Past Events

April 30, 2008

NCC-Awards Dinner

This was the 13th year of an annual event in which the Northern California chapters of AWIS gather together to celebrate 3 outstanding women scientists, and students from across Northern California. Several awards will be announced including: The Judith Pool Award The Ellen Weaver Award The Distinguished Professional Award Chapter Scholarships to students at local community colleges

March 01, 2008

The Importance of Precision Questioning
for YOUR Career Development

Monica Worline shared how we can enliven our careers and face adversity with courage, compassion, and resilience. She demonstrated the importance of Precision Questioning

Monica Worline, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Organization & Management at Emory University? Goizueta Business School. Her scholarship focuses on the ways in which organizations can enliven the people who work within them to face adversity with courage, compassion, and resilience. Dr. Worline? work has been published in academic journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly, The Journal of Organizational Behavior, and Organization Science, as well as featured in media such as the Chicago Tribune and BizEd Magazine. Dr. Worline received her Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and her undergraduate degree in English and Feminist Studies from Stanford University. Prior to her academic career she became fascinated by organizations and their impact on people as an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. She is co-founder of Vervago.

February 13, 2008

Hidden and Not So Hidden Biases
in Clinical Research

L. Bero

with Lisa Bero, PhD

Dr Bero is a pharmacologist with primary interests in how clinical and basic sciences are translated into clinical practice and health policy. She described her research which included developing and validating methods for assessing the quality of research and scientific publication and measuring influences on the quality of research. Dr. Bero gave us insight on how the dissemination and policy implications of scientific research. She showed us studies on the roles of interest groups and financial ties in influencing research and its dissemination. She is well known for her research and co-authored The Cigarette Papers (UC Press, 1996) and share her international activities which include: advisor to the World Health Organization, senior editor for Tobacco Control, Co-Director of the San Francisco Branch of the United States Cochrane Center, and editor for the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care Group -- an international group of researchers conducting meta-analyses of the literature on interventions to change health professional behavior. She has also been elected as a member of the Cochrane Collaboration Steering Group and serves on several national and international committees related to conflict of interest or technology assessment.

October 10, 2007

Life Happens. Am I Prepared?

Edi Alvarez,CFP®

with Edi Alvarez, MS, CFP®

This event was co-presented by the UCSF Postdoctoral Scholars' Association.

Edi Alvarez is a Registered Investment Adviser and is the principal for AIKAPA Wealth Planning & Management that focuses on building a financial structure to help professionals reach their goals.

She is also President of Process Per Se a software workflow automation company for investment advisors in the Bay area. Existing clients include Investment Advisors, Financial Planners, Wealth Managers, Private Fund Managers, and Financial Service supporting firms.

She was a Researcher and Educator for many years before focusing her energies on building financial structures to help professionals manage finances. Her years of experience working within investment and biotech industries have fostered a unique perspective on financial planning for Scientists.

July 12, 2006

A Primate Studying Primates (and Other Things)

N. Jablonski

with Nina G. Jablonski, PhD

On September 1, 2005, a description of the first chimpanzees to be recognized in the fossil record was published in Nature, in a co-authored paper by Sally McBrearty (University of Connecticut) and Nina Jablonski. The fossils, from the Kapthurin Formation in Kenya, show that representatives of chimpanzee (Pan) were present in the East African Rift Valley during the Middle Pleistocene, where they were contemporary with an extinct species of Homo. Habitats suitable for both hominins and chimpanzees were clearly present there during this period, and the Rift Valley did not present an impenetrable barrier to chimpanzee occupation.

This event was co-presented by Amgen Women's Interactive Network.

Nina Jablonski was born and raised in upstate New York and was interested in natural history since early childhood. She completed an A. B. at Bryn Mawr College in Biology (1975) and then went on to complete a Ph.D. in Anthropology at the University of Washington (1981). Her research focuses on primate and human evolution, in particular, the role that changing environments have played in shaping the adaptations of primates and humans through time. She enjoys the study of important aspects of human evolution that are not recorded in the fossil record, including the evolution of human skin and skin color.

