Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

Send us a textIlana Golant is the Founder and CEO of The Food Allergy Fund ( https://foodallergyfund.org/ ) a leading nonprofit dedicated to funding food allergy research, with a focus on identifying underlying causes, discovering new therapeutics, and improving the lives of all people living with food allergies, and through their ground-breaking research and unique thought leadership summits, accelerating innovation to find solutions. Ms. Golant is a marketing and PR executive, an attorney, and a former government official, as well as a mother of a child with food allergies. Ms. Golant has extensive experience working with media organizations, academic institutions, and Fortune 100 clients. She has held executive roles at WPP, the world’s largest advertising and PR conglomerate, as well as at NBCUniversal, specifically working with CNBC, MSNBC, and NBC News. Prior to joining NBCU, Ms. Golant was an attorney-advisor in the Office of Financial Stability at the U.S. Department of Treasury and an attorney at Mayer Brown LLP. She received her B.A. from Columbia University and her J.D. from the New York University School of Law. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Rovshan Muradov is the Secretary General of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center ( https://www.nizamiganjavi-ic.org/ ), a leading international cultural organization based in Baku, Azerbaijan, aimed at promoting Dialogue, Understanding, Learning and Tolerance across the globe. He is also a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Sciences, Board of Governance Member of the East West Bridge, and the driving force behind the huge success of the Baku International Forum which assembles dozens of current and former heads of state or government and hundreds of academicians from all over the world to help solve critical global issues. Born in 1987, Dr. Muradov studied at the State Economic University/Azerbaijan and graduated with a masters in International Economic Relations, and was later accepted for the doctorate program in political science. He also studied at Cambridge College Boston/USA, Sterling University Edinburgh/UK, and the University of Georgia Tbilisi. In 2007, Dr. Muradov was nominated to represent the Republic of Azerbaijan at the United Nations General Assembly as a youth delegate and the only delegate serving for the full 4-year term. He is also Founder of the first and the biggest Student Youth Organization in the Republic of Azerbaijan with 17,000 student members. Dr. Muradov also interned at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Communication and Information Technologies, and State Committee on work with the Diaspora. He has lectured at the State Economic University, participated at international scientific conferences in Tbilisi, Bucharest, London, Istanbul, Alexandria and Warsaw, and has also published several books dedicated to the economic situation of Caucasus Region, and cultural and historical view on Azerbaijan. He worked as a Country coordinator, and later International Advisory Board Member, of the Youth Employment Summit International Organization based in Massachusetts, USA. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Ebere Okereke, MD is a highly respected public health physician, specializing in global health security and health system strengthening, who has dedicated her career and won awards for her work promoting women and under-represented groups in public health leadership. Dr. Okereke currently serves as a Senior Adviser in Health at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change ( https://www.institute.global/experts/ebere-okereke ), honorary senior public health adviser at Africa CDC, Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and is the incoming CEO of Africa Public Health Foundation ( https://aphf.africa/ ). Dr. Okereke is currently on a career break from Public Health England (now the UK Health Security Agency) where she led the UK-aid funded International Health Regulations strengthening project; a technical assistance project aimed at sustainably strengthening public health systems. Dr. Okereke is an experienced trainer, coach and mentor and was an honorary senior lecturer at the Leeds and Hull-York medical schools. Dr. Okereke is a graduate of the University of Nigeria College of Medicine and a Fellow of the UK Faculty of Public Health. Her journey in global health started at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) where she was first introduced to the field of communicable diseases and where she completed post-graduate work in International Health Consultancy. After leaving LSTM for the first time, Dr. Okereke joined the Public Health Specialty Training Program, where she trained across Northern England and became a consultant in communicable disease control. Her interests then took her to emergency preparedness, emerging and re-emerging infections, and zoonoses, ultimately leading her to Kenya where she worked for the International Rescue Committee. Support the show

Send us a textMariah Collins ( https://www.bridgespan.org/team-members/mariah-collins ) is a Partner at The Bridgespan Group, a global nonprofit, that strives to make the world more equitable and just. Since 2000, they have had the privilege of advising and collaborating with many of the world’s most extraordinary social change leaders including philanthropists, nonprofit and NGO leaders, and impact investors. The Bridgespan Group is passionate about helping social change leaders find solutions to economic and social barriers that perpetuate inequities and prevent individuals, families, and communities from having access to opportunities they need to thrive. They use rigorous research to gain insights that help clients solve problems and achieve their goals. Mariah leads Bridgespan’s Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning Area of Expertise and co-leads the Public Health Area of Expertise. She has experience working with philanthropists, donor collaboratives, foundations, nonprofits, and impact investors. With her philanthropy clients, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Steven and Alexandra Cohen Foundation, Mariah helped to design high-impact strategies (including many big bets), strengthen operations, set grantmaking priorities, determine impact targets, and identify potential grantees. Mariah’s nonprofit clients include Compass Working Capital, East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, Nurse-Family Partnership, and