National Postdoctoral Association

January 31, 2012

The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) Board of Directors has recently appointed five new committee leaders: Gaurav Basu, Ph.D., as vice chair of the Resource Development Committee; Sanjukta Chakraborty, Ph.D., as chair of the Resource Development Committee; Darwin Operario, Ph.D., as chair of the Outreach Committee; Corinne Zeller-Knuth, Ph.D., as chair-elect of the Meetings Committee;and Navneet Jawanda, Ph.D., and Ahmed Samir Mady, M.D., as the NPA's international officers.

Outgoing committee leaders include: Joseph P. Bernstein, Ph.D.,as chair of the Outreach Committee; Pallavi Eswara, M.S., as chair of the Resource Development Committee; Schaun Korff, Ph.D., as chair of the Meetings Committee; and Yi Cai, Ph.D. and Virna Dapic, Ph.D., as international officers. Korff, who was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the term 2012-2013, will continue as chair through March 31, 2012, after the 10th Annual Meeting.

"Huge thanks  is due the outgoing leaders for their years of service to the NPA and postdocs. We really appreciate your efforts!  We welcome the new leaders and look forward to working with them," said Lorraine Tracey, Ph.D., chair of the NPA Board of Directors.

Gaurav Basu, Ph.D., is currently working as a Research Scientist in the human therapeutics division of Intrexon Corporation. His research is focused on evaluation and optimization of physical and chemical systems designed to improve the in vivo transduction efficiency, tissue targeting capabilities and persistence of plasmid DNA therapeutics. He completed his Bachelors in Science from the University of Lucknow and pursued his Masters in Microbiology at the University of Botswana working on rotavirus epidemiology in southern Africa. He then went on to do his Ph. D in the United States and graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School working on influenza vaccines. He next worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Bioelectrics at Old Dominion University working on electroporation based gene therapy. He has been involved with the NPA since 2010 and more specifically working with the Resource Development Committee. He has also been actively involved with the Biomedical Sciences Association at Eastern Virginia Medical School to organize career development events and seminars for graduate students and post docs.

Sanjukta Chakraborty Ph.D., is presently a postdoctoral research associate at the Texas A&M Health Science Center, College Station, Texas. Her research interests are in investigating the molecular mechanisms of signal transduction underlying the lymphatic system contractile dysfunction and she is keenly interested in delineating the role of lymphatic inflammation in cancer and other pathological conditions. She has been the recipient of the American Heart Association postdoctoral fellowship. She obtained her Ph.D in human molecular genetics from the Indian Institute of Science, India in 2007 and was awarded the best Ph.D. thesis of the year award by the council of her institute. Currently, she serves as the founding chair of the postdoctoral association of her department and has been actively involved with various initiatives to enrich postdoctoral training across the Texas A&M Health Science Center. She has been associated with the NPA since 2009 and served as the vice chair of the Resource Development Committee from 2010-2012.

Navneet Jawanda, Ph.D., did her undergraduate studies in India majoring in Microbiology. She came to the United States to do her graduate work at the University of Houston, Texas in the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department. Currently she is a postdoctoral associate in the section of Infectious Diseases at the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.. Her research is currently focused on the fidelity of HIV replication apparatus and identification of novel infectious agents through Transcriptome Analysis. She has been involved with the Yale postdoctoral advisory committee (PAC) for the past two years. She is actively involved with hosting social events for the Yale postdoctoral community including co-organizing the first postdoc picnic, hosting monthly movies, and other social and career oriented events. She has a keen interest in the business of Science and is an active member of the Yale Healthcare and Life Sciences Club (YHLC). She served on the organizing committee of the Yale Healthcare Conference 2010. Her team was winner of 2010 Yale pharmaceutical case competition and also contributes scientific articles to YHLC journal.

Ahmed Mady,M.D., originally from Egypt, is a senior postdoctoral research fellow in the Cardiovascular Research Center at Massachusetts General Hospital/ Harvard Medical School. His research is focused on stem cell applications in Heart diseases and Diabetes where he is investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying the differentiation of stem cells into mature cardiomyoctes and pancreatic beta cells. He earned his Medical Degree from University of Alexandria in Egypt during which he co-founded a non-profit organization that provides medical supplies to the medically underserved communities and homeless people. He is a member of several medical, business and social organizations in the United States and Egypt. He sits on a number of boards, including as the co-chair of the Massachusetts General Postdoctoral Association, co-vice-president of case competition; Harvard Graduate Consulting club, co-founder of NEGMA organization and the CEO of his family business in industry.

Darwin J. Operario, Ph.D., MPH, received his Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of California at Davis before going on to complete both a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology and a Masters of Public Health from the University of Rochester, in Rochester, N.Y. In 2008, he accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Wadsworth Center/New York State Department of Health under the NIH BioDefense-Emerging Infectious Diseases Training Grant. He was subsequently a New York State Emerging Infectious Diseases Fellow and principal investigator on a state-funded epidemiology pilot project studying anti-influenza prophylaxis at long-term care facilities. While at the Wadsworth Center, he served as an executive committee member for the NY Capital Region Postdoctoral Association, and has served on the NPA Outreach Committee since Spring 2010. Darwin is currently a research associate in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health at the University of Virginia where he is developing enteropathgen molecular diagnostics for deployment overseas.

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.