Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Ph.D., To Deliver Keynote Address

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Sept. 12, 2017 - PRLog -- Lydia Villa-Komaroff, Ph.D., has been confirmed as keynote speaker at the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) 16th Annual Conference. The conference will take place April 6 - 8, 2018, at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel in Cleveland, OH. Case Western Reserve University will serve as host.

Villa-Komaroff, a molecular biologist, executive, and diversity advocate, is a consultant and speaker, and founder of Intersections, SBD. Previously serving as CEO and CSO of Cytonome/ST, LLC, she now sits on its board, along with the boards of ATCC, the Keck Graduate Institute, and the Boston-based Biomedical Careers Program. Villa-Komaroff is a member of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering, and the Advisory Council of the NSF Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences. She is a founding member of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS), having served as a board member and vice president in the past, and currently serving as a member of the Committee of Senior Advisors.

Villa-Komaroff received her Bachelor of Arts from Goucher College and her doctorate in cell biology from MIT. She was a postdoc in Walter Gilbert's laboratory, where she was lead author of a landmark paper reporting the first synthesis of mammalian insulin in bacterial cells. She held faculty positions at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Children's Hospital, Boston, and Harvard Medical School. She served as vice president for research at Northwestern University in Illinois and vice president for research and chief operating officer of the Whitehead Institute. In the past, she has served on the boards of the Massachusetts Life Science Center (Gubernatorial appointment), Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc., the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and on the advisory councils for the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, the Biology Directorate of the NSF, and the National Academies Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Villa-Komaroff has been recognized with numerous honors including election to the Hispanic Engineer National Achievement Hall of Fame, receipt of a Lifetime Achievement Award by Hispanic Business Magazine, selection as the 2008 Hispanic Scientist of the Year by the Museum of Science and Industry, 2013 Woman of Distinction by the American Association of University Women, and receipt of the 2016 Elking Morison prize from the MIT Program in Science and Technology.

The NPA Annual Conference is the largest national conference and networking event dedicated to the postdoctoral community. Conference attendees - postdoctoral scholars, administrators, faculty, and representatives from professional societies, industry, and corporations - are provided with the opportunity to gather and enhance their professional development and leadership skills. The Annual Conference is coordinated by the NPA Meetings Committee, which assists the staff and the Board of Directors in planning and organizing the conferences. Teiwei Cheng, M.D., Ph.D., and Kerry Kauffman, B.A., serve as co-chairs of the Meetings Committee. For more information about the 2018 Annual Conference, visit http://www.nationalpostdoc.org/page/2018AnnualConference.

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The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) is a nonprofit, 501(c)3 educational association headquartered in Rockville, MD. Founded in 2003, the NPA seeks to provide a national voice for postdoctoral scholars; to facilitate positive change for postdocs; and thereby to advance the research enterprise in the United States. The NPA serves the postdoctoral community, including more than 6,000 individual members and some 200 organizational members. The NPA provides support to the postdoctoral community through resources, toolkits, professional development and networking opportunities.