Dr. Jablonski currently holds the post of Professor and Head of Anthropology at The Pennsylvania State University and was most recently the Irvine Chair and Curator of Anthropology at the California Academy of Sciences. She is a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2005, she was the recipient of one of twelve Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship Awards in recognition of her research on the evolution of human skin color.

May 15, 2006

Marin Cancer Project - Search for the Cause

with Judi Shils and Linda Remy, MSW, PhD

May is Women's Health Month and sfAWIS took the opportunity to learn about a powerful example of partnership between scientists and activists in pursuit of a common cause. The Marin Cancer Project is currently partnering with the Macerich Company to contribute to our understanding of the relationship between different kinds of exposures and who does and does not get cancer. The results of this broad, unprecedented study promise to greatly benefit our understanding of how our day-to-day behaviors impact our long term health: what we eat, the work we do, and the products that we clean with, slather on our bodies and use in our gardens.

Judi Shils is the Executive Director of the The Marin Cancer Project. Judi attended Temple University and the American University in Washington D.C. She is an Emmy Award-winning network television producer who started her career with ABC Sports in New York 25 years ago. She produced the first critically acclaimed reality-based television special "3,000 miles, 21 days, 10 cents" in 1987. Judi resides in Marin with her teenage daughter, Erin.

Linda Remy, MSW, PhD, Research Director of the Family Health Outcomes Project at the University of California, San Francisco, leads the Marin Cancer Project research team. A person with a wide variety of interests, Linda co-wrote two successful feature films. She was a publicly elected Director of the Marin Healthcare District. Linda's undergraduate degree is from New College of California and her graduate degrees are from UC Berkeley.

Feburary 25, 2006

NCC-AWIS Winter Workshop:
Power Tools to Maximize Career Success

Gail Schechter

Roberta Rosen

Gail Schechter, PhD with Roberta Rosen

This event was the 9th annual NCC-AWIS Winter Workshop, hosted this year by sfAWIS.

Gail Schechter is passionate about promoting career development in science, medicine and healthcare. She is a frequent speaker on professional advancement and recently published a chapter describing her career in Alternative Careers in Science. She transitioned to career coaching following more than a decade as a research scientist at NIH, Stanford, and Genentech. She is the President and Founder of BioIntelligence, a consulting group specializing in science writing. She received a PhD in Psychology from the University of California at San Francisco Medical Center.

Roberta Rosen is a certified Master Career Coach who brings her varied experience in business, training, teaching, and psychology to her coachingpractice. She studied at the Career Coach Institute and is founder of a successful Career Coaching and Consulting Company. She specializes in career discovery, job search, interviewpreparation, and salary negotiation. Previously, she was an account manager, mentor, and trainer at Hewlett Packard and IBM. In that capacity, she worked with many private companies and governmentagencies in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been Supervisor of Teacher Training at Dartmouth College.

October 26, 2005

From the Bench to the Board Room:
How I Learned to Love Suits and Writing

Cynthia Robbins-Roth, PhD

with Cynthia Robbins-Roth, PhD

Dr Robbins-Roth shared with AWIS attendees her unusual career path in bioscience and her views of the current challenges for the biotechnology industry. As the industry matures, drug development needs successful projects and project management, including clear milestones for success and effective go/no-go decisions on projects--rather than companies and infrastructure built around single high-risk products. Robbins-Roth sees an inherent conflict of interest between the government's need to feed local economies with jobs and the public's need for affordable health care products. At the same time, venture funding has become less willing to support R&D for early stage targets and is focusing on shorter-term profit opportunities.

