Susan Abbatiello

Dr. Abbatiello received her B.A. in Chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross in 1996. She accepted a position at Genetics Institute (now Pfizer) prior to graduate school in 2001. Her graduate studies, at the University of Florida under the direction of Professors John Eyler and Nigel G. J. Richards, focused on the quantitation of a suspected protein biomarker in drug resistant leukemia cells and received an NSF Cancer Biology Training grant to support her graduate studies. She received her Ph.D. in 2006 and worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Clinical Proteomics Facility at the Hillman Cancer Center at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Thomas Conrads, continuing her interest in protein quantitation through mass spectrometry. In 2008 she began a role as scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the Proteomics lab of Steven Carr, developing targeted quantitative assays for protein biomarkers in cancer samples using stable isotope dilution-multiple reaction monitoring-mass spectrometry while serving as co-chair of the CPTAC Verification Working Group, supported by the NCI, to demonstrate the reproducibility and transferability of these assays across labs. In 2014, Sue accepted a position with Thermo Scientific as a Product Specialist in the Triple Quadrupole product group to assist in further developing and testing the technology. Her interests include the use of FAIMS (High-field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry) and targeted peptide quantitation for the rapid screening of biological samples in the verification and validation of protein biomarkers.

Brad Ackermann

Brad is a Research Fellow at Eli Lilly and Company and currently serves as the leader of the Tailored Therapeutics Biological Mass Spectrometry Group, a group charged with performing endogenous bioanalysis of large and small molecules spanning early discovery through clinical development. Brad earned his B.A. degree in chemistry in 1980 from Hope College in Holland, MI and went on to study under Jack Watson at Michigan State University and received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 1986 focusing on desorption ionization techniques for mass spectrometry. After graduation he moved to Cincinnati, OH where he worked at Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals in Drug Metabolism and later was part of the Analytical & Structural Sciences Group. In 1997 Brad moved to Indianapolis, IN to join the Drug Disposition group at Lilly. His initial assignment was to initiate ADME-based screening by MS and later was involved with both bioanalysis and biotransformation. Brad led the Lead Optimization Bioanalytical Group from 1999 to 2004. In 2004 he moved to the Lilly site in Greenfield, IN to start a group focusing on quantification of large and small molecule biomarkers. He returned to the Lilly Corporate Center in 2008 to be part of the Translational Medicine Group, where in addition to MS, he became involved with the development of clinical biomarker assays using ligand binding and IHC. Brad transitioned to his current assignment in 2012. Brad has been an active member of ASMS and was the former chair of the Pharmaceutical Interest Group. He currently serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for Bioanalysis. Brad has been an active supporter of CPSA, serving as the Program Chair in 2005. He received the CPSA Distinguished Analytical Scientist Award in 2007.

Hong Cai

Hong Cai received her PhD in analytical chemistry from Texas A&M university in 1998. She started her career in pharmaceutical industry as an analytical chemist at ArQule, Inc., a biotech company in Boston. Dr. Cai moved to Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development in 2001 and then joined Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in 2006. Her work at JNJ and BMS spanned from high throughput compound library analysis to drug metabolism and bioanalytical research in support of drug discovery and early development. Currently, Dr. Cai is working for GlaxoSmithKline in the Department of Analytical Sciences. Her work is focused on development and validation of assays for the determination of trace level genotoxic impurities in drug substances and drug products.

Lucinda Cohen

Lucinda (Hittle) Cohen received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 1994 from the University of Pittsburgh under the direction of Professor David M. Hercules. She then worked with Professor Franz Hillenkamp at the University of Muenster, Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow. She began work in 1996 with Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research in the Pharmaceutical Delivery Systems, Analytical Research division in Morris Plains, NJ. From 1999-2007, Lucinda worked in the Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics & Metabolism department within Parke-Davis, Ann Arbor, MI which became Pfizer Global Research and Development. Lucinda joined Merck in 2007 and currently is Director of the PPDM New Jersey Discovery Bioanalytics Group, which provides quantitative in vivo and in vitro analytical support for projects in Kenilworth and Rahway. She has served as an adjunct faculty member for Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. Her research interests include mass spectrometry, bioanalysis, and sample preparation approaches to increase the quality and speed of high throughput analysis in a drug discovery environment.

