Ken Myer

Will Canestaro, Managing Director at Washington Research Foundation

Will earned his doctorate from the UW School of Pharmacy's Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program. He now has a professional background in health economics and outcomes consulting for organizing such as the national Pharmaceutical Council, Genetech, and AstraZeneca.

Gale Cornelius, Director of Career Center @ Engineering, University of Washington

Gail Cornelius is the inaugural Director of the University of Washington’s “Career Center @ Engineering” (CC@E), which opened in September 2015. With her Bachelor’s & Master’s degrees in Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering, she spent 18 years at The Boeing Company, with roles in organizations such as Competitive Analysis, Supplier Management, and Product Development. She also managed Boeing’s Puget Sound intern program (1,000 college juniors & seniors every summer) and spent 15 years as an Engineering recruiting. Before leaving Boeing, Gail’s last role was Chief-of-Staff for Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ Vice President of Engineering, for whom she oversaw strategy across the company’s three US design centers. 

Umut Ulge, Vice-President of Translation Medicine at Neoleukin Therapeutics

Umut Ulge completed his PhD in computational protein design at the University of Washington in 2009, his MD at the University of Washington in 2011, and his clinical residency in Internal Medicine at Indiana University in 2014. After residency, he returned to the University of Washington as a postdoctoral research fellow to work on de novo computational design of immunotherapeutic cytokines. In 2019, this technology spun out of the University of Washington into Neoleukin Therapeutics, a new biotech company based in Seattle, with Umut joining as Vice President of Translational Medicine. He is also a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine and works part time as an attending physician at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett, Washington. Details here

Robert Masse, Founder and CEO of Astrolabe Analytics

Robert Masse is the Founder and CEO of Astrolabe Analytics, a startup company providing software solutions for data-driven battery R&D. He is currently a PhD student studying Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Washington and has eight years of experience researching materials for renewable energy technology. A recipient of an Amazon Catalyst award and a participant in the Jones + Foster Accelerator, Mr. Masse launched his startup in 2018 and now empowers engineers with data science tools for battery innovation. Join us as we hear about Mr. Masse’s journey from student to CEO and come gain entrepreneurial insight from his experiences. 

Biochemistry and Beer with Tom Schmidlin, Head Brewer of Post-Doc Brewing

Postdoc Brewing was the name that Head Brewer and co-owner, Tom Schmidlin gave to his garage home brewery while he completed his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Washington. The name stuck and became a commercial reality once Tom and his wife, Julie decided to go into business together with neighbors Debbie and Jonny Chambers in late 2013. 
 

AGE1 Biotech Accelerator

Since she was a kid, Laura has been fascinated by the idea that longevity is a mechanism we can manipulate. When she was 12, Laura moved to the US to take graduate coursework at UCSF before studying at MIT. She has worked in such groups as The Kenyon, Guarente, Weiss and Firestein labs on a number of topics, including aging and synthetic biology. In 2011, Laura started Longevity Fund, the first VC firm dedicated to funding high-potential longevity companies. So far, she’s raised $26M and have backed such companies as Unity Biotechnology, Decibel Therapeutics, Metacrine, Navitor, and System1. Building upon this success, Laura created the AGE1 Biotech accelerator to support early stage founder driven longevity companies, which look to develop therapeutics that will extend the human healthspan. Come join us for a conversation about her journey, and how to get involved with the AGE1 community.

From Engineer to Entrepreneur

Please join us in learning about the career journey of recent UW graduate, Mallory Monahan! Mallory Monahan is head of design and the lead strategist at Uphill Designs, a company that grew out of the UW Business Plan Competition and Jones+FosterAccelerator. Uphill Designs handcrafts rustic fashion from leather and waxed canvas and has gone from making their products in a U-district micro-studio to its first retail/workshop mixed-use store in Ballard, opening May 2018. After joining the team in 2015, Mallory has led the company to 2x growth year over year in a typically stagnant and slow-moving market. She joined the team after completing a Master of Science in Bioengineering with a focus on Global Health Diagnostics from the University of Washington in 2015. Mallory also has a Bachelor of Science from Boston University in Biomedical Engineering with a minor in Latin American studies.

Navigating Technology Commericialization while in School and Beyond

Greg Newbloom is the Founder and CTO of Membrion, and is a co-inventor of the company's core technology. He earned his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington in 2014 and is a talented researcher with 11 patents and 5  first author peer-reviewed publications with 160+ citations. Dr. Newbloom is also a serial entrepreneur and has multiple experiences spinning out lab projects into startup companies—having translated and scaled materials technologies from concept to customer sale. Join us as we learn how Dr. Newbloom took an idea from the lab bench and built it into a company. 