the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. With these clients, she has primarily focused on growth strategy and measurement. Mariah recently published an article on how Nonprofits can Incorporate Equity into their Measurement, Evaluation, and Learning. Mariah’s impact investing clients include Texas Pacific Group’s (TPG) Rise Fund—where Bridgespan partnered to develop and deliver rigorous, quantitative impact underwriting, as detailed in Harvard Business Review’s “Calculating the Value of Impact Investing.” Mariah has also explored opportunities for family offices and high-net-worth individuals to get involved in "impact-first" forms of impact investing in the article “Back to the Frontier: Investing that Puts Impact First.” Mariah has a longstanding interest in the social determinants of health and co-authored “The Community Cure for Health Care” for Stanford Social Innovation Review and “Why Big Health Systems are Investing in Community Health” for Harvard Business Review online as well as “With the ACA Under Fire, Can Health Conversion Foundations Patch the Safety Net for Low-Income Americans” in Health Affairs Grantwatch Blog. Mariah holds a Master of Science degree from the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from Brandeis University where she studied health policy/public health and environmental studies. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Heather Whitley, Ph.D. is Associate Program Director for High Energy Density Science ( https://heds-center.llnl.gov/ ), Weapons and Complex Integration Directorate, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where she is responsible for providing technical oversight and management of the design, execution, and analysis of experiments at the National Ignition Facility and other laser programs. Prior to this role, Dr. Whitley served as a detailee on assignment to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Defense Programs Office of Experimental Sciences. Dr. Whitley completed her graduate studies of quantum systems at the University of California, Berkeley with a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry, prior to joining LLNL as a postdoctoral researcher in September 2007. She was hired as a permanent staff member in August 2010 and was a recipient of the 2011 Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering. Her work at LLNL has broadly supported the physics data and modeling needs of nuclear warhead studies and high-energy density experiments. She was awarded the NNSA Defense Programs Award of Excellence twice in 2018. Support the show

Send us a textAmbassador Dr. John-Arne Røttingen, MD, Ph.D. ( https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/john-arne-rottingen ) is Ambassador for Global Health, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Norway, and a Visiting Fellow of Practice, at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University. Ambassador Dr. Røttingen has previously served as the Chief Executive of the Research Council of Norway; the founding Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI); Executive Director of Infection Control and Environmental Health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health; founding Chief Executive of the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services; Professor of Health Policy at the Department of Health Management and Health Economics, Institute of Health and Society, University of Oslo; and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Global Health and Population, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. From 2020, Ambassador Dr. Røttingen also chaired the Executive Group and the International Steering Committee of the WHO Solidarity trial to compare four untested treatments for hospitalized people with severe COVID-19 illness. In early 2021, he was appointed by the G20 to the High Level Independent Panel (HLIP) on financing the global commons for pandemic preparedness and response. That same year, he was also appointed to the Pandemic Preparedness Partnership (PPP), an expert group chaired to advise the G7 presidency. From mid-2021, he was part of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator's Vaccine Manufacturing Working Group. Ambassador Dr. Røttingen received his MD and Ph.D. from the University of Oslo, an MSc from Oxford University and an MPA from Harvard University. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Andrea (Annie) Kritcher, Ph.D. is a nuclear engineer and physicist who works at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( https://www.llnl.gov/ ). She is the design lead of the HYBRID-E capsule technology within Lawrence Livermore’s Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) program, and is a member of the ICF leadership team and lead designer for shot N210808, at their National Ignition Facility, a recent experiment that heralded a significant step towards a fusion break-even target. She was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2022. Dr. Kritcher was first employed at Lawrence Livermore as a summer intern in 2004, as an LLNL Lawrence Scholar during her time at UC Berkeley, where she earned a master's degree and doctorate in nuclear engineering, and as a Lawrence postdoctoral fellow in 2009 following completion of her Ph.D. During her postdoctoral appointment she explored using X-rays to measure the properties of warm and hot dense matter (plasma), and measuring how nuclei interact with dense plasma. In 2012, Dr. Kritcher became a member of scientific staff and now serves as team lead for integrated implosion modeling and is a group leader within the design physics division at LLNL. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy. Its principal responsibility is ensuring the safety, security and reliability of the nation's nuclear weapons through the application of advanced science, engineering, and technology. The laboratory also applies its special expertise and multidisciplinary capabilities towards preventing the proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction, bolstering homeland security, and solving other nationally important problems, including energy and environmental needs, scientific research and outreach, and economic competitiveness. