Career Possibilities: Research & Development/Application - AI, Digital Health, Devices


In the world of business, careers are no longer linear or predictable. What was once a clearly sign-posted path as you progressed through milestones, a career road map is now circuitous presenting new challenges and opportunities at every bend. Life-long careers in one sector or one company are becoming a rarity as new technologies and shifting social norms disrupt traditional careers. Both employers and employees are seeking more diversity of experience, lifestyle flexibility and alternative paths.

This panel is designed to help you think about your career path and the different options that are open to you. The panel will have an informational interview type feel with panelists sharing their career paths, a look at what their job entails, transferrable skills for those looking to make a change, tips for uncovering opportunities, advice for others, and how to make brave leaps. 

 

Panelists Include:

  • Anna Barnacka, Ph.D., CEO/Founder of MindMics
  • Annabella Jucius, Founder and President, Massachusetts Medical Consulting
  • Krista McGee, Head of Insights and Analytics, Takeda Data Sciences Institute
  • Virginia Parks, Director, Data Sciences Institute, Takeda
  • Birgit Schoeberl, Global Head Modeling and Simulation, PK Sciences at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR)
  • Alex Wiltschko, Senior Research Scientist at Google

Moderator

  • Mary Ann O'Loughlin, Principal, Cambridge Consulting and Coaching

 

Bios below


Date and Time:  
November 7, 2019
6:00 - 8:30 PM

Agenda:  
6:00-6:10pm: Registration, mingling, and pizza
6:10-6:30pm: Facilitated networking
6:30-7:30pm: Panel discussion
7:30-8:15pm: Small group speed networking

8:15-8:30pm: Optional networking 

Location:  
Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Cambridge, 300 Third Street, Bella A, Cambridge, MA 02142

We appreciate Alnylam Pharmaceuticals donating the use of their event space.

Cost:   
Members, Postdocs, Students: $15; Non-Members: $40

Given our mission is to promote women's development in STEM we would like to offer a one-time free spot in our workshops to those in transition between jobs. Please contact [email protected] if you qualify.

 

Register

 

Panelist Bios

Dr. Anna Barnacka is the founder and CEO of MindMics, Inc. MindMics has invented a breakthrough in precision monitoring for precision medicine. Anna finished her NASA Einstein Fellowship at Harvard in 2018 and transitioned from astrophysics to startups. She has a broad experience in signal processing, data analysis, and modeling, software development, as well as, building infrastructures and instrumentations for systems requiring rocket science and cosmic precision.

Under Annabella Jucius’ leadership, Massachusetts Medical Consulting was founded to provide exceptional clinical research consulting in the areas of project management, monitoring, and medical writing. An accomplished project manager with extensive clinical experience in the medical device industry, Annabella has been recognized for her exceptional collaboration and leadership skills, cross-functional team development, and her innovative problem-solving attitude. Annabella received her Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute and completed the Greater Boston Executive Program from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Mary Ann O’Loughlin having recently retired from Harvard Business School (HBS) Mary Ann now brings her advisory expertise to global executives as a both a business consultant and leadership coach. Her business career has spanned sales, marketing, consulting, and senior management roles in large corporations and small start-ups. Prior to joining HBS in 2007, Mary Ann spent ten years with the UK research and consulting company Ovum in both London and Boston. In addition to her own work as a telecoms sector Principal Consultant, she managed Ovum’s US operation as President of Ovum North America for five years. Previously, Mary Ann had founded and managed a consulting and telecoms service company in France and, earlier in her career, she worked for IBM Canada, Hewlett Packard and Alcatel in senior sales and product marketing positions. Mary Ann holds a BS in Physics from McMaster University (Ontario), an MS in Biophysics from the University of Toronto, an MBA from Insead, and a graduate certificate in Executive Coaching from the William James College. 

Virginia Parks has over 20 years of global drug development experience across multiple therapeutic areas including neuroscience, cardiovascular, metabolic disorders, and rare diseases. She is currently a digital strategy lead with Takeda in their Data Science Institute. Prior to this she was a Clinical Pharmacology Lead at Shire. She brought her broad experience in drug development and cross-functional leadership to this role and was a key member of early phase clinical development teams with an accent on innovation. This included identification of wearable technology, analytics development and validation, patient engagement, and use of external data sources. Prior to joining Shire, Virginia worked for Pfizer and Wyeth where she was primarily focused on leading early stage exploratory programs. She received her master’s degree in neuroscience from Kings College London, UK, and has been awarded post-graduate training awards in Clinical Pharmacology.

Dr. Birgit Schoeberl joined NIBR at the beginning of  2018 as Global Head of Modeling and Simulation, PK Sciences at Novartis. Before joining Novartis, Birgit served as interim Senior Vice President, Scientific Value, at GNS Healthcare. During her time at GNS, she focused on applying causal machine learning  to drug development. Prior to GNS, she was a member of the founding team at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals and where she spent over 12 years in different roles. In her latest role as Head of Discovery and Early Development, she gained broad experience in oncology drug discovery and development. Birgit and her leadership team were responsible for multiple preclinical and early clinical programs. Birgit received her Chemical Engineering degree from the Technical University in Karlsruhe, Germany, and her Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems in Magdeburg. She was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratories of Douglas Lauffenburger and Peter Sorger in the Biological Engineering Department at MIT.

Alex Wiltschko is a senior research scientist at Google Brain, focusing on building more flexible machine learning software systems, and also applications of machine learning to biology and machine olfaction. He has helped build several machine learning libraries, as well as compiler technology inside TensorFlow 2.0. He completed his PhD in Neurobiology at Harvard, focusing on quantifying behavior and body language using depth cameras and nonparametric time-series modeling.