Drug Discovery Building Lobby, 70 President St, Charleston, SC 29425 — 3:30PM
Prior to joining MUSC, Alia worked for Benefitfocus and Vikor Scientific in Charleston, and the Litigation group for Nationwide Mutual Insurance in Columbus, Ohio. Alia earned her B.A. in Communications from Ohio State University.
Alia Akins can be reached at 843-876-1900 or [email protected].
Casey holds a J.D. from the University of Tulsa College of Law, an MBA from the University of Tulsa, a BS in Bioengineering from Syracuse University, and is a US Registered Patent Attorney.
Casey can be reached at 843-792-0434 or [email protected].
Prior to joining the Zucker Institute, Kaitlyn graduated with her Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law where she completed the curricular program in Technology Commercialization Law Studies, was a senior research associate for the Innovation Law Center and was a student attorney in the Transactional Law Clinic. Kaitlyn also holds a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.A. in Politics from Ithaca College.
Kaitlyn Crobar can be reached at 843-792-0466 or [email protected].
Pam's background includes managing Intellectual Property portfolios in a premier boutique law firm as well as a large multi-national corporation. Following her emphasis in mathematics at the University of Houston, Pam obtained her paralegal certification from Houston’s Southwestern Paralegal Institute - one of the first ABA approved paralegal certification programs in the United States.
Pamela Kaufman can be reached at 843-876-1012 or [email protected].
Prior to joining the Zucker Institute for Innovation Commercialization Joe owned and operated two engineering consulting firms. One of which specialized in consumer product design and manufacturing. The second focused on aviation products and services. Joe received his BS in Mechanical Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, FL and his MBA at the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC.
Joe Ruscito can be reached at 203-520-4020 or [email protected].
Nathan Dolloff can be reached at [email protected].
Lawrence Olanoff can be reached at [email protected].
He previously served as president of CSU Ventures and vice president of the Colorado State University Research Foundation, where he led a team working in intellectual property management, licensing and university startups and was charged with deriving impact and value from over $450 million in annual research expenditures at Colorado State University. His previous academic commercialization experience also included work at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Iowa State University. Headley received his MBA from Iowa St. University and his undergraduate degrees from South Dakota St. University.
Headley can be reached at 843-876-1904 or [email protected].
MUSC BOT Appointee
Ms. Barnes, a native of Rock Hill, was elected to the MUSC Board of Trustees in 2014 as the lay representative from the Fifth Congressional District.
Ms. Barnes graduated from Clemson University in 1981 with a BS degree in Therapeutic Recreation. She started her professional career with the National Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) as a patient service coordinator. Among her many responsibilities with MDA, she represented South Carolina at the annual Jerry Lewis Telethons. After working with MDA, Ms. Barnes began a new career path in the computer industry. She is Vice President of Applied Data Technologies which she co-founded in 1998, The company has grown into a leading top-tier reseller of Hewlett Packard products. Ms. Barnes has served on many panels and advisory boards with the Hewlett Packard Company. She is an active member of First Baptist Church of Rock Hill, where she serves as a youth Sunday school teacher. Ms. Barnes and her husband, Ruck, have three children and one grandchild.
Faculty Appointee
Dr. Ramin Eskandari grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and received his bachelors in science in biology/neurobiology at the University of Michigan. After college Dr. Eskandari lived in Switzerland while working at a sports camp for kids. This was followed but two more years of international travel while receiving his Master's in Medical Science. He participated in research projects in artificial vision and hydrocephalus, fueling his future research interests in pediatric hydrocephalus and brain injury.
Ramin Eskandari is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery at the Medical University of South Carolina. He holds adjunct positions in the Departments of Pediatrics (Child Neurology), Surgery (Plastic Surgery) and Immunology/Microbiology (Director of Pediatric Brain Injury and Hydrocephalus Research). His clinical expertise focuses on the surgical management of children with disorders of the brain and spine, minimally invasive methods for treating pediatric neurosurgical disorders, and endoscopic treatment of multiple disorders including complex hydrocephalus and brain tumors.
Dr. Eskandari has always had a very fervent desire to maintain basic science research alongside medical innovation and clinical therapeutics. He opened the first Pediatric Hydrocephalus and Brain Injury Research Laboratory in South Carolina in 2014 and has maintained active research through internal, state level and philanthropic grant funding. He is actively involved in medical device innovation, optimization and currently, his laboratory has invented a novel cell culture model of elevated intracranial pressure and has collaborated on a novel medical therapeutic to prevent progressive brain injury and hydrocephalus in neonates with brain hemorrhage.
