Caitlin Schartner is a scientist living near San Francisco, CA. She studied genetics and biochemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, then followed a tricky kinase assay from R&D to Operations as a biochemical screening specialist at a Invitrogen / Life Technologies (currently a part of Thermo Fisher). She received a PhD in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley for work in molecular evolution. Currently at Roche, she works to develop and maintain a genomic database for somatic cancer clinical reports. She has learned a lot about blood cancers. In her spare time, she paints watercolors and knits little bears.

Denise Lapidus graduated from the College of Natural Resources in Agricultural Pest Management at UC Berkeley.  After an internship with the UC Ag Extension Office office in Santa Cruz for the Integrated Pest Management Farm Advisor, she took a job with an Ag Biotech company conducting research in lab and greenhouses as well as field trials using microbial solutions for protecting against disease and frost protection as well as enhancing snow making qualities at suboptimal temperatures.  Following that she worked at UC Berkeley.  First in a plant virology lab studying viral proteins using electron microscopy techniques and oversight of lab budget and general lab management, and then in the Meyer lab where her primary responsibility started out with lab operations and oversight of budget and maintenance of the strain collection and lab databases.  Denise assisted grad students, postdocs and staff scientists with experiments as well as conducting independent research projects -  using genetics, molecular biology, protein biochemistry, antibody production.

Rosie Bauer attended undergrad at Lawrence University, a small liberal arts school in Wisconsin, where she studied Biology. Before attending graduate school she was a postbacclaureate trainee ("postbac") at NIH in the lab of Andy Golden, where she studied an ultra-rare childhood cardiac arrhythmia called Timothy Syndrome in a C. elegans model. She is currently a first-year PhD student in the Driskill Graduate Program at Northwestern University.

Alyson Ramirez, our keynote speaker recently received her Ph.D. (woo hoo!). She completed her doctoral work in the Srivastava Lab at Harvard University.

Claire Olio graduated from Lewis & Clark College with a BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, then received a Master’s in Science from UC Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology and decided that she wanted to teach high school science.  After completing a Masters in Teaching at Westminster College in Salt Lake City she started teaching high school biology and chemistry. After teaching for a few years, Claire became an instructional coach for the Salt Lake City School District and worked with middle school science teachers to help implement new teaching standards and practices. Claire is currently taking some time off to hang out with her 2 year old, but continues to care deeply about how science is taught in our K-12 schools!

KathyAnn graduated in 2015 with a BS in Biology from Ithaca College.  She became interested in developmental biology when she watched zebrafish embryos develop, during a high school experiment. Since then she has been compelled to understand how different, complex, cell types arise from a single cell. After receiving her BS in Biology from Ithaca College in 2015, KathyAnn has been working in Florence Marlow’s lab investigating how zebrafish eggs are made.  KathyAnn is currently applying for Ph.D. programs in Developmental biology.

Jonny graduated in 2015 from Ithaca College with a BS in Biology. During his undergrad, Jonny was exposed to lab work in both IC and Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University and sought out lab work after graduation. He began working at hikma. Pharmaceuticals in their Microbiology department performing quality testing on injectable medicines. Afterward he moved onto his current job at Akorn Pharmaceuticals at their ophthalmics and ointments site taking on a Data Integrity position as a Microbiology Data Reviewer.

Paola Figueroa-Delgado is a PhD student in the Department of Cell Biology at Yale University, where she currently studies the neuronal cytoskeleton. She was born and raised in Puerto Rico where she received her Bachelors of Science at the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus. During her time as an undergraduate student, she was a NIH BP-ENDURE Fellow and founded the National Neuroscience Student Association. She is a passionate and driven advocate for underrepresented and marginalized individuals in STEM and has continuously mentored and supported them throughout her career. She began mentoring pre-college URM students in the Arecibo Observatory Space Academy program, while as an undergraduate, as a Universities Space Research Association Fellow. Furthermore, she was the Education and Outreach Chair for the International Space Development Conference from 2014 to 2016 and was the organizer of TEDxUPR, among other conferences. She is passionate about making STEM accessible and creating an environment that is diverse, equitable and inclusive to all individuals, specifically those who are historically marginalized. At Yale, she serves as the Yale Biology and Biomedical Sciences Diversity and Inclusion Collective Outreach Branch Chair, Cell Biology Department Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee PhD Student Representative, Womxn in Science at Yale Board Member, among others. In addition, she is the Founder and Board Chair of STEMbase.org, a trainee-driven free digital database and platform that aims to facilitate access to resources and opportunities in STEM and is the co-Founder and co-Host of the 'Becoming a Scientist' Podcast; a podcast that aims to have candid conversations about the challenges and failures encountered while on the path to becoming a scientist.