National Postdoctoral Association

The Outreach Committee promotes the mission, values, goals, and business objectives of the NPA.

Interested in promoting the public image of the NPA while increasing your own personal network? This committee is always seeking outgoing, fun, and dependable individuals to increase the influence and visibility of the NPA through contacts with the media and professional societies.This committee is perfect for a “people-person.”

Charges

• Promote resources, projects, policy issues, events, and related activities of the NPA, in consultation with all committees.
• Develop and implement an Annual Marketing Plan, in collaboration with the Office and Marketing Manager.
• Develop and implement an Annual Outreach Campaign to recruit and retain NPA members.
• Cultivate relationships with news media and seek coverage of topics that support other committees’ work.
• Cultivate relationships with professional societies, industry, and other groups interested in postdoctoral issues.
• Expand member benefits through partnerships with organizations, businesses, and institutions.
• Consult with the Resource Development Committee to ensure that the NPA Web site is an effective tool for communicating the NPA’s mission.
• Consult with other committees and Officers to avoid project duplication and promote coordination.

Meet Our Outreach Committee Leaders

Darwin Operario, Ph.D.
Outreach Committee Chair
(Contact)

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.

Daniel Zwilling, Ph.D.
Outreach Committee Vice Chair
(Contact)

Daniel Zwilling, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. from the Max Planck Research School for Molecular Biology. During graduate school, he worked on membrane and organelle fusion in Reinhard Jahn's lab Max Planck Institute for biophysical chemistry, Goettingen, Germany. He then accepted a postdoctoral position at the J. David Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco, Calif. In Paul Muchowski's lab, he investigated the role of the tryptophan degrading Kynurenine Pathway in Alzheimer's Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

During his time at Gladstone, he was heavily involved in improving postdoctoral work conditions as a member Gladstone Postdoctoral Advisory Committee (GPAC). As the chair of GPAC, his work was instrumental in designing and implementing the first Mentoring Survey at Gladstone.  He has been involved with the NPA since 2010.