Frances Colón, Ph.D. - President, Jasperi Consulting, @fcoloninFL
Dr. Frances Colón is the former Deputy Science and Technology Adviser to the Secretary of State at the U.S. State Department. As a science diplomat in Washington D.C. from 2006 - 2017, Dr. Colón promoted integration of science and technology into foreign policy dialogues, global advancement of women in science, and coordinated climate change policy for President Obama’s Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas. Dr. Colón earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience in 2004 from Brandeis University and her B.S. in Biology in 1997 from the University of Puerto Rico. She currently specializes in advising on evidence-based decision-making for governments and scientific civic engagement. As an Open Society Foundations 2019 Leadership in Government Fellow, Dr. Colón worked to catalyze policy action to counter the impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities in Florida. Dr. Colón is a 2020 Yale-OpEd Project Public Voices on the Climate Crisis Fellow, and a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, New Voices Project, the Roundtable on Science and Technology for Sustainability, and the Global Science Diplomacy Roundtable.
Brenda Lemos Waterman, Ph.D.
Brenda Waterman (Lemos) is a consultant at Clarion, a life sciences consultancy in Boston. Brenda received her PhD in Molecular & Cell Biology from Brandeis University under the direction of Dr. Jim Haber and her B.S. in Biochemistry from UMass Boston. Prior to graduate school, Brenda worked at a start-up biotech as an associate scientist.
Flavian Brown, Ph.D.
Flavian is a cellular immunologist with specialized training in T cell activation, differentiation and memory formation. He is currently a senior scientist, program lead at Jnana Therapeutics where he leads early-stage target validation across multiple immune targets. Prior to Jnana, Flavian held a scientist position at Neon Therapeutics where he advanced the development of their proprietary process, NEO-STIM™, which directly activates, primes and expands neoantigen-targeting T cells ex vivo. These contributions led to Flavian being named as a co-inventor on a recently published US patent application.
Flavian earned his Ph.D. in immunology from Harvard University where he trained with Shannon Turley, Arlene Sharpe and Nick Haining. During his training, Flavian co-authored several publications in the fields of cancer immunology, T cell exhaustion, stromal cell biology and T cell metabolism. His thesis work culminated in a lead-author publication at Nature Immunology – describing the mechanism by which stromal cells regulate metabolic and differentiation programs in activated T cells. Flavian is an alumnus of Carleton College where he received a B.A. degree in biology. He currently serves as a career coach and leadership council member for The Posse Foundation.
Rachel Yunck, Ph.D.
Dr. Rachel Yunck is a Patent Agent at Womble Bond Dickinson. As Patent Agent on the Intellectual Property team, Dr. Rachel Yunck uses her background in biotechnology to provide ongoing guidance and support to her clients. She has experience in a range of disciplines relating to biotechnology, including microbiology, molecular biology, genetics, cancer therapeutics, immunotherapies, diagnostics and biomarkers, CRISPR, antibodies, and plant technology. She works directly with clients to evaluate and manage their patent portfolios and has experience preparing and prosecuting patent applications with the USPTO and foreign jurisdictions.
Prior to joining the firm, Rachel obtained her PhD from Harvard Medical School where she worked with Dr. Tom Bernhardt studying cell wall biogenesis in bacteria. Using a variety of genetic, biochemical, and structural approaches, Rachel identified bacterial cell wall enzymes that could serve as potential antibiotic targets. Through this work, she discovered and characterized a family of previously unknown cell wall hydrolases that are broadly conserved in bacteria.