About WEST FAQs
Who We Are
President
Gwen Acton, Ph.D. is CEO and founder of Vivo Group, a strategic consulting firm specializing in improving the productivity and innovation of scientists and other highly trained knowledge workers. Prior to this, Dr. Acton served as Director of Scientific Development at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, where she established institute strategy for building long-term relationships with industry. Dr. Acton also ran the operations of the Functional Genomics Program at the Whitehead Institute/M.I.T. Center for Genome Research for five years, overseeing operations for a $40 million, 50-person sponsored research program related to the Human Genome Project. Dr. Acton received a doctorate in molecular biology and genetics from M.I.T. in 1991 where she discovered the LIM protein domain. She served as a faculty member at Harvard University in the department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and led a class on Policy and Ethics of Biotechnology at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Dr. Gwen Acton is the author of two industry reports published in 2004 by the Cambridge Healthtech Institute, as well as scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature. She has also written over 50 articles as a freelance journalist for organizations such as the Associated Press Wire Service (AP), National Public Radio, and Technology Review Magazine. Dr. Acton is currently a member of the Board of Trustees at Forsyth Institute in Boston Massachusetts, and is the author the book The Bluffers Guide to Genetics published by Oval Press.
Board of Directors
Chair: Alexandra (Sandra) Glucksmann, Ph.D., is currently Senior Vice President of Research and Business Operations at Cerulean Pharma, which she joined in October 2006 at its founding. Cerulean Pharma is developing a proprietary nanoparticle technology designed to improve the safety and efficacy of marketed and development-stage drugs. Prior to joining Cerulean, she spent 13 years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals which she joined in 1993 as one of its first scientists.At Millennium, she held a series of positions of increasing responsibility, ultimately becoming vice president of all platform technology groups before moving into a senior role in strategic program management and operations,where she worked closely with the CEO and led company-wide process improvement initiatives and participated in business development and M&A efforts. During her tenure at Millennium, Alexandra was critical to helping Millennium evolve from a genomics research-focused organization to a fully integrated pharmaceuticals company with products on the market. Her division played an integral role in the numerous Millennium-large pharma collaborations, which raised over $1.8 billion in funding for the company. She serves on the Board of Directors of Taconic Farms and is the Chair of the Board of Women Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology. She is also a member of Genetics Advisory Council of the Harvard-Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics. Sandra was a post-doctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a Ph.D. with honors from the University of Chicago.
Beth Arnold is a partner in the intellectual property practice at Foley Hoag LLP in Boston. She is a registered patent attorney with over 20 years of experience in obtaining worldwide patent protection for pharmaceutical and biotechnology products. She received recognition as a leading IP practitioner from Chambers USA, The Best Lawyers in America, Massachusetts SuperLawyers and Global Counsel 3000. Her clients include top-tier pharmaceutical companies, as well as public and private biotechnology companies and medical research institutes. Beth previously served as in-house patent counsel at Genzyme Corporation and as Technology Transfer Officer at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She holds an M.S. in molecular biology from Boston University, and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.
Sylvie Avrillon, Ph.D., is an international human resource executive with expertise in organizational development and change management across Asia, Europe and North America. She is currently Human Resource Executive Director at Novartis where she serves as the global head of human resources for the Molecular Diagnostics Business Unit in the Pharmaceutical Division. Before this, she served in a variety of other HR positions at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. Prior to Novartis, Sylvie was a human resource manager at Nihon Michelin Tire Co. in Japan. She has a Masters in Engineering from the École National Superieure de Physique in France, and a PhD in Physics from the Graduate University for Advanced Studies in Japan, in collaboration with Université de Savoie in France.
Nikki Borman has over 30 years experience in the management of higher education, intellectual property, and academic medical centers. She is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Borman & Company, LLC., which actively advises clients on complex technical, regulatory and business matters including intellectual property management, regulatory support, and open innovation. Prior to this she served as Manager, Biomedical Strategy Group at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and was Vice President for Affiliate Members at Association of Technology Managers (AUTM). She also served as a Senior Manager at Ernst & Young, and as a Manager at KPMG Advisory. She was a Finance and Systems Manager at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and holds a BA in Social Science and Psychology, and an MA in Administration from Ohio State University.
Karen Borofsky is Director of Administration at Lowrie, Lando & Anastasi, LLP, an intellectual property law firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts where she manages the overall operations of the firm. Her experience includes working at a number of local area law firms varying from sole practitioners to firms of 125+ attorneys. As a graduate from Simmons College Graduate School of Management, the only all-women’s MBA program in the United States, Ms. Borofsky has focused on the promotion and advancement of women in the professions throughout her career. She was one of the first law firm marketers to promote an advertising campaign in “Women’s Business,” a regional publication, and worked with the women attorneys at a large Boston law firm to develop from ground zero a targeted marketing program for them. Ms. Borofsky also has been involved in WEST, Women Entrepreneurs in Science and Technology, since its early years, and currently serves as a Board Member and was Chair of the Programming Committee in 2004-2005. In the past, she has also been involved with The Commonwealth Institute and the Springboard Enterprise Forums.
Sarah Cardozo Duncan, based in Boston, Massachusetts, is a career strategist with an established national and international client base. Ms. Duncan runs her own consulting firm, Career Strategist, and draws upon over twenty years of recruitment and career development experience to help clients define new or existing career paths, or to help them navigate successfully in their current companies. She previously served as president of the Alliance, an umbrella group of women’s associations that collectively claim about 13,000 members in greater Boston. In 2003, Sarah was recognized by Boston Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in Boston.
