Judith C. Giordan
Judith C. Giordan is a partner at ecosVC, a venture development and investment firm. She is a senior advisor to the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and a member of the board of directors or advisors of start-up companies. Giordan has held executive and leadership positions in R&D and operations spanning a 25-plus-year career.
Her previous executive positions include: vice president and global corporate director of research and development at International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc.; vice-president worldwide research and development for the Pepsi-Cola Company, the global beverage arm of PepsiCo, Inc.; vice president research and development, Henkel Corporation, the North American operating unit of the Henkel Group, and co-founder and managing partner of 1EXECStreet, a successful San Francisco based boutique executive search firm. She has also held management and technical contributor positions at Polaroid and ALCOA. In addition to her business and university responsibilities, she is active in academic, professional, and industrial organizations. Current and previous positions include: member of the Board of Directors of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the Industrial Research Institute, and the Educational Foundation of the Commercial Development and Marketing Association; member of the Conference Board Advisory Board for Technology Conferences; member of the Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology of the National Research Council; member of the Math and Physical Sciences Advisory Board; Member and Chair of the Waterman Award Committee of the National Science Foundation (NSF); and, chair of the Education and Outreach Committee of the Intangible Asset Finance Society.
Dr. Giordan has held visiting and adjunct professorships at North Carolina State University, Rutgers University and Dartmouth College, and has served as a member of the Board of Advisors of the University of Maryland, College of Life Sciences and the Institute for Strategic Business Markets at Penn State’s Smeal Business School. Her research interests and grants focus on two main areas: mechanisms to support and foster women and diversity in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and in facilitating STEM intensive entrepreneurship, business and economic development. She is and has been a lead investigator on several NSF grants in these areas.
She is the author of over 200 articles, presentations, and seminars in the areas of entrepreneurship, career development and leadership, intellectual property monetization, market and operational strategy development and implementation, diversity, polymer chemistry, flavor and fragrance technology, and electron spectroscopy. She contributes articles and editorials to magazines and journals including Research and Technology Management, e-Plant, Chemical Specialties and numerous international technical journals and web sites. In addition, aspects of her work and activities have been featured in publications including Working Woman, Chemical
Week, Chemical Specialties, and Chemical and Engineering News. She has also been included in numerous internationally- and nationally-based Who’s Who Publications, as well as books, studies and articles on topics including women and diversity, technology, and career development.
Dr. Giordan received her bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University (environmental science), her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland (Chemistry), and was an Alexander von Humboldt Post Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Frankfurt in Germany. She is the recipient of the 2010 ACS Garvan-Olin Medal of the American Chemical Society.
Judy Heyboer
Judy Heyboer has spent the past 27 years in Human Resources (HR), retiring from full-time corporate life in 2000 as senior vice president at Genentech, Inc. in South San Francisco, California. At Genentech, she revamped and re-energized the HR function, and managed the introduction of the entire span of new programs following the company’s public offering in 1999. During her tenure, Genentech achieved its initial recognition by Fortune Magazine as one of America’s “100 Best Places to Work.”
Prior to Genentech, Ms. Heyboer spent thirteen years at Acuson Corporation, which she joined in the startup phase to create the HR function and develop the culture and “feel” of the company. She began her human resources career at Spectra-Physics, Inc. where she spent in-depth time in each of the classic HR functions.
In addition to her consulting work in human resources, she devotes a substantial portion of her time and energy to writing, mentoring, advisory work, and making a difference in the community. She continues to be actively engaged in the human resource community, serving as consultant, mentor, speaker, and executive coach. Ms. Heyboer has an MBA from Santa Clara University, and B.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of Michigan.
In 2007, her accomplishments were recognized by induction into the San Mateo County Women’s Hall of Fame. She currently serves as a trustee of the Keck Graduate Institute, a graduate school providing advanced degrees in Applied Life Sciences. She also serves on the boards of The Health Trust, Friends for Youth, Resource Area for Teaching, and the Advisory Board of Facing History and Ourselves. She is a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum.
Manwai (Candy) Ku
Manwai C. Ku is research scientist and program officer in the Office of Diversity and Leadership at Stanford University School of Medicine. She received her B.A. in Chemistry and Sociology from University of Pennsylvania, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Stanford University. Her research interests revolve around issues of gender, race, and diversity in work and occupations. In addition to her work on gender in entrepreneurship, she has published articles on gender and specialty choice in the medical students’ program choices. She is currently involved in National Institutes of Health-funded projects to study women’s career advancement in academic medicine, as well as team development and processes in collaborative science research.
