Board Members

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Danielle received her Ph.D. from the University of Leeds U.K. and has been a volunteer with a number of AWIS chapters since moving to the US in 2010. She has held various board positions in that time including being Vice President of the Sacramento Valley chapter and has served on the Board of AWIS-East Bay since 2018. Her goal is to increase active participation in chapter activities by finding innovative ways of adding value to chapter membership. Her background is in neuroscience and in understanding how events and illnesses during pregnancy shape developing brains. Making the switch from academia to industry in 2018, Danielle is now a Technical Scientist at BioMarin, a world leader in developing and commercializing innovative biopharmaceuticals for rare diseases driven by genetic causes.

Vinaya is Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs at Tricida. Previously, Vinaya worked in Global Regulatory Affairs at Johnson and Johnson (J&J). In her current role as Vice President, she is focused on facilitating and supporting opportunities for women to learn, lean, lead in their career goals while having a fulfilling balance with their personal lives. Vinaya has almost two decades of work experience, primarily in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry. Her responsibilities have included drug development and regulatory affairs through early and late phase development as well commercial products, and her work locations have spanned the West and East Coasts. Vinaya has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Notre Dame. She is passionate about furthering interest in careers in science, technology, arts and the environment, particularly among women and children/youth and volunteers her time towards these.

Sandhya received her Bachelor's degree in Molecular and Cell Biology from U.C. Berkeley and MBA from Santa Clara University. She has been involved with leading and organizing resource groups at Santa Clara University and in her professional career over the last several years. She has over 20 years of pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry experience in progressing roles of responsibility at LifeScan (a J&J company), Abgenix, Amgen, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Abbvie-Stemcentrx, Dermira, Omniox, and now at Revance Therapeutics as Director of Program and Project Management for drug development. 

During her time at Boehringer-Ingelheim, Sandhya became passionate founded the site chapter of the Women's Leadership Initiative and started working with AWIS-East Bay as a partner. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion efforts and enjoys mentoring and coaching the next generation of leaders. Sandhya also enjoys hiking, biking, reading, and spending time with family.

Deborah has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry and is a member of several non-profit organizations. Deborah wants to contribute her experiences as well as passion to help humankind by being part of this amazing organization of women. Deborah’s experience is mostly in a business development role, but also a focus on regulatory in the preclinical as well as clinical space. She is currently working in Business Development for AIT Bioscience-a Bioanalytical CRO for preclinical and clinical method development and sample analysis. Deborah sits on the Board of Directors for the following organizations: CBRA (California Biomedical Association) as Treasurer and CSBR (California Society for Biomedical Research).  Previously, she was was the President of NorCal AALAS (American Association for Laboratory Animal Science).  Deborah wants to grow the AWIS-East Bay membership base and provide women in our industry a place to grow and become stronger in their roles as women in science.

Roxanne received her Ph.D. from U.C. Santa Barbara and recently joined the East Bay Chapter. She is a native of the East Bay and is passionate about science education and bringing opportunities to underprivileged youth. She was a member of Women In Science and Engineering (WiSE) during her graduate and post graduate studies and participated in many outreach programs introducing young women to the power of stem cell biology and promoting women empowerment. Her background is in retinal and lung biology, focusing on cellular therapies to treat disease. Since 2016, she has worked for 4D Molecular Therapeutics in the Human Cell and Disease Modelling group, continuing her work with stem cells and helping create effective treatments for those affected by genetic diseases.

Tüzün holds a Ph.D. in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a member with the East Bay AWIS chapter since 2017. She has a deep sense of determination to achieve leadership in equality and gender bias and want to reach out to men and women to help bring best communication practices in workplaces. She is aspired to be known as helping other women realizing their potentials, creating opportunities to expand their skills for professional and personal growth as well as being inspirational. Her research background is in molecular microbiology focuses on the mechanism of surface sensing and biofilm formation by opportunistic pathogens and microbial ecology of the fruit fly gut microbiome. Since 2017 she has transitioned to the biotechnology industry and currently working as a Technical Lead Scientist in a very early-stage microbiome diagnostic startup. Her most recent research interest is about human microbiomes for diagnostic product development.  

Full profile link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zehratuzunguvener/