Past Retreats: 2010 Speaker Profiles

Harold Burgess, Ph.D.

Dr. Burgess received his B.S. from the University of Melbourne, Australia and his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel studying molecular interactions underlying cortical development. He did postdoctoral training with Michael Granato at the University of Pennsylvania, where he developed computational tools for high throughput analysis of behavior in larval zebrafish. Dr Burgess joined NICHD as an investigator in 2008. His laboratory now combines genetic and imaging techniques to study neural circuits required for sensory guided behavior in zebrafish.

Maria C. Freire, Ph.D.

Prior to her appointment as President of the Lasker Foundation, Dr. Freire was the Chief Executive Officer and President of the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development (TB Alliance). An internationally recognized expert in technology commercialization, Dr. Freire directed the Office of Technology Transfer at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1995 to 2001. Prior to that, Dr. Freire established and headed the Office of Technology Development at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Freire trained at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Lima. She received a Ph.D. in Biophysics from the University of Virginia and completed postgraduate work in immunology and virology at the University of Virginia and at the University of Tennessee, respectively. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship as well as two U.S. Congressional Science Fellowships. Dr. Freire is a member of the Institute of Medicine, and she has been active on a number of national and international boards and committees. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the DHHS Secretary's Award for Distinguished Service, the 1999 Arthur S. Flemming Award, and the 2002 Bayh-Dole Award. Dr. Freire became the President of The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in 2008.

Jonathan Gitlin, Ph.D.

Dr. Gitlin is a Science Policy Analyst within the Policy and Program Analysis Branch (PPAB) of the Office of the Director at the National Human Genome Research Institute. He received his BSc in Pharmacology from King's College London, and his PhD in Pharmacology from Imperial College London, following which he conducted research into cardiovascular disease at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Kentucky. Additionally, he has been a science writer for the online publication Ars Technica, and taught International Science and Technology Policy at the University of Kentucky's Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce.

Khalisa Herman, Ph.D.

Ms. Herman received her B.A. in Psychology and Biology from Marlboro College, her Ed.M. in Education from Harvard University, and her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland College Park. Ms. Herman joined NICHD as a predoctoral IRTA fellow in 2005. During her time at NICHD, Ms. Herman has been working at the Laboratory for Comparative Ethology in Poolesville, MD, where she has been a collaborator on an NIMH longitudinal study of brain and behavioral development in rhesus monkeys. Her research interests include play, social support, and coping with stress.

Jana Kainerstorfer, M.S.

Jana Kainerstorfer received her Master's degree from the University of Vienna / Austria, performing her research at Georgetown University, studying the use of non-invasive optical methods for functional brain imaging. She joined NIH in 2007 through the Graduate Partnership Program with the University of Vienna and is performing her PhD research with Dr. Amir Gandjbakhche at NICHD. The focus of her work is light tissue interaction and biophotonics methods in medicine. Her projects include diffuse Multi-Spectral Imaging for quantitative skin chromophore mapping, as well as Optical Coherence Tomography for assessing skin structures.

Wolf Lindwasser, Ph.D.

Dr. Lindwasser joined the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CRMRP) in January 2008 as part of the Prostate Cancer Research Program (PCRP) team. In addition to managing grants for the PCRP, he is a member of the Program Evaluation Steering Committee, Consumer Working Group, and is co-chair of the planning committee for the upcoming Innovative Minds in Prostate Cancer Today (IMPaCT) conference. He will also be CDMRP's representative on the newly formed United States Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Systems Biology Integrating Integrated Product Team. Dr. Lindwasser graduated from Hunter College, summa cum laude, in 1998, with a B.A. in biology. He received his Ph.D. in cell biology and genetics from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Cornell University in 2003. He continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health. His areas of expertise include intracellular protein trafficking, viral modulation of the immune system, and the cell biology of HIV.

Vladimir A. Lizunov, Ph.D.