Gail K. Naughton
Gail K. Naughton, Ph.D., has been the dean of the College of Business Administration at San Diego State University (SDSU) since August 2002. Prior to that she spent more than 15 years at
Advanced Tissue Sciences, where she was the company’s co-founder and co-inventor of its core technology. While at SDSU, Dr. Naughton spearheaded a number of unique MBA programs in partnership with industry, played an instrumental role in the industry committee of the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) and served as a member of the Board of Directors of AACSB International. She has spent more than 15 years extensively researching the tissue engineering process, holds more than 90 U.S. and foreign patents and has been extensively published in the field.
In 2000, Naughton received the 27th Annual National Inventor of the Year award by the Intellectual Property Owners Association in honor of her pioneering work in the field of tissue engineering. Naughton sits on the Board of Directors of Celera (NASDAQ:CRA) and CR Bard (NYSE: BCR).
Sharon Nunes
Sharon Nunes is vice president of Global Government and Smarter Cities Strategy & Solutions, where she directs the strategy & integration of solutions for state, local, and national governments, including innovations for IBM’s Smarter Planet initiative. In 2009, she was a Women’s History Month Honoree for being one of the “Women Taking the Lead to Save Our Planet,” and in June 2009, she was inducted into the Women in Technology International (WITI) Hall of Fame. Dr. Nunes received two awards for her mentoring of technical women: IBM’s 2004 Fran Allen Mentoring Award and National Association for Female Executives’s 2006 Women of Excellence national award. She was a National Academy of Engineering (NAE) Frontiers of Engineering fellow in 2000 and a member of the NAE “Engineer of 2020” advisory board. Dr. Nunes received her Ph.D. in materials science from the University of Connecticut.
E. J. Reddy
As a research fellow, E. J. Reedy oversees grants and conducts academic and policy research for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation in the field of entrepreneurship. He has been significantly involved in the coordination of the Kauffman Foundation’s entrepreneurship and innovation data-related initiatives. He is a co-principal investigator on the Kauffman Firm Survey, an eight-year longitudinal study of new businesses, and the Foundation’s multi-year series of symposiums on data, as well as many web-related projects and initiatives. Mr. Reedy joined the Kauffman Foundation in 2003. Prior to joining the Kauffman Foundation, Mr. Reedy was a senior analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and had extensive experience in non-profit management. Previously, he was financial director and executive co-director of the Center for Community Outreach at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
Mr. Reedy is active in several civic initiatives, and has been the recipient of the Founders’ Award from the Lesbian and Gay Community Center of Greater Kansas City. Mr. Reedy earned his bachelor’s degree, Phi Beta Kappa, in economics, mathematics, and American studies from the University of Kansas.
Lucinda Sanders
Lucinda Sanders is CEO and co-founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), a consortium of more than 300 corporations, universities, and non-profits working to increase the participation of girls and women in computing and information technology. She also serves as executive-in-residence for the ATLAS Institute at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Ms. Sanders has an extensive industry background, having worked in R&D and executive positions at AT&T Bell Labs, Lucent Bell Labs, and Avaya Labs for over 20 years, where she specialized in systems-level software and solutions (multi-media communication and customer relationship management). In 1996, Ms. Sanders was awarded the Bell Labs Fellow Award, the highest technical accomplishment bestowed at the company, and she has six patents in the communications technology area.
Ms. Sanders serves on several high-tech startup and non-profit boards, and frequently advises young technology companies. She has served on the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Board of Trustees at the University of California at Berkeley; as well as on the Information Technology Research and Development Ecosystem Commission for the National Academies.
In 2004, she was awarded the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Engineering at CU and in 2011 she was recognized with the university’s George Norlin Distinguished Service Award. She has been inducted into the WITI Hall of Fame and was named by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the department’s Innovation Advisory Board. Ms. Sanders received her B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science from Louisiana State University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, respectively.
Maxine L. Savitz
Maxine L. Savitz retired as the general manager for technology partnerships at Honeywell, Inc. Her areas of expertise include energy efficiency R&D and products in the transportation, industry, and buildings sectors; aerospace technology; and, integration of R&D between laboratories and business units. During her career at Honeywell, she oversaw the development and manufacturing of innovative materials for the aerospace, transportation, and industrial sectors.
Dr. Savitz serves as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. She is the former deputy assistant secretary for Conservation at the Department of Energy (DOE) from 1979 to 1983. She received the Outstanding Service Medal from the Department of Energy in 1981. Prior to her DOE service, she was program manager for Research Applied to National Needs at NSF. Following her government service, Dr. Savitz served in executive positions in the private sector, including: President of Lighting Research Institute, assistant to the vice president for engineering at the Garrett Corporation, and General Manager of Allied Signal Ceramic Components.
