Meetings Committee - National Postdoctoral Association

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Meetings Committee

The Meetings Committee plans and coordinates all NPA-sponsored meetings and seminars.

This committee interacts with all NPA committees, officers, and staff to develop programmatic content for all NPA-sponsored meetings and works with the Outreach and Resource Development Committees to help advertise the meetings. This committee offers an opportunity to network with postdocs and administrators from institutions across the country. It also provides a great way to develop management and organizational skills. There are many small tasks on this committee if your availability is limited. The Annual Meeting is the showcase event of the NPA. Join us to help keep the meetings vibrant!

Charges

Identify and announce venues for NPA-sponsored meetings, including Annual and Regional Meetings and seminars.
Develop agendas and programmatic content for meetings.
Convene a fundraising team to secure sponsors, exhibitors, and advertisers for meetings.
Convene teams to solicit and recommend travel and service awards.
Consult with staff and the Finance Committee to establish budgets for meetings.
Consult with Outreach Committee to market/advertise meetings.
Complete post-meeting functions, including evaluation and debriefing activities.
Consult with other committees and Officers to avoid project duplication and promote coordination.

Meet Our Meetings Committee Leaders

Corinne E. Zeller-Knuth, Ph.D.
Meetings Committee Chair
(Contact)

Corinne E. Zeller-Knuth, Ph.D., did her undergraduate studies in Chemistry at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton and her graduate work at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill in the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department. Following graduate school she taught chemistry and biology courses at St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, N.C., for two years before returning to the lab at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) as a postdoctoral fellow. Corinne is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the UNC Nutrition Research Institute in Kannapolis, N.C. (just north of Charlotte). Her research is currently focused on obesity and metabolism, specifically the role of the gut in satiety, energy expenditure, and body weight. As a postdoctoral fellow at both the NIEHS and UNC, she has been involved in postdoctoral career development programming. She is currently the chair of The Catalyst Group, an organization of students, postdocs, and employees on the North Carolina Research Campus where she organizes career development workshops, scientific symposiums, and social events. She has been involved with the NPA Meetings Committee since 2011.

Jennifer Hobbs, Ph.D. - Meetings Committee Vice Chair-elect Jennifer Hobbs, Ph.D.
Meetings Committee Vice Chair
(Contact)

Jennifer E. Hobbs, Ph.D. obtained her B.S. in biology from Loyola University Chicago, and her Ph.D. in cancer biology from Northwestern University. In 2007 she began her postdoctoral training at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Following completion of her postdoctoral training she returned to Chicago to join the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute. In 2011 she became the Director of the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs for Northwestern University. Her graduate studies were funded by Northwestern’s Carcinogenesis Training Grant (NIH T32), she was a recipient of the American Association for Cancer Research Minority Scholar Award and she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the American Cancer Society. Her research has included investigating coagulation factors in pancreatic cancer and utilizing proteomic techniques to investigate signal transduction, chromatin remodeling and gene regulation in brain tumors and pediatric lymphoma.

During her postdoctoral fellowship she led the postdoctoral Career Development program at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where she initiated monthly workshops aimed to improve training, grant writing, leadership and communication skills. She has twice presented workshops on science and public policy as well as career development at the NPA Annual Meeting. Jen has served as a research mentor for undergraduate, graduate and medical students at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center. She has participated in initiatives to increase the recruitment and retention of multicultural graduate students and faculty through Northwestern’s Science and Engineering Committee on Multicultural Affairs. Each year she is an active fundraiser and runner for the Memphis Half Marathon supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Magellan Development Half Marathon supporting the Northwestern Brain Tumor Institute.