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Michael Nestor, Ph.D., is Board Director, of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable ( GUIRR - https://www.nationalacademies.org/guirr/about ), within the Policy and Global Affairs Division, at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The GUIRR is charged with improving the research enterprise of the United States by successfully resolving the cross-sectoral issues that prevent the U.S. research enterprise from reaching its full potential. This mission is achieved by convening senior-most representatives from government, universities, and industry to frame the critical issues, followed – when appropriate – by the execution of activities designed to address specific cross-sectoral impediments to achieving a healthy, vibrant research enterprise. GUIRR provides a unique forum for dialogue among top government, university and industry leaders of the national science and technology enterprise. Prior to this role at NAS, Dr. Nestor was a Scientific Engagement Lead at Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JLABS in Washington, D.C. where he was responsible for external scientific engagement with regional academic research institutions, start-ups, investment partners, and portfolio management, sourcing and evaluating innovative companies with the aim to foster a productive life science ecosystem and bring value to the pipeline of the Johnson & Johnson Family of Companies. Dr. Nestor received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from The University of Maryland, School of Medicine, and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the National Institutes of Health and The New York Stem Cell Foundation, where he was also a Staff Scientist. He was also an NIH Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) Fellow at Rutgers University, focused on teaching in minority-serving institutions and helping increase the participation of traditionally underrepresented groups in science. Dr. Nestor was also Director of Neural Stem Cell Research at The Hussman Institute for Autism where he led his own lab studying autism by creating brain organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells. His lab developed a multiplexed high-throughput CRISPR and drug-screening platform. Dr. Nestor also served as Co-Chair of the Neural Stem Cell Working Group at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine and as a venture advisor to the UM Momentum Fund and the Abell Foundation. Further, he was an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Science and Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Science at The Department of Energy (DOE). At the DOE, he was focused on synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and biosecurity initiatives. He also launched his own human stem cell consulting company, Synapstem. Dr. Nestor's book, "Anticipatory Ethics and The Use of CRISPR in Humans" was published in 2022. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Namandjé Bumpus, Ph.D. is U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Chief Scientist ( https://www.fda.gov/about-fda/fda-organization/namandje-bumpus ). The Office of the Chief Scientist supports the research foundation, science, and innovation that underpins the FDA’s regulatory mission. It does this through a broad framework that encompasses scientific collaborations, laboratory safety, the transfer of FDA inventions to the private sector, scientific integrity in FDA policy- and decision-making, the professional development of regulatory scientists, and its core research component—the FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research—which generates the vital data that the FDA requires for its regulatory decision-making and development of sound regulatory policy. Before joining the FDA, Dr. Bumpus was the E.K. Marshall and Thomas H. Maren Professor and chair of the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She served previously as associate dean for basic research in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Bumpus’ research has focused on drug metabolism, pharmacogenetics, bioanalytical chemistry, and infectious disease pharmacology. Dr. Bumpus joined the faculty at Johns Hopkins in 2010 as an assistant professor. She earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at Occidental College in 2003, a doctorate in pharmacology at the University of Michigan in 2007 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular and experimental medicine at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA in 2010. Dr. Bumpus currently serves as president-elect of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. She previously served as chair of the NIH Xenobiotic and Nutrient Disposition and Action study section. Her many honors include the Leon I. Goldberg Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, the James Gillette Award from the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics, the John J. Abel Award in Pharmacology from the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, which is the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on early career scientists and engineers. Dr. Bumpus is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She became a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, Class of 2022, one of the highest honors in the fields of health, science and medicine. Support the show

Send us a textDr Emily Osborne, Ph.D. ( https://www.aoml.noaa.gov/people/emily-osborne/ ) is a Research Scientist, in the Ocean Chemistry and Ecosystems Division, at the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory. The Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML), a federal research laboratory, is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), located in Miami in the United States. AOML's research spans tropical cyclone and hurricanes, coastal ecosystems, oceans and human health, climate studies, global carbon systems, and ocean observations. It is one of ten NOAA Research Laboratories. With a B.S. in Geology from the College of Charleston and a Ph.D. in Marine Science from University of South Carolina, Dr. Osborne is currently involved in investigating regional and global biogeochemical issues related to ocean health and climate through the use of a combination of paleoceanographic approaches, new autonomous sensors, and conventional measurements on large multi-disciplinary oceanographic cruises. Paleoceanography is the study of the history of the oceans in the geologic past with regard to circulation, chemistry, biology, geology and patterns of sedimentation and biological productivity. Paleoceanographic studies using environment models and different proxies enable the scientific community to assess the role of the oceanic processes in the global climate by the re-construction of past climate at various intervals. Support the show