Dr. Savitz currently serves as vice president of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and is a member of AAAS. She was appointed to the National Science Board in 1998-2004. She is a member of Advisory Boards at Sandia and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories and Sandia National Laboratory. She had been a member of the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the Laboratory Operations Board and advisory committees at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. She serves on the board of directors of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and Draper Laboratory. She had previously served on the board of directors of the Electric Power Research Institute and the Energy Foundation. Dr. Savitz received a B.A. in Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Sheldon M. Schuster
Sheldon M. Schuster is currently president of Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences (KGI) in Claremont, California. A member of the Claremont College Consortium, KGI features a professional graduate program (Master of Bioscience) designed to educate scientists and engineers to be the bioscience business leaders of the 21st century. One of the first professional science masters degrees in the United States, the MBS emphasizes interdisciplinary and team-based active learning, and has become the premier degree for those wishing to enter and lead the biotechnology, medical device, pharmaceutical development and modern agricultural industries. Schuster has also expanded the program to include new centers focused on bioprocessing, rare diseases, and biomarkers in order to expand education and research in these critical areas affecting not only industry but the entire heath care system.
Prior to joining KGI, Dr. Schuster was the interim assistant vice president for research, director of The Biotechnology Program and professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Florida. His research focused on the mechanism of tumor drug resistance and the rational design of potential anti-tumor therapies based on studies of specific enzyme structures. In addition, he initiated a research program attempting to use novel gene analysis tools to determine the microbial etiology of numerous chronic human diseases. His research work has been funded by the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, and has resulted in over 140 peer-reviewed publications and ten patents.
Dr. Schuster is a graduate of the University of California at Davis and he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona. He has worked at the Institute for Enzyme Research at the University of Wisconsin and was on the faculty at the University of Nebraska as Professor of Chemistry and Biological Sciences. Dr. Schuster joined the faculty of the University of Florida in 1989 and moved to KGI in 2003. He is active in the development of start-up companies from KGI and technologies from other universities. Dr. Schuster was one of the founders of Restoragen, Inc. (formerly BioNebraska Inc.), a biotechnology company that produced recombinant peptide therapeutics for the cure of diabetes and osteoporosis, and AquaGene, a company developing technologies to produce biopharmaceuticals using fish as the bioreactor.
Dr. Schuster has had a long-standing interest in biotechnology education and is active nationally and locally promoting development of the workforce necessary to sustain a viable biotechnology sector. He has been active in leadership roles in BIO and the Council for Biotechnology Centers, and is presently associate editor for biotechnology of the journal Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education. He has been exploring the best methods to bridge the gap from basic research ongoing in universities to the applied technologies required for commercial development.
Dr. Schuster serves as a member of the accrediting commission for Senior Colleges and Universities of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, an accrediting agency for California, Hawaii, and several U.S. territories. Additionally, he was recently elected as a Fellow of AAAS.
Caroline Simard
Caroline Simard is associate director of Diversity and Leadership at the Stanford University School of Medicine. In this role, she leads the implementation of new initiatives around faculty career flexibility. Previously, she directed the Anita Borg Institute’s (ABI) research initiatives. She led the design, data collection and analysis, writing, and dissemination of the Institute’s major research initiative: “Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-
Level Women in Technology,” which has received national media attention. She spearheaded executive engagement programs directed at supporting organizational change for greater retention and advancement of technical women. She is a frequent speaker on organizational and individual strategies for talent management in academia and industry. Dr. Simard is passionate about social science research and its role in creating practical solutions to social problems.
Prior to ABI, Dr. Simard was a researcher at the Center for Social Innovation of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She holds a Ph.D. in communication studies from Stanford University, with a focus on organizational theory, high-technology industries, and social networks. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree from Université de Montréal and a Masters Degree in Communication and Information Studies from Rutgers University. Dr. Simard’s publications have focused on gender and technical human capital, the barriers to the diffusion of best practices, managing open innovation, regional clusters of innovation, and social networks. She serves on the Leadership Team of the NCWIT and is a former member of the editorial committee at the Stanford Social Innovation Review.
Laurel Smith-Doerr
Laurel Smith-Doerr is associate professor of sociology at Boston University. Her book Women’s Work: Gender Equality vs. Hierarchy in the Life Sciences (2004, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers) explains how network forms of organization are more conducive to gender equity than are more rule-bound hierarchical settings. Dr. Smith-Doerr has published in the areas of organizational and economic sociology, science and society, and gender and work. Her published research has appeared in a variety of journals and edited volumes including Administrative Science Quarterly, Gender & Society, Handbook of Economic Sociology, Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, Journal of Technology Transfer, Minerva, Regional Studies, and Sociological Forum. Dr. Smith-Doerr’s research has examined tensions in the institutionalization of science, including examination of networks in the biotechnology industry, commercialization in the university, contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs, gendered organizations, and scientists’ responses to ethics education requirements. From 2007 to 2009, she was program director of Science, Technology & Society at NSF. She received the NSF Director’s Award for Collaborative Integration for her work as Chair of Cross-NSF program in Ethics Education in Science and Engineering, and on the America COMPETES Act policy committee.
