2018 Annual Conference Plenary Speakers Announced

ROCKVILLE, Md. - Nov. 9, 2017 - PRLog -- The National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) is pleased to announce that Alison Gammie, Ph.D., and Rafael Luna, Ph.D., have been confirmed as plenary speakers for the 16th NPA 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.

Alison Gammie, Ph.D., is the director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) Division of Training, Workforce Development, and Diversity (TWD). TWD is the focal point for NIGMS programs aimed at developing a strong and diverse biomedical research workforce. Formerly, she was a senior lecturer at Princeton University. While at Princeton, in addition to teaching, mentoring and running a research laboratory, she served as the director of diversity programs, an academic advisor and an associate member at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.  She received a Bachelor of Arts from Reed College, a doctorate degree from the Oregon Health & Sciences University, and did her postdoctoral work as a Jane Coffin Childs Fellow at Princeton University.

As the executive director of the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and the principal investigator (PI) of the Administrative Core of NRMN located at Boston College, Rafael E. Luna, Ph.D., utilizes data analytics to strategically grow NRMN and effectively reach all 50 states, including Hawaii, Alaska, and Puerto Rico.

Luna earned his bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. During his senior year at Southern, he was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Scholar through Louisiana State University (LSU) and began doing molecular biology research with the LSU IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) and Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) PI, Konstantin Gus Kousoulas, Ph.D.
Luna performed his postdoctorate research at Harvard Medical School, which centered on elucidating the sequence of protein-protein interactions leading to the decoding of the initial start codons of messenger RNAs. Prior to his executive director role at NRMN, he held a junior faculty position in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. In addition to doing biomedical research, he is a dynamic speaker and has led lectures and workshops throughout the United States and Europe on the art of scientific storytelling. Luna also believes in giving back to the community by serving as a little league coach for 10 years in inner-city Boston, and four years ago was elected as the president of Mission Hill Little League.

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 7,000 individual members and some 200 organizational members. The NPA provides support to the postdoctoral community through resources, toolkits, professional development and networking opportunities.