Paul Corcoran

Paul Corcoran, as President and CEO of McKinley Scientific, has over 30 years of industry experience, including product development in the high technology equipment leasing and asset management business. Mr. Corcoran is responsible for the development of the McKinley Scientific business model, recruiting personnel, and interfacing with opinion leaders in the global scientific market place. He and his partners founded McKinley Scientific in 2000, with the goal of making the acquisition and disposition of scientific instrumentation an efficient and economical process.

Patrick Fromal

Patrick Fromal was born and raised in Hampton, Virginia. He received his BS in Chemistry from Virginia Tech. Soon after graduation, Patrick started his career at Shimadzu Scientific Instruments in Columbia, Maryland, as a Molecular Spectroscopy Product Specialist. During his 20+ year tenure at Shimadzu, Patrick has worked as the Molecular Spectroscopy Product Specialist, Molecular Spectroscopy Product Manager, Field Sales Engineer and Mid-Atlantic Regional Manager. He now serves as the Northeast Area Manager supporting the sales, service and field application group for Shimadzu’s full line of analytical & measurement instrumentation including Mass Spec, Chromatography, Molecular & Elemental Spectroscopy, Biotech, Clinical, TA, Testing Equipment and Informatics . In addition to his time at Shimadzu, Patrick served eight years in the Army National Guard for Virginia and Maryland. Patrick and his wife, Kimberley reside in Arnold, MD with their son, Luke, who is an aspiring tennis and guitar player.

Jonathan Josephs

Jonathan L. Josephs obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom in 1988. After completion of postdoctoral work at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley and working as a Medicinal Chemist he joined Thermo in San Jose, CA, prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1996. At BMS he was a Principal Scientist in Discovery Biotransformation. The focus of his role was establishing the broad usage of High Resolution Accurate Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) in the ADME area. Key ancillary aspects of this were: 1) The extensive use of qualitative/quantitative methods, 2) Automated data collection and processing, 3) Integration with electronic systems. In 2014 he joined Thermo Fisher Scientific as Director of Marketing for Pharma and Biopharma. In addition to expertise in mass spectrometry he has twenty five years of experience in structural elucidation and metabolic softspots.

Frank Kero

Frank Kero received a B.S. in chemistry from Seton Hall University (2000) and a Ph.D. in analytical chemistry under the supervision of Richard Yost at the University of Florida (2008). He was awarded an ORISE research fellowship by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2008) in Atlanta, GA. He has coauthored ~50 technical conference posters, 12 publications (journals/encyclopedias) and assorted marketing application notes (~15 posted on vendor databases, LCGC and Separation Science) on the topics of automation, sample preparation, chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry exploring diverse applications in clinical chemistry, forensic toxicology, food safety and environmental surveillance. He has provided methods and data to support 3 investigational new drug (IND) filings and recently sold the rights for a novel sample prep device designed for the paper and pulp industry. He has contributed to commercial product development efforts in several industries including: laboratory consumables, flexible packaging, medical devices and mining water quality. He is currently employed with Biotage as an applications chemist where he is actively involved with academic, government and industrial labs developing reduced workflow solutions in analytical method development

Eric Milgram

Eric Milgram earned both his BS and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the University of Florida. Dr. Milgram joined PepsiCo R&D’s Biology and Clinical Sciences team in 2010 to build the organization’s first metabolomics team in PepsiCo’s New Haven facility. As the metabolomics program’s chief architect, Dr. Milgram was instrumental in building a laboratory and staffing it with highly talented personnel, resulting in a novel chemical analysis capability that has been applied to solving challenging problems for PepsiCo. In April 2014, Dr. Milgram became PepsiCo’s Director of Quality Systems Informatics in the Food Safety, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, and Quality Team (FSRAQ). Prior to joining PepsiCo, Dr. Milgram worked in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He served as Director of Systems Biology technologies at Wyeth Research and Pfizer. As a Research Fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he worked to develop robust methods for the determination of trace levels of environmental contaminates such as phthalates and pesticide residues.