Michael S. Teitelbaum
Michael S. Teitelbaum is a senior advisor to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, where he advises the Foundation on the management of its Professional Science Master’s program. From 1983 to 2010, Dr. Teitelbaum served as a program director for the Foundation and was responsible for overseeing a number of grantmaking programs, including the Sloan Research Fellowships, the Professional Science Master’s program, the Science and Engineering Workforce program, the Federal Statistics program, the Sloan Public Service Awards, and the Sloan Awards for Excellence in Teaching Science and Mathematics. His research interests include the causes and consequences of very low fertility rates; the processes and implications of international migration; and patterns and trends in science and engineering labor markets in the U.S. and elsewhere. He is the author or editor of 10 books and a large number of articles on these subjects. Previously he was a faculty member at Princeton and Oxford Universities, and served
as vice chair and acting chair of the U.S. Commission on International Migration. He was educated at Reed College and at Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.
Jessica Townsend
Jessica Townsend is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, MA. Olin College is a new undergraduate engineering institution with a focus on design and entrepreneurship. Dr. Townsend teaches several of the mechanical engineering core courses at and also advises student design teams in Olin’s Senior Capstone program. Her current research interests include development and characterization of engineered fluids (nanofluids) for electronics cooling applications. Dr. Townsend received her Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT, where she developed evaporatively cooled turbine blades for advanced aircraft engines. Prior to returning to school for her doctorate, she spent three years in industry as an aerospace performance engineer at Hamilton Sundstrand Power Systems.
Dr. Townsend received her M.S. from the Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering Department at the University of California at Davis. She earned her B.S. at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in mechanical engineering and credits her mentors at UMass for their early influence in pointing her towards a career in engineering education.
She was also the recipient of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Foundation Wilbur and Orville Wright Graduate Research Award, the AIAA Foundation Gordon C. Oates Air Breathing Propulsion Graduate Award and the American Association of University Women Engineering Dissertation Fellowship.
Barbara Wallner
Barbara Wallner has recently retired and serves currently as consultant to several biotechnology companies. Before her retirement she held the positions of senior vice president for Technology Operations and chief technology officer at ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc, a publically traded company that is developing cancer therapeutics. She was also founder, president and chief executive officer of Chymic Therapeutics, Inc., a start-up company that was developing therapeutics for cancer, autoimmune and infectious diseases.
Before joining ZIOPHARM Oncology, Dr. Wallner was senior vice president of Research and chief scientific officer at BioTransplant, Inc. Previous to that she was a founder, senior vice president for research and chief scientific officer of Point Therapeutics (acquired by DARA BioSciences); before that she was vice president for Research at ImmuLogic, Inc. and held several management positions at Biogen (now Biogen Idec) where she invented Amevive® now marketed for psoriasis by Astellas Pharma. During her 30 years of industry experience, Dr. Wallner has published 68 scientific papers and authored 32 issued U.S. patents. She has served on several Scientific Advisory Boards.
Susan Windam-Bannister
Susan Windam-Bannister is the first president and CEO of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public organization charged with administering the 10-year $1 billion life sciences initiative enacted by the Massachusetts Legislature in June 2008. The Life Sciences Center is the hub for all sectors of the state’s life sciences community—biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medical diagnostics and bioinformatics.
Since assuming the executive leadership of the Life Sciences Center in July 2008, Dr. Windham-Bannister has been responsible for the overall implementation of the life sciences initiative, including staffing the center, developing policies and procedures, creating a brand, and formulating the investment strategy. The center’s portfolio of investment is promoting economic development, catalyzing innovation, strengthening Massachusetts’ global leadership position in the life sciences, and accelerating the commercialization of promising treatments, therapies and cures. Under Windham-Bannister’s leadership, in just three years the center has invested $218 million, leveraged another $700 million in matching investment capital, and created over 7,000 new life sciences jobs in the commonwealth.
Before assuming her role at the Life Sciences Center, Dr. Windham-Bannister was a founding partner of Abt Bio-Pharma Solutions (ABS), a boutique consulting firm serving life sciences companies. Within ABS, Windham-Bannister managed the Commercial Strategy Group. In her 35 year consulting career, she has been instrumental in the successful launch of a number of well-known therapeutics, medical devices, and novel biomarkers.
Dr. Windham-Bannister has co-authored two books: Competitive Strategy for Health Care Organizations and Medicaid and Other Experiments in State Health Policy. She also has written numerous articles on competition in today’s health care marketplace. She holds a B.A. from Wellesley College, a doctorate in health policy and management from the Heller School at Brandeis University, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School. She completed her doctoral work under a fellowship from the Ford Foundation.