1996-2000 B. Sc. - Physics and Math
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny, Russia
Department of Molecular and Biological Physics

2000-2002 M. Sc. - Physics and Math
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny, Russia
Faculty of Physics of Live Systems at Institute of Transplantation and Artificial Organs (Russian Academy of Medical Sciences)

2002-2005 Ph.D. - Biophysics
Institute of Physical Chemistry, Moscow, Russia;
Defended at Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Dolgoprudny, Russia
Thesis: "Study of membrane tubular structures in model and cellular systems"

2005-present Postdoctoral fellow in Joshua Zimmerberg's Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Program in Physical Biology, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Investigated dynamic membrane remodeling during endocytois and exocytosis

Elena Makareeva, Ph.D.

Dr. Makareeva received an undergraduate degree in chemistry in 1994 from the Nizhegorod State University, Russia and her Ph.D. in biophysics in 1999 from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Now she is a postdoctoral fellow in the Section on Physical Biochemistry, directed by Sergey Leikin, Ph.D. at OSD/NICHD. Her principal research interests are in applying biophysical/biochemical methods to uncover the role of extracellular matrix in normal development and in pathology, aiming to understand the molecular mechanisms of connective tissue diseases (osteoporosis, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, etc.).

Gaël McGill, Ph.D.

Dr. McGill is Director of Molecular Visualization at the Center for Molecular and Cellular Dynamics at Harvard Medical School where he also teaches scientific visualization. He is the founder and CEO of Digizyme, Inc., a firm dedicated to the visualization and communication of science through advanced technology applications. Dr. McGill is the creator of the online portal molecularmovies.org and the Molecular Maya software toolkit. He is also a technical editor for Wiley/SYBEX Publishing, where he has contributed to leading Maya and ZBrush textbooks. Dr. McGill is also currently the Digital Media Director for E.O. Wilson's "Life on Earth" next-generation digital biology textbook. He has served as a scientific and communications consultant for the Boston Scientific Corporation and is a scientific advisory board member of Vast Scientific, Sage Science, and a board member of the Vesalius Trust. After working at Dupont-Merck Pharmaceuticals and INSERM/Cochin Hospital in Paris, he completed his Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School in the Division of Medical Sciences (Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology) and postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. His research on the mechanisms of tumor cell death/apoptosis was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Sandoz Pharmaceuticals fellowships. He received his B.A. summa cum laude in Biology, Music, and Art History from Swarthmore College.

Ziggy Majumdar, Ph.D.

Ziggy Majumdar is a native of Brooklyn, NY, grew up in Westchester County, and got his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the University of Pennsylvania and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, respectively. He came to NICHD in June 2006 as an IRTA postdoctoral fellow working with Bob Bonner in the Laboratory for Integrative and Medical Biophysics. A large part of his work at NIH was collaborative with the National Eye Institute in developing spectral imaging methods to quantify and detect early stages of retinal eye disease, such as age-related macular degeneration. Other work involved dabbling with the application of optical technologies to clinical problems, such as high-throughput, high-resolution laser-based microdissection of tissue and programmable lighting for healthier home and workplace environments. In February 2009 he began work as a Senior Consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and was promoted to Associate in December 2009. He applies his scientific expertise for government clients that need technical support, which includes developing new research program concepts, reviewing research, and collaborating with researchers and potential technology "end-users" to help bridge the gap between ongoing research and government needs in sectors such as the Department of Defense and Health.

Hirsh Nanda, Ph.D.

Dr. Nanda received his B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and his Ph.D. in Biophysics from The Johns Hopkins University studying the interaction of proteins at the lipid membrane interface by molecular dynamics. He did his post-doctoral training at the NIST Center for Neutron Research with Dr. Susan Krueger, where he continues to work, developing neutron scattering methods to study the assembly of HIV-1 proteins on membrane surfaces.

Carolyn Peluso, Ph.D.

Dr. Peluso received her B.S from Providence College in Providence RI, and her Ph.D, from the Sackler School of Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University in Boston MA. Her thesis work focused on the role of retinoic acid in the adult olfactory epithelium of the mouse. In 2008, Dr. Peluso joined the laboratory of Dr. Mihaela Serpe, at the NICHD, as a postdoctoral fellow. Currently, her work focuses on how extracellular modulators of the BMP signaling pathway affect dorsal-ventral patterning of the Drosophila embryo.

Owen M. Rennert, M.D.

