of Vermont Larner College of Medicine complements her industry experience in marketing strategy and learning & development. As part of the EQUITAS team, she has supported 35+ high-profile specialty drug launches and partners with a range of pharmaceutical companies including top five pharma companies and small biotechs preparing to commercialize a first product. Before joining EQUITAS, Williams was assistant professor in pathology and director of curriculum development in genomic medicine at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. She served as the director of master of science in pathology and director of master of science in biotechnology programs. She has direct pharma/medical device manufacturer experience having worked as a senior manager in marketing strategy and analysis at Boston Scientific and strategy consultant at a healthcare investment bank.