As an alternative, Robbins-Roth points to examples beyond the Bay Area in the US, Canada, Europe, and Asia where hybrid research models combine public and private funding and establish clear project goals. She calls for a change in how and who funds bioscience companies, getting away from huge early development costs for quick potential payoffs and moving toward a longer-term view of leaner sustainable growth and profitability. She anticipates this structural change will come at a cost to small startups, but will benefit the public long-term by reigning in exploding healthcare costs, and by increasing the number of products that make it to the market place.

This event was co-sponsored by UCSF Women in Life Sciences.

The founder of BioVenture Publishing Inc and BioVentureConsultants, Cynthia Robbins-Roth has been part of the biotechnology industry since 1981. A frequent speaker on issues and events affecting the industry, she combines a technical background with extensive experience in the business and finance issues that drive this growing sector. www. bioventureconsultants.com

August 31, 2005

From Idea to Clinic:
The History of Raven Biotechnologies

Jennie Mather, PhD

with Jennie Mather, PhD

When someone asks Dr Jennie Mather what she does, her response is always first what she is: a scientist, and then what she does: lead a company. While a Staff Scientist at Genentech, Mather decided at age 50 that she wasn?t going to die at an early age after all, as a number of her family members had, and that she needed a big goal to last the rest of her life. That goal has become Raven biotechnologies, the company she founded. Mather?s own career spans from a beginning in basic academic research in cell biology to applied research and product discovery at Genentech. She advises other scientists, including women, to follow their passion when choosing career steps and to follow their intuition in making major career decisions.

This event was sponsored by Greiner Bio-One.

With more than 30 years of experience in cell culture and cell biology research, Jennie Mather is a recognized leader in the application of cell biology to technology and pharmaceutical product development. She has unusually broad experience that spans basic research in cancer biology and reproductive endocrinology. Prior to founding Raven, Dr Mather was a Staff Scientist for 15 years at Genentech, engaged in all phases of drug discovery and development, from project conception through scale-up and the development of potential new products. She is an inventor on 30 issued patents, the author of more than 150 publications, and the author or editor of five books on animal cell culture. She is on the board of directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, Healthcare Businesswomen's Association, and BayBio; and serves on the scientific advisory board of Springboard Enterprises as well as two bioscience companies. Dr Mather is the recipient of the first Innovator of the Year Award from the Healthcare Businesswomen's Association (2003) and was named as one of the Top 10 Innovators for scientific and business aptitude by Red Herring Magazine (2002). www.ravenbio.com/ management.html

June 22, 2005

Create Your Own Mission Statement
from Your Personal Values

Tara Marchant

Catherine Houdek

with Tara Marchant and Catherine Houdek

It is always amazing how something as straightforward as deciding what you believe in can help guide your decision making. We were thrilled to have Tara Marchant and Catherine Houdek guide us through the process of creating our own mission statement from our personal values. We learned that powerful statements (for example: I believe..., I will..., I celebrate..., I am committed to..., etc.) combined with personal values (for example: freedom, energy, integrity, honesty, trust, joy, etc.) should guide us in being an active decision maker in both our personal and professional lives.

Tara Marchant brings to her coaching practice 10 years of production and leadership experience in start-ups, non-profits, hospitality, education and the entertainment business. Born on the island of Oahu, it was a far leap to the halls of Yale University, where she received her Liberal Arts Degree. An enriching and diverse career in the entertainment world as a performer, writer and producer satisfied her passion for creativity and the human experience, which continues in her work today as a professional and personal coach. www.personal-velocity.com< br>
Catherine Houdek has worked in many different fields including IT, project management, interior design and training and development. She has worked with entrepreneurs, government departments, small and large businesses. Her choice to have the majority of her focus on coaching now allows her to live the lifestyle (particularly in choosing how to spend each day) that she had always dreamed about. Her love of people and having them succeed in whatever they choose to pursue has led her to co-leading workshops like this.

Catherine and Tara both base their coaching techniques on The Coaches Training Institute's co-active approach. www.thecoaches.com

May 23, 2005

Stem Cell Research:
Will Proposition 71 Mean New Approaches to Science?