Dr. Rennert, Scientific Director of the NICHD intramural program between 2000 and 2009, is the head of the Laboratory of Clinical and Developmental Genomics. His research focuses on understanding genomic regulation of development during health and in disease and applying newly developed genetic and genomic technologies to clinical problems. Dr. Rennert has published extensively on technologies like SAGE and their applications to normal and aberrant male germ cell development. Prior to joining the NIH, he served as the Chairman of Pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine, Chief of Pediatric Service at Oklahoma Children's Memorial Hospital, and held the title of Professor in several departments at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. Among his many academic honors and accolades, Dr. Rennert has been an invited speaker for the Gerber Lectureship at the American College of Nutrition Annual Meeting, was bestowed with the Alumni Award for Distinguished Service from University of Chicago, and named as "Top Doctor" by The Washingtonian magazine.

Mary Dunne Roberts, M.D.

Dr. Dunne Roberts graduated from University of Alabama at Birmingham with a bachelor's degree in Biology in 1995. In 2000, she earned her M.D. from University of Alabama School of Medicine. She completed her pediatric residency at Greenville Hospital System in South Carolina and then a pediatric endocrinology fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, in NICHD. She joined the FDA as a Medical Officer in the Division of Metabolism and Endocrinology Products in 2008. She is board certified in pediatrics and pediatric endocrinology and continues a clinical practice at the NIH. Her husband, Jeff Roberts, is also a Medical Officer at the FDA and they have two children, Baxter (4 ½ years) and Bea (2 ½ years).

Kenna Mills Shaw, Ph.D.

Dr. Kenna Mills Shaw graduated magna cum laude from the College of William and Mary with Bachelor's degrees in Spanish and Biology. Before completing her Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology at Harvard University, Kenna spent a year in Chile as a Fulbright Scholar. While in Chile, Kenna played a key role in the revision of the national biology curriculum and directed a professional development program for high school teachers on molecular biology. This program has now been extensively used throughout Latin America and is still in use today in Chile. Her interest in science education piqued, Kenna continued to volunteer and perform outreach in K-12 education while in graduate school. As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health, NICHD, Kenna also served as a fellow at the National Science Resources Center where she worked on professional and curriculum development for K-8 science education. Kenna served as the Director of Education for the American Society of Human Genetics and coordinated all educational outreach and training programs for the Society and then served as the Executive Editor for Nature Education, a venture at Nature Publishing Group devoted to serving the undergraduate biology community. She now serves as a Scientific Projects Manager for The Cancer Genome Atlas, NCI, and leads tissue accrual and disease working group efforts for the program.

Steven M. Sperber, M.S., Ph.D., FACMG

Dr. Steven Sperber is a board certified Clinical Molecular Geneticist and coauthor of the book Craniofacial Embryogenetics & Development (2010). His research interests have focused on transcription factors involved in the regulation of tissue patterning within the developing viscerocranium. Born and raised in Canada, he did his undergraduate training at the University of Alberta, earning a Bachelor's degree specializing in Genetics in 1996. He earned a Master's degree, studying heat shock proteins, in Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Saskatchewan and was awarded the Carl Zeiss research award for his work examining differential tissue growth rates during embryogenesis. Dr. Sperber earned his Ph.D., focused on the regulation of the Dlx gene family, at the Ottawa Health Research Institute in Ottawa, Ontario in 2004. He pursued his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Igor Dawid at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. In addition to his postdoctoral work, Dr. Sperber did his clinical molecular genetics training in the Nation Human Genome Research Institute. In 2009, Dr. Sperber joined GeneDx, a clinical diagnostics laboratory that tests for rare human genetic diseases, where he serves as the Associate Director of Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Brian Todd, Ph.D.

Brian Todd is an aging former NICHD postdoc with an undisciplinary approach to research. He started out as a chemical engineer at Georgia Tech, then went bio, doing a PhD in biomedical engineering and a postdoc at NICHD with Donald Rau and Adrian Parsegian. In 2008 he made another U-turn, becoming an Assistant Professor of Physics at Purdue University. He is currently there enjoying research on biomolecular interaction forces and diffusion in biological materials. He also enjoys teaching subjects like electricity and magnetism that he has no business teaching since (a) he never took the course himself and (b) he has no degrees in physics whatsoever. He has never received an award worth mentioning but, like all young professors, he deserves an award for bravery in the face of imminent grant proposal rejection.