Nora Gildea is a marketing and public relations executive with more than 20 years of high technology experience, both on the corporate side and as a consultant. She is Founder and Principal of Gildea Communications, a marketing firm that specializes in strategy, positioning and tactical programs to introduce innovative products and services to market. Before starting her own company, Nora held senior level positions as a marketing and sales executive in the data communications and software sectors. As the sixth employee and key member of the management team of IDEA, a PC aftermarket and communications company, she helped grow the business to more that $250 million in revenues. She began her career in the media and publishing field and her work has been recognized in the advertising community with several Hatch awards for excellence. Nora earned her MBA from Northeastern University and holds a BA in History from Brandeis University. More recently, she completed a program at WPI in Medical Device Management. She also spent time studying at L’Institut D’Etudes Politiques in Paris and has lived and worked abroad at various points in her career. Nora is an advisory board member of the Lexington Education Foundation..
Rosana Kapeller Ph.D. is an accomplished scientist and physician with over 80 pending patent applications. She is currently the founder and Vice President of Research at Renegade Therapeutics, a company that is leading the development and implementation of proprietary technologies to create breakthrough drugs for the treatment of cancer. Prior to founding Renegade, she was Director, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB) at Millenium where she set vision, direction and strategy for a department of 35 scientists responsible for integrated target identification, characterization and validation using broad-based technologies including bioinformatics, molecular biology and pathway analysis. She began her career at Millenium as a scientist in the Metabolic Diseases Group who developed a high-throughput functional expression cloning system for the identification of genes involved in insulin resistance which contributed to the Abbott-Millennium collaboration. As a senior scientist she was a key contributor to critical genomics-based drug discovery alliances. Ms. Kapeller's academic experience includes Harvard Medical School, Dana Farber Cancer Institute Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Department of Pediatric Oncology, as well as Tufts University Medical School where she received a Ph.D., Molecular and Cellular Physiology. Her medical degree was obtained at Faculdade de Ciencias Medicas da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She was named a David Abraham Fellow in Pediatric Oncology in 1996 and also received the National Research Service Award, NIH in the same year.
Joanne Kamens, Ph.D., is Director of Discovery at RXi Pharmaceuticals, a discovery-stage biopharmaceutical company. Prior to this, she spent 15 years at BASF Bioresearch Center in Worcester, MA, which became Abbott Bioresearch Center in 2001. While at Abbott, she led discovery research projects on small molecule and antibody approaches to immunological and inflammatory diseases serving finally as a Group Leader in Molecular Biology. Joanne has been raising awareness of women scientists since 1998 upon realizing that an entire week had gone by at work and not one other woman had been at any meeting she attended. Dr. Kamens founded the current Boston chapter of AWIS (the Association for Women in Science) and is now serving on the national AWIS chapters committee. She is a member of the HBA (Healthcare Business Women’s Association) Mentoring Committee and is an active Mentornet.net participant. Joanne received a Ph.D. in Genetics from Harvard Medical School's Division of Medical Sciences.
Joel MacAuslan, Ph.D., is Chief Executive and Chief Science Officer of STAR Analytical Services, which provides mathematical and analytical capability for clients' innovation projects that require expertise in system modeling, signal processing, and nonlinear dynamics - from brain surgery to rocket science.. He has spent over twenty years in mathematical speech, signal, and image-processing analysis. He founded STAR on an NIH grant to apply techniques of chaos theory to the dynamics of the larynx. Joel has participated actively in WEST since early 2000. Joel holds a PhD in Astrophysics from Cornell and has spent over twenty-five years in mathematical speech, signal, and image-processing analysis.
Chair Emeritus: Janice Bourque is former Senior Vice President and Group Head-Life Sciences for Comerica Bank where she was responsible for leading Comerica’s national strategy for the life sciences. Prior to that, Ms. Bourque was President/CEO of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MBC) where she led the organization for 12 years. Under her leadership, the MBC membership grew from 80 to over 400 organizations with revenue increasing from $500,000 to over $4.1 million. Ms. Bourque created multiple services, policy initiatives and the Education Foundation (MassBioEd) that focused on science education, workforce training and public awareness. Under Ms. Bourque’s tenure, the MassBiotech 2010 was released which provided a blueprint for Massachusetts to remain at the forefront of the biotechnology revolution. Ms. Bourque has held several previous senior managerial positions, including CFO of Cambridge Medical Technology Corporation, senior public accountant for Coopers & Lybrand Emerging and Middle Market Group, and as a NASA Space Science grant project manager for the first satellite payloads to be repaired by the space shuttle missions. Ms. Bourque was a member of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s Transition Team. She is currently a Board of Director of the Boston History Collaborative and Chair of the Board of the Women Entrepreneurs in Science & Technology (WEST). In 2004, she was awarded the Woman of Valor Award by the American Diabetes Association and the 2004 Distinguished Leadership Award by the Huntington Disease Society for her work in public policy and public health. In 2003, Boston Magazine named her one of Boston’s 100 most influential women and the Cambridge Chamber Commerce awarded her Business Person of the Year. Ms. Bourque received her MBA degree in finance and accounting and her BS degree in veterinary science from the University of New Hampshire.