Claire Pomeroy

with Claire Pomeroy, MD, MBA

Dr. Pomeroy brought to sfAWIS a timely update on the promises and problems in stem cell research in California today. At this exciting time for Bay Area biotechnology, scientists and policy makers like Pomeroy face thorny political and ethical issues in carrying out Proposition 71 fairly and effectively.

Pomeroy's advice to women scientists today is nonetheless enthusiastic. Although her involvement in stem cell research policy has brought some of the biggest challenges in her career as a doctor and a dean, she also shared her excitement at being involved in a pivotal project with such far implications for patient health and scientific progress.

This event was co-sponsored by UCSF Women in Life Sciences.

Claire Pomeroy is Vice Chancellor for Human Health Sciences and Dean of the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis. She is also a member of the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, commissioned by California's recent Proposition 71 to oversee the distribution of $3 billion to support stem cell research. som.ucdavis.edu/departments/microbiology/faculty/Pomeroy.html< /p>

February 26, 2005

NCC-AWIS Winter Workshop:
Powerful Non-Defensive Communication

Mady Shumofsky

with Mady Shumofsky

Mady Shumofsky thrives on sharing her expertise in effective communication. We learned about and practiced techniques to deal with the attacking, blaming, withdrawing, justifying, surrendering, and sabotaging that often accompany defensive communication.

This event was the 8th annual NCC-AWIS Winter Workshop, hosted this year by sfAWIS.

Mady Shumofsky has worked with numerous organizations and individuals as a conflict mediator, meeting and retreat facilitator and trainer for more than 25 years. She was trained by Sharon Ellison, and is a member of the Consortium of PNDC Trainers. Mady also serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for Dispute Resolution of Northern California. www.pndc.com/trainers/ mady.php

November 18, 2004

Saving Science from Extinction:
Educators Discuss Science Careers in California Schools

Kimberly Tanner, Julie Strong, and Katy Korsmeyer are all PhD scientists whose careers have taken them from the bench to the classroom. During their talk we learned that the opportunities to volunteer or work professionally in science education are widely available and deeply rewarding. Educating the "next generation" bridges a critical gap in the public understanding of science.

This event was co-sponsored by UCSF Women in Life Sciences.

Tanner (www.sfsu. edu/~biology/pages/gpages/tannerg.html) is an Assistant Professor of Biology at San Francisco State University, Director of the Science Education Partnership and Assessment Laboratory (SEPAL), and is a Principal Investigator in the National Science Foundation GK-12 Partnership Program. Strong (www.menloschool.org) is a teacher in the Science Department at Menlo School, a private Bay Area school serving grades 6-12. Korsmeyer (www.babec.org/SCCBEP/) is Program Director of the Santa Clara County Biotechnology Education Partnership (SCCBEP), is on the Department of Chemistry faculty at San Jose State University, and is the Outreach Co-Chair for the Palo Alto chapter of AWIS.

September 30, 2004

sfAWIS' One-Year Anniversary Celebration

At sfAWIS' one-year anniversary event, Susan Wheeler led attendees through an exploration of networking, both theoretical and practical.

Networking, she said, means "giving or providing support." She set out three Golden Rules for effective networking:

At the end of the workshop, attendees tried out Wheeler's three rules on each other in groups of two or three. The opportunity to practice networking in a room with great food, good company, champagne, and dessert in celebration of sfAWIS' first anniversary made for a friendly, excited, highly enjoyable milieu.

Susan Wheeler has extensive background in creating, launching and managing businesses. As a Principal with Pathfinder Consulting Solutions, she works with senior managers to help them re-focus on their most profitable markets. She helps emerging and established companies identify, focus on and implement targeted business strategies in highly competitive environments. She also specializes in identifying operational improvements using value chain and gap analysis and crafting strategic, business and marketing plans that focus on specific and attainable goals. www.consultpathfinder.com/about/bio.html#wheeler

June 16, 2004

Working with Difficult People

Susan Christy

with Susan Christy, PhD, CMC

"Are you like a carrot, an egg, or coffee grounds when placed in hot water?" The carrot goes limp; the egg becomes hard and inflexible; the coffee grounds mix and dissolve, making the water aromatic.

