Thanks to all who attended NESBO ’19! You can see some photos from the symposium here.
Congratulations to NESBO 2019 Poster Award winners Jordan Miner (University of Maine, Orono) and Ronald Miguel Juarez Chambi (Texas A&M University) !
Book of abstracts for NESBO 2019: Click here
All-optical neurophysiology using high-speed wide-area optical sectioning
Vicente Parot, Harvard University
Optical Coherence Tomography – Frequency comb benefits
Norman Lippok, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Nucleic acid quantification in Uganda using a portable, energy-flexible device
Ryan Snodgrass, Cornell University
Mobile health technologies with applications in medicine
Luis Pacheco, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Multifunctional polymer-based fibers for the recording and modulation of neural circuits
Marc-Joseph Antonini, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Wearable & Implantable Optical Waveguides
Soroush Shabahang, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
High optode-density wearable probe for monitoring breast tumor dynamics during neoadjuvant chemotherapy
Sam Spink, Boston University
Srivalleesha (Valli) Mallidi obtained her M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin where she worked in the Ultrasound imaging group of Prof. Stanislav Emelianov. Her graduate work is published in journals such as Nano Letters and Optics Express and her work on Molecular specific photoacoustic imaging is highly cited. After graduation, she joined the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at MGH with a goal to translate the imaging techniques to clinic, and was a NIH Ruth L. Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow under the mentorship of Dr. Tayyaba Hasan. She was also awarded the American Society of Lasers in Medicine and Surgery Research Award for junior faculty. Dr. Mallidi is currently an assistant professor at Tufts University and leads the integrated Biofunctional Imaging and Therapeutics Laboratory (iBITLab).
Carol Lynn Alpert is the Strategic Projects Group director at the Museum of Science, Boston (MOS). She serves as a co-PI of the NSF Science-Technology Center for Integrated Quantum Materials (CIQM, headquartered at Harvard) and collaborates on outreach with the MIT-based NSF Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM). She also coordinates a multi-university team developing a set of new tools for super-resolution imaging. Alpert is a writer and award-winning filmmaker and has an abiding interest in improving multi-disciplinary science communication. She developed the Presentation Rx consulting service for the American Association for the Advancement AAAS, the Quantum Matters™ Science Communication Competition, and taught a Research Communication Laboratory course for MIT graduate students from 2012-2018.
Prasha Sarwate Dutra grew up in New Delhi, India and earned a Bachelor’s in Chemical Engineering followed by a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from UT Arlington, Texas. She currently works in a leadership role in manufacturing in Rhode Island, USA. She believes that STEM Needs Women, Women Need STEM and to support that she created her podcast, Her STEM Story. Through one on one interviews with people from around the world, her mission is to close the voice-gap in STEMfields. In these conversations, Prasha focuses on the pivots, struggles, education, careers and accomplishments other guests and is collecting these stories for current and future generations.
Brian Burns is the Integrated Marketing Manager for the Mass General Research Institute, where he works to support marketing and communications efforts within the Office of the Scientific Director, including email newsletters, an award-winning research blog, communicating science events and other outreach efforts to the public, donors and industry collaborators.
Daisy Shu completed her PhD in the Discipline of Ophthalmology at the University of Sydney, Australia under the supervision of Frank Lovicu and John McAvoy. Her research explored signaling pathways activated during cataract formation. She is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at Schepens Eye Research Institute, Harvard Medical School in the Saint-Geniez Laboratory studying the role of mitochondria and metabolism in retinal eye diseases. Daisy is passionate about science communication and outreach. She currently serves on the ARVO Advocacy and Outreach Committee, the Harvard Medical School Postdoc Association Communications Team and the International Society for Eye Research (ISER) Young Investigator Committee. She was part of the first cohort to complete the Science Communication Training Fellowship run by the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO) in 2017. She is a co-host of “The Peer Review”, a podcast about science, research and academia. She successfully crowdfunded her PhD research project on cataract formation and prevention on Experiment.com. Daisy enjoys updating her followers on her science adventures on social media via the handle @EyeDaisyShu and online science blog.
Eileen Ablondi is a PhD Candidate in Harvard’s Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program. She graduated from The College of William and Mary in 2016 with degrees in Neuroscience and English, and now works in the lab of Dr. Karen Adelman, where she studies the mechanisms of enhancer activation and maintenance. She currently serves as co-director of Science in the News, a graduate student group at Harvard that seeks to bridge the communication gap between scientists and the general public by offering free seminars, hosting a popular science blog, and training graduate students to be effective communicators of their work. She is passionate about increasing accessibility in science and medicine, and seeks to promote inclusion and diversity through her work with SITN and other student outreach groups.
Eric J. Perkins received his PhD in Genetics & Molecular Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill, where he studied DNA repair and V(D)J Recombination. After a postdoc spent studying DNA replication in Harvard’s Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology, he began his career at Addgene in 2008. Addgene is a nonprofit biorepository that facilitates the sharing of DNA and other biological reagents around the world. Eric’s Senior Scientist responsibilities at the then new repository included technical customer support, quality control, scientific outreach, and lab management. He has since become the Director of the Product Management team, which coordinates the organization’s large cross-team projects and prioritizes work for Addgene’s software engineers. Outside of Addgene, Eric speaks and writes about open access science, scientific reproducibility, STEM education, and nonprofits as an important career option for PhD scientists.
About: NESBO is an annual event aiming to bring together junior researchers from across the greater New England area to stimulate scientific discussion and promote collaboration within the local Biomedical Optics community. It is a great opportunity to interact with other young researchers in a relaxed atmosphere. We hope to see you there!
NESBO 2019 Executive Committee:
Amira Eltony, PhD — aeltony@mgh.harvard.edu
Mohsen Erfanzadeh, PhD
Sarah Forward, MS
Pelham Keahey, PhD