Chief Innovation Officer
Dr. Goodwin is the Chief Innovation Officer for the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). Dr. Goodwin is charged with serving as a catalyst for programs and initiatives that incentive a culture of innovation. She also provides oversight and coordination amongst MUSC's innovation ecosystem, developing intrapreneurial and entrepreneurial strategies to support a diverse innovation portfolio spanning all domains of the tripartite mission. Prior to this role, Dr. Goodwin was the Vice President of Development for the Zucker Institute for Applied Neurosciences, a technology accelerator at MUSC, and had also served as the Deputy Director of the MUSC Foundation for Research Development, the organization's technology transfer office.
Dr. Goodwin came to MUSC from a Boston-based intellectual property (IP) consulting firm where she was Director of the Medical Device division, providing insight to client companies on IP matters pertaining to a vast array of medical technologies. Dr. Goodwin completed a post-doctoral fellowship in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. She holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Stony Brook.
VP of Research
Dr. Lori McMahon, having graduated summa cum laude from Southern Illinois University with a B.A. in biology/chemistry, earned a Ph.D. in neuropharmacology from the Department of Pharmacological and Physiological Science at Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center. She completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. McMahon is a federally funded basic and translational neuroscience researcher and has been investigating various mechanisms that modulate synaptic function and plasticity at hippocampal synapses in rodent models over the lifespan in health and disease for over 20 years.
As an expert synaptic physiologist, her lab uses electrophysiological approaches in acute brain slices, including extracellular dendritic field potential recordings, population spike recordings, and whole-cell voltage and current clamp recordings, to measure cell excitability, synaptic transmission, and plasticity. She has experience investigating synaptic transmission in all hippocampal subfields, many areas of the cortex, and dorsal striatum. Former dean of the Graduate School at University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB), Dr. McMahon joined the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) as Vice President for Research in November 2021.
SCBio President & CEO
James is the President and CEO of SCBIO. James, whose career also includes time with Chartic Management Consulting in Boston, joined Louisiana Economic Development (LED) in 2013 and held positions of increasing responsibility at the organization including Executive Director of State Economic Competitiveness before being named Executive Director of Competitiveness and Entrepreneurship for the organization in 2021.
During his tenure at LED, Dr. Chappell's numerous successes included designing and implementing the state's $100 million venture capital and small business funds, developing strategies to recruit globally recognized companies to the state , and joining the Louisiana MediFund board to develop strategies to increase the biosciences and healthcare industries in Louisiana. He also collaborated with bioscience and technology advocates to improve incentives to promote growth in the bioscience and technology industries.
Dr. Chappell earned his B.S. and M.S. in Plant Environmental Sciences from Clemson University, his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, and a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Stem Cell Biology focusing on cancer and diabetes from Harvard Medical School. A three-year varsity football letterman while at Clemson, he is married with two children. He began his new role with SCBIO on November 8, 2021.
Prior to launching Arkane Innovation, an international advisory services firm (based in Ireland, the UK and the US), Mr. Mark Crowell served as Vice President for Innovation and Economic Development at King Abdullah University for Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, Vice President for Business Development at the Scripps Research Institute in California and Florida, Founding Executive Director of UVA Innovation at the University of Virginia, Associate Vice Chancellor for Economic Development and Technology Transfer at UNC-Chapel Hill, and similar positions at North Carolina State and at Duke University. Mark holds a Master's degree in Regional Planning and B.A. in International Studies from UNC-Chapel Hill.
As a 32+ year veteran of academic technology transfer leadership positions, Mark helped to launch more than 135 start-up companies and numerous products and services, while demonstrably growing innovation partnerships and ecosystems around these institutions. Currently, Mark is a Senior Innovation Consultant with the World Bank, and serves as Executive Entrepreneur in Residence for the Eshelman Institute for Innovation at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, a novel initiative focused on accelerating the translation of early stage academic biomedical innovations into products and companies. Mark is internationally known as a practitioner and consultant in areas related to university innovation and business development, proof-of-concept and translational research initiatives, research commercialization and spinouts, policy-strategy-management of technology transfer, seed capital development, innovation-based economic development initiatives, research campus planning, accelerator programs, innovation district planning, university-industry (and foundation) partnerships, economic development strategy, and innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem development strategies.
