NPA Appoints New Committee Leaders

January 21, 2025

The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) has appointed three new leaders: Fatima Saldaña Morales, Ph.D., as Meetings Committee vice chair, Elizabeth Salm, Ph.D., as Resource Development Committee vice chair, and Kylie Seltzer, Ph.D., as Advocacy Committee vice chair.

Saldaña Morales is currently the assistant director for postdoctoral affairs at the University of Virginia (UVA) where her primary goal is to serve as a resource and advocate for UVA postdoctoral community. She was born and raised in Peru where she received her Bachelor of Science in biology from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Saldaña Morales has a Master of Science and a doctorate in neuroscience from Baylor College of Medicine were she studied the enteric nervous system. Saldaña Morales served as the first administrative postdoctoral fellow at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine Postdoctoral Affairs Office and was actively involved in planning and executing the 2023 "What Can you Be With a PhD?" She has served the NPA Meetings Committee since 2023 as a volunteer in the keynote and social & networking subcommittees. She has now assumed the vice chair position of the NPA Meetings Committee. Saldaña Morales has been involved in several science outreach initiatives to improve access to research opportunities for Peruvian and Latin American stem undergraduates as well as to spread her love of science to the public by volunteering in museums. She is also a mom, dog-mom, and coffee-lover.

Salm is the director for graduate & postdoctoral training and development for biomedical graduate education at Georgetown University. In her role, Salm directs career development programming for Master of Science and doctoral students as well as postdoctoral fellows. She also supports Georgetown's 10 NIH-funded T32 training programs throughout the training grant lifecycle. She graduated from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities with a Bachelor of Science in neuroscience and received her doctorate in neuroscience from Yale. Salm is the current vice chair of the NPA Resource Development Committee and the secretary of the National Training Grant Community of Practice.

Seltzer is a researcher, creator, and community builder who is committed to fostering collective liberation and a more equitable world. An architectural historian by trade, her dissertation research focused on the intersection of race theory and the built environment, specifically the ways that architecture became a tool for visualizing and dissemination ideas about white supremacy. Her innovative research has been recognized by The Graham Foundation, The Council for European Studies, and The American Council of Learned Societies. After finishing her doctorate degree in the history of art and architecture from Pitt in 2020, she worked at a racial and social justice-focused consulting firm as the lead research strategist. In this role, she led a team of researchers in analyzing and synthesizing both qualitative and quantitative data. In 2023, she joined UNC-Chapel Hill's Carolina Public Humanities as the Zietlow postdoctoral fellow, where she is responsible for developing and leading a new branch of work that blends civic engagement and the public humanities. In her free time, she can be found doting on her Shih Tzus (Geroge Michael and Phil Collins), training for her first marathon, and nagging her husband to take her to Lowe's.