Shane Needham

Dr. Shane Needham received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Washington State University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Needham is Co-Founder and Laboratory Director of Alturas Analytics, Inc. Dr. Needham manages all scientific aspects of the HPLC/MS/MS bioanalytical contract laboratory at Alturas Analytics, Inc. Currently, Dr. Needham’s work is focused on the development and validation of assays for the determination of therapeutic agents and biomarkers from biological matrices. His laboratory has been a leader in the area of dried blood spot (DBS) analysis and microflow HPLC-MS/MS to support DMPK research. Dr. Needham was program chair of CPSA-USA 2013

Timothy Olah

Timothy V. Olah graduated from Princeton University in 1979 with a B.A. degree in Chemistry and three varsity letters in basketball. After studying organic synthetic chemistry as a post-graduate at Washington University in St. Louis and as a research technician at St. Louis Children's Hospital, he returned to graduate school. He enrolled and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA in 1989 with a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry. His dissertation focused on the structure-function relationship in protein assembly to conduct in vivo protein synthesis in the E.coli ribosome under Professor Barry Cooperman. After Penn, he joined the Department of Drug Metabolism at Merck Research Laboratories where he developed radioimmunoassays and helped to establish their first bioanalytical group using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric (LC-MS) detection with the late Dr. John D. Gilbert. In July 2000, he joined the DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company and, following its acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb, was named the Director of Bioanalytical Research. Currently as Group Director, Dr. Olah is responsible for advancing quantitative bioanalysis to support all discovery programs at BMS facilities in the US and India. His research is focused on expanding quantitative multiple component methods in biological fluids using LC-MS-based methods in the analysis of all types of drug molecules, as well as endogenous proteins and biomarkers, to support drug discovery and development at BMS. Dr. Olah has over 80 publications and has presented at numerous international universities and conferences.

Joanna Pols

Joanna Pols obtained her BA degree in Biology in 1996 at Thomas More College. She obtained her Ph.D. in Natural Products Chemistry in 2002 at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science. During her doctoral studies, she mastered the science of isolating chemical compounds with antimicrobial activity from taxonomically unique plan extracts from the National Cancer Institute Natural Products Repository, and characterization of novel chemical compounds by various spectroscopic techniques like NMR and MS. In 2003, she joined Schering-Plough Research Institute, Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) Department, as a principal investigator for studies involving isolation and characterization of drug-metabolites in biological matrices from studies in animals and humans. After nearly 10 years working in the drug metabolism field as a study director and a DMPK project manager on early and late development teams, in 2012 she joined Global Regulatory Affairs organization at Merck & Co. to further broaden her drug development experience. She is currently a Director and Global Regulatory Liaison responsible for development of global regulatory strategy and direct interactions with the Food and Drug Administration on assigned products within the Infectious Diseases/Vaccines Therapy Area. Joanna was the 2012 CPSA Program Chair. She enjoys mentoring and can share her lessons learned on making successful career changes (from natural products to drug metabolism to regulatory affairs).

Suma Ramagiri

Suma Ramagiri received B.Sc. in Biochemistry, M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry in India. She did her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry and post-doctoral research at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences, Memphis, TN, USA. Suma obtained Business Management from Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. Suma brings more than 12 years of experience in the analytical instrumentation field while working at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Hyderabad, India, and GTx. Inc. and ED Labs in Memphis, TN, USA. She worked in many drug discovery and development projects for anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer drugs. DMPK studies and GLP bioanalysis. In her current role as a Global Technical Marketing Manager, Pharmaceutical & CRO business at AB SCIEX, Suma leads innovative analytical and bioanalytical workflows in both traditional small molecule and also various biologic compound classes such as peptides, proteins, oligonucleotides, monoclonal antibodies and antibody drug conjugates, a growing segment within the Pharma and Biopharma. She drives worldwide efforts in application development and analytical product development to enhance bioanalytical quantitation, drug metabolism, biomarker quantitation, metabolomics and impurity analysis. Suma has over 15 publications in scientific journals, presented at conferences, tradeshows worldwide.