Susan Christy, a PhD in Counseling Psychology and a Certified Management Consultant (CMC), helped sfAWIS members find their way toward becoming "coffee grounds": mixing well and living a metaphor of collaboration and problem solving. The large audience participated in lively discussions and role-playing, in many cases prompting examples of and solutions to difficult work situations.

Susan Christy describes herself as a consultant, coach, and trainer specializing in team building, collaborative leadership, and customer service. She has worked with a diversity of clients from small businesses to large firms, including Bechtel, Hewlett-Packard, and UCSF. www.susanchristy.com/

April 14, 2004

Leading for a Change

Beata Lewis

with Beata Lewis, JD

Not so long ago it was news that women were leading in science. There is still a lot of room for more women leaders in science, especially at the more senior levels. What else matters besides numbers? Impact.

If you want essential changes in how men and women lead scientific ventures, you are in the best of company. How will those changes happen? Choices you make and actions you take. Are you ready to lead for a change?

Beata Lewis spoke to the issues of impact and change, drawing particularly from her experience coaching women leaders in science. She included an overview of the study she conducted in 2003: The Feminine Face of Leadership in Science as well as supportive findings from related studies about women as leaders.

Beata Lewis, JD, provides focused coaching for highly accomplished individuals and teams. As a Master Somatic Coach, Beata applies a somatic orientation to whole-person leadership that integrates mind, body, heart, and spirit for greater authenticity and power. Clients develop awareness and implement practices to achieve tangible and sustainable improvements in leadership, trust building and collaboration. Coaching and consulting clients range from leaders in bio-tech, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies, professional services firms, boards of directors, non-profit and arts organizations, federal and state agencies and entrepreneurs. In 2003 she conducted a study, The Feminine Face of Leadership in Science, about women leaders in the business of science. Combining leadership coaching with peer mentorship, Beata also conducts Transformational Leadership Circles, or TLC for Women Leaders. For more information visit www.BridgingLives.com or www.TLCforWomenLeaders.com.

February 7, 2004

NCC-AWIS Winter Workshop:
Negotiating for Success in Science

Helen Leah Conroy

with Helen Leah Conroy, Attorney-at-Law

Negotiation skills are a necessity in today's complex business and academic environments. We use these skills formally and informally to close deals, land a job or promotion, improve communications, increase cooperation, and to garner more resources.

Participants in this annual workshop came away better able to anticipate questions and discussion points, and develop the best way to respond appropriately during negotiations; assess points made by the other party, and offer alternative counterproposals; develop term sheets to streamline the negotiation process; deal with 'surprise negotiations; and determine when and how most efficiently to bring counsel in.

This event was the 7th annual NCC-AWIS Winter Workshop, hosted this year by sfAWIS.

Helen Leah Conroy is a lawyer who specializes in structuring, negotiating, and drafting contracts for businesses that use or create patented technology and copyrighted works. Ms. Conroy is a frequent speaker on this subject to business and trade groups. www.helenconroylaw.com/

December 10, 2003

Communicating Science in the 21st Century

with Vivian Siegel, PhD, and Lisa M Krieger

Vivian Siegel, PhD
Executive Director, Public Library of Science

After 13 years in bench research studying protein targeting and developmental genetics, Vivian Siegel transitioned to a remarkable career in science publishing. She has worked as a Senior Editor, Deputy Editor, and then Editor at Cell, as well as Molecular Cell and Developmental Cell, which she helped launch. She joined Public Library of Science in January 2003. She holds degrees from Bowdoin College in Biochemistry and Mathematics and a Ph.D. from UCSF in Biochemistry and Biophysics.