Mark's current and past consulting clients include the World Bank, San Diego Biomedical Research Institute, the Bahrain Ministry of Higher Education (via the AAAS Research Competitiveness Program), the Qatar Foundation, TEConomy Partners, the American University of Cairo, and a number of other universities and innovation districts. In 2013, Mark received the 2013 Bayh-Dole Award from the Association of University Technology Managers in recognition of his "untiring efforts to foster and promote intellectual property activities on behalf of the university and nonprofit community".
Lisa is the Vice Chair of the Zucker Institute for Innovation Commercialization, and a Fellow of the Centre for Health Leadership and Enterprise at the Cambridge Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge. She is a co-author of the book, From Breakthrough to Blockbuster: The Business of Biotechnology, published by Oxford University Press in 2022, and named a Financial Times Top Business Title.
Lisa was the founding CEO of Genmab, one of Europe’s most successful biotech companies. During her leadership, the company completed a record-setting IPO, raised over a billion dollars, and created novel medicines for cancer and Multiple Sclerosis. The company was Scrip’s Biotech Company of the Year, and she received the Watson Helix Award for leadership in innovation and citizenship. She has been inducted into the New Jersey High Tech Hall of Fame.
Lisa pioneered a Women’s Walking and Weight Loss Wellness program when she was Chair of Volunteers in Medicine, a large free and charitable clinic for the medically underserved. Seeing that >90% of the women patients had heart disease risk factors, Lisa designed a program combining health education, pedometers, modest incentives, peer support, and a focus on patient accomplishments to build self-esteem.
Lisa graduated with honors from Mount Holyoke College and received a Ph.D. from Princeton University, where she has served as a member of the faculty. Also a Certified Sommelier, she received the expert-level Diploma in Wines with merit from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust, and has conducted wine education events at universities in Europe and the U.S.
As the CEO of Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI), Ms. Farrugia leads all strategic initiatives associated with GCMI's mission in advancing medtech innovation. She is also charged with successfully executing key business initiatives to improve outcomes, efficiency, effectiveness and processes associated with medtech innovation working with researchers, industry, and entrepreneurs. She provides executive level leadership for business and operational functions including providing insight into the innovations, new technologies, and start-ups developed as a result of the partnership with GCMI.
Prior to her role as the CEO, Ms. Farrugia was the Chief Operations and Strategy Officer for Children's Healthcare of Atlanta's Pediatric Technology Center (PTC) at Georgia Tech. The PTC is supported through a public-private partnership between Georgia Tech and Children's Healthcare of Atlanta with a mission of providing extraordinary opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in pediatrics, creating breakthrough discoveries often only be found at the intersection of multiple disciplines. She has also successfully impacted healthcare in her role as the Managing Director of Health IT at Georgia Tech. In this role she was responsible for developing the health IT strategy specifically as it relates to digital health, connecting faculty to health IT/digital health industry partners, and mentoring health IT and digital health startups.
Before joining Georgia Tech, Sherry owned a successful consulting company where she worked with healthcare companies advising them on new market opportunities, launching new verticals, and worked with startups advising them on market strategy and business plan. She also co-founded and sold a health IT company to McKesson HBO & Company in the early '90s whose technology was focused on point-of-care documentation and tracking both clinical and financial outcomes – technology McKesson is still using in their systems today.
Ms. Farrugia is currently an advisory board member of Atlanta Ronald McDonald House Charities; board member of MUSC Foundation for Research Development, International Society of Pediatric Innovation, Southeast Life Sciences, and MedTech Women @ SEMDA; active member of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
Bill retired as President and CEO of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), which is based in New York City, and is a not-for-profit academic research organization housing a pre-clinical lab, a clinical trials center and a medical education division. It is affiliated with Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. Prior to joining CRF, he was Senior Vice President at VHA and Executive Officer of its New York-based VHA Empire – Metro. VHA is a national health care alliance that provides supply chain management and clinical improvement services and supports the formation of regional and national networks to help members improve their clinical and economic performance. Before that, he held President and Chief Executive Officer positions at several hospitals and health care systems, including The Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut, Saint Mary's Health Services in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Holy Cross Health System in South Bend, Indiana, Detroit Receiving Hospital and University Health System in Detroit, Michigan. He is currently a guest lecturer in the MHA Program at MUSC and at the BSN Program at USC-Beaufort and also serves on the advisory boards of two small private healthcare companies: Bright Whistle and Intralign. Bill holds a B.A. in Labor-Management Relations/Economics from Penn State University and a Masters in Public Health in healthcare administration from the University of Pittsburgh. He is also a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.