Robyn Rourick

Robyn A. Rourick received her B.S. in Chemistry from Fairfield University and her MS in Forensic Chemistry under the direction of Dr. Henry Lee at the University of New Haven. Robyn is a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening. She is also a Board Member of the CACO-Pharmaceutical & BioScience Society as well as the chair of the San Diego Chapter. She is currently a Scientific Manager in Bioanalytical Sciences at Genentech, Inc. where she plays a key role in the evaluation of new analytical technologies, bioanalytical outsourcing strategies, biomarker collaborations and operations. For 4 years prior, Robyn was a Sr. Manager in Nonclinical Study Operations where she oversaw GLP and non-GLP outsourced non-clinical studies in support of pre and post IND programs. Prior to Genentech she held the position of Director, Pharmaceutical Sciences, at Kalypsys, Inc, Associate Director of DuPont Pharmaceuticals Research Labs, Group Leader, Analytical Technologies at CombiChem, Inc, and a number of positions of increasing responsibility over the course of 10 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb

Petia Shipkova

Petia Shipkova obtained her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Florida under the guidance of Prof. Alan Katritzky and Prof. John Eyler in 1997. After postdoctoral work at Cornell University with Prof. Fred McLafferty she joined Schering-Plough in Kenilworth, NJ in 1998 and then moved to Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2001. Petia is currently a Principal Scientist in the Bioanalytical and Discovery Analytical Sciences Department and leads a group of scientists focusing on LCMS applications for SAR, biomarker analysis and metabolomics in support of Discovery and Early Development efforts. Petia was a program chair for CPSA-USA in 2010

Gary Valaskovic

Gary Valaskovic is the President of New Objective Inc. Dr. Valaskovic co-founded New Objective in 1997, together with Emily Ehrenfeld, based on his post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Fred W. McLafferty at Cornell University (1995-1997). Prior to receiving his Ph.D. in analytical chemistry (1994) with Professor George H. Morrison, from the Department of Chemistry, Cornell, Dr. Valaskovic earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry at the University of Illinois at Chicago (1988). Dr. Valaskovic is a co-founder of Mozaic Solutions, LLC, a start-up company developing technology to further enable the power of mass spectrometry to lower the cost healthcare.

Dr. Valaskovic leads a focused team of scientists and engineers in the development of novel hardware and consumable tools to extend the analytical reach of LC-MS. His post-doctoral research expanded the fundamental understanding of nanospray, ESI, capillary electrophoresis, and reverse phase capillary chromatography. His current development interest is to make highly sensitive and quantitative analysis by nanospray both easy and robust. His research includes the adaptation of microfluidic technology to decouple sample preparation and liquid chromatography from mass spectrometry; digitizing the analog output of LC-MS. He holds more than a dozen international patents and more than twenty peer-reviewed publicaitons. Dr. Valaskovic is been a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS) since 1993, the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS). For the past five years, he has served as an organizing committee member for the Clinical and Pharmaceutical Solutions through Analysis (CPSA) meetings held annually in Brazil, China, and the U.S.A.

Tony Yeung

Anthony Yeung, PhD in Biochemistry from VPI&SU, received postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University. He is an Associate Professor of the Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC). He used mass spectrometry quantitative proteomics to discover about 60 biomarkers for the early detection and staging of pancreatic cancer, then formed OncoSpec LLC hoping to bring the assay to the clinic to benefit the patients. While studying DNA repair, mutation detection, and colon cancer, he directed the FCCC core facilities including DNA synthesis, real-time PCR, fermentation, peptide synthesis, mass spectrometry and proteomics. He is active in the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF) and served as its President in 2012.