Lisa M. Krieger
Science Writer, San Jose Mercury News

As a professional science journalist, Lisa Krieger has covered issues from stem cell policy to genome mapping. She was Medical Writer for The San Francisco Examiner, covering health policy and clinical medicine, and later joined the San Jose Mercury News as a Life Science Writer. She was a National Association of Science Writers journalism fellow and was awarded the Knight Journalism Fellowship at Berkeley to study agriculture, biotech, and food policy. She holds a B.A. in Biology from Duke University.

September 6, 2003

Workplace Basics Workshop:
Understanding the World of Work

Annual NCC-AWIS Workshop

NCC-AWIS and Women in Life Sciences co-hosted the first in an annual series of workshops to provide a comprehensive overview of workplace issues to assist scientists in anticipating, navigating and evaluating the hidden rules of the workplace.

Participants benefitted from seminars and panels from experienced practitioners in the field:

• Evaluating the financial health and future prospects of a company
• Benefits and options in non-salary compensation
• Human Resources function and responsibilities
• Legal requirements impacting your work
• Diversity of workplace organization and cultures

September 3, 2003

Collaborative Research in Academia and Industry

Susanne Huttner

with Susanne Huttner, PhD

Dr. Huttner gave a great speech at the September 3rd sfAWIS meeting-the first to follow our official recognition as an AWIS chapter. Over 60 women from biotech and academia gathered at Genentech Hall at UCSF's Mission Bay campus for the event. AWIS members and newcomers networked over a buffet supper before the program. Then Melissa Boes, sfAWIS President, enthusiastically kicked off the presentation: for her, the exciting realization of nearly a year's work leading the 15 members of the sfAWIS board to now-official status.

Dr. Huttner gave an overview of her unique career path, and described her efforts to establish collaborative research programs between biotech companies and UC labs. She set out an inspiring example to women in the audience, emphasizing that there are many roads to fulfilling careers in science. By word and example, Dr. Huttner left us with a poignant message: Don't expect anyone to tell you you're doing the right thing as you step forward; consider the opportunities before you a demonstration of your success.

Susanne Huttner is the Associate Vice Provost for Research, Major Research Initiatives and Industry-University Partnerships in the University of California system, and is the Executive Director of the Industry-University Cooperative Research Program. She is responsible for creating and overseeing system-wide research programs encompassing all the UC campuses and National Laboratories. She manages a three-way partnership between UC, the State of California, and industry sponsors to award hundreds of UC Discovery Grants every year. She was previously Director of the UC system-wide Biotechnology Research and Education Program and of the BioSTAR Project (Industry-University Research Partnerships in Biotechnology). Dr. Huttner has published widely on biotechnology and its impacts in the public sector, and has won numerous awards for her work. She earned her bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley and a Ph.D. from UCLA in neurobiology.

July 15, 2003

Delivering the Promise of Medicine to the Developing World

Victoria Hale

with Victoria Hale, PhD

Victoria Hale, founder of the nation's first nonprofit pharmaceutical company, shared the story of the career path that led her to tackle what still seems impossible to many.

Hale's vision, manifested in her trailblazing company, the Institute for OneWorld Health, has already led to clinical trials seeking cures to widespread but under-funded diseases of the developing world.

Hale also shared insights into the power of women to lead others and achieve significant change in the world of science.

Victoria Hale established her expertise in all stages of bio/pharmaceutical drug development at the US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (FDA), at Genentech , Inc., the world's first biotechnology company, and as Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Axiom BioMedical, Inc., a pharmaceutical development and liability consultancy. She earned her PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco. She presently maintains an Adjunct Associate Professorship in Biopharmaceutical Sciences at UCSF, is an Advisor to the WHO for building ethical review capacity in the developing world, and has served as an expert reviewer to the NIH on the topic of biodiversity.