Learn about Software Development at Amazon

Kyle Knapp received his B.S. in engineering and B.A. in computer science from Swarthmore College. At Amazon, he focuses on developing Python-based, client-side libraries and tools for Amazon Web Services (AWS). He will be talking about his current job at Amazon and his career path.

Transitioning from Academia to Industry

Melissa Works, PhD is a Scientist at Juno Therapeutics, working to understand how the tumor microenvironment affects CAR-T function. She has performed small molecule, biologic, and cell-based therapy research in both academia and industry for 14 years. Join us to learn more about Dr. Works' path from a Neuroscience PhD at Stanford to postdoctoral work at Calithera Biosciences in San Fransisco and finally to a position at Juno Therapeutics in Seattle.

Developing Business Skills as a STEM Student

Come join SEBA for our December 1st Tuesday meeting, which will feature two speakers discussing how current UW students can develop business skills while pursuing a full time STEM degree. 

Dr. Jamie Kuhar is a recent UW Pharmacology graduate and currently works as a Product Manager at NanoString technologies. Dr. Yesenia Green is UW Molecular and Cellular Biology Graduate and is currently a Business Development Specialist at Nativis Inc. Dr. Kuhar and Dr. Green will talk about their career paths and how you can prepare the "soft skills" necessary for a non-academic STEM career while still in school. 

Venture Capital Funding

Meet Dr. Beth Etscheid, Director of Research Commercialization and Director of Licensing at the Washington Research Foundation, to discuss venture capital and grant funding, as well as her transition from research scientist to businesswoman.

Career Fair Professional Panel

A panel of industry professionals will teach you how to prepare for the Science and Engineering Career Fair and other upcoming interviews. FREE professional headshots for our members.

Consulting as a Career for Scientists

Come hear three PhD scientists talk about their transition into environmental consulting. Brianne Duncan and Alicia Taylor, both Senior Scientists and Laurie Benton, Managing Scientists at Exponent will be joining us to provide career development advice for graduate students and what a career in engineering and environmental consulting entails. 

Join us for an information session about the Full-time MBA program at the Foster School of Business. This event is for current students and alumni who may be interested in a the Foster Full-time MBA program in their future, or for anyone exploring their future graduate school plans. Come to learn more about the Full-time MBA program curriculum, career options, and admissions requirements from a Foster admissions representative. 

Have any questions about upcoming activities or our mentorship program? Interested in becoming an officer? Come network with other students, officers and SEBA alumni! 

Jenny is CEO and Co-Founder of Cobelay, an online marketplace that is streamlining the process to connect a business owner or broker with a new generation of entrepreneurs aspiring to own a business. Prior to starting Cobelay, Jenny led mobile strategy across native apps and mobile web, driving triple digit growth for three years running. Jenny also built Zillow’s product marketing team, who drove growth for new products and business verticals. From within, she has led all stages of company growth—from startup phase to small business growth to post-IPO (Zillow) and a Fortune 50 company (Amazon). Jenny is passionate about making cutting-edge technology accessible to mass consumer audiences. 

Charles Seybold will present on how to give an effective pitch. He is a co-founder of Liquid Planner, a company that develops software for project management. He began his career as software engineer, then moved on to become program managers at both Expedia and Microsoft before founding his own company. Charles Seybold's talk will be followed by a session during which students can practice their pitches for the Science & Technology Showcase. 

Mohammad Malakoutian is a lecturer in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in structural dynamics, steel-structure design and mechanics of materials. He’s been a structural/civil engineer and project engineer for the past 15 years with a Ph.D/postdoc in Structural Engineering and is pursuing his Executive MBA at the University of Washington. Mohammad has started his own real estate investment company, InWestco LLC, and is a Structural Engineer/Contract Department Manager at Alisaz Int'l Co. 

Stephen McConoughey joined the Program Management team at the Allen Institute in 2016 as a Project and Alliance Manager. Before joining the Allen Institute, McConoughey was CEO of The Ohio Academy of Science, responsible for managing educational and professional programming, organizational budgeting, and building external collaborations. He received his Ph.D. in neuroscience at Weill Cornell Medical College studying transcriptional dysfunction in Huntington’s Disease, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at The Ohio State University studying metabolic dysfunction in cancer cells. 

Come join us for an informational meeting about SEBA, as well as a presentation from the College of Engineering about career fair preparation.