AWIS Officers
	Board Members
	President	Huong Huynh
	Past President	Jenny Chaplin
	Secretary	Rosemary Cesario
	Treasurer	Aparna Aiyer
	Member at Large	Rachel Soloff, Ph.D.
	Member at Large	Diane Retallack, Ph.D.
	Member at Large	Dody Sears Ph.D.

		President: Huong Huynh
		Huong Huynh is the Program Coordinator in the Office of Postdoctoral and Graduate Training at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research (La Jolla, CA) since 2004. In this capacity, she is responsible for professional and career development training of postdoctoral scientists and graduate students. She started this administrative position after completing 3 1/2 years of postdoctoral training, studying the localization and role of a novel, intracellular protein tyrosine phosphatase. Huong received her PhD in pharmacology from Loma Linda University. Huong was the founding president of the Student Chapter of the American Society of Pharmaceutical and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) Society. She is a charter member and has served as Treasurer/Executive Board member of the National Postdoctoral Association. She remains an active member of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), National Postdoctoral Association (NPA), Burnham Science Network (Burnham Institute’s postdoc association), Sigma Xi, and the Association of Women in Science (AWIS) – San Diego chapter. As an AWIS-SD member, Huong is active in the Public Relations and Membership Committees, and 2008 Gala Committee, and was Co-Chair of the 2007 Women in bioScience Conference. Email her by clicking here.
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		Past President: Jenny Chaplin
		Jenny Chaplin received her education at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has held positions in biotech both in South Africa and locally. Currently Jenny is an Associate Director at Vical, where she is active in project management. She has held positions in various AWIS-SD committees since joining in 2003, including Corporate Sponsorship and PR and was co-chair for the WIB 2007 Speakers Committee. For the last 2 years, she has been Secretary of the AWIS-SD Board. Email her by clicking here.
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		Secretary: Rosemary Cesario
		Rosemary received Bachelors and Masters of Science degrees in biology from Northern Illinois University. After a year as a research associate at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, she relocated to San Diego.  For 14 years Rosemary worked as a Scientist at Ligand Pharmaceuticals investigating the use of nuclear receptor ligands in treating human diseases such as cancer and metabolic disorders. Currently, she has a position at Novocell, Inc. helping to develop a cure for type 1 diabetes utilizing stem cells.  She joined AWIS in 2001 and has been a member and co-chair of the AWIS Events Committee over the past 8 years. Email her by clicking here.
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		Treasurer: Aparna Aiyer
		Aparna obtained her Ph.D. in Integrative Biology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. She was a postdoctoral researcher at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center before joining Gen-Probe, Inc. in 2007 where she is a Senior Scientist (Product Development). Aparna has been an active member of AWIS-SD since 2006. She served on the WiB 2007 organizing committee and as Co-Chair of the Publications Committee for WIST 2009. Most recently Aparna served on the 2009 AWIS-SD Open House organizing committee. Aparna can be contacted by clicking here
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		Member at Large: Rachel Soloff, Ph.D.
		Rachel Soloff received her B.A. in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, Texas and her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the Louisiana Health Science Center, Shreveport, LA in 1995. Her thesis research focused on the pre-thymic development of T lymphocytes. Rachel moved to San Diego to do a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Diego with Stephen Hedrick, Ph.D., where she worked on signaling during T cell development. She is currently Immunology Group Leader at Kirin Pharma USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Kirin Pharma Co., Ltd. whose main focus is the development of novel antibody therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Rachel is a member of the American Association of Immunologists. She has been a member of AWIS-SD since 2000 and served on the WIB 2005 and 2007 organizing committees as a member then Chair of the Publications Committee. Email
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		Member at Large: Diane Retallack
		Diane has been a member of AWIS San Diego chapter and involved in outreach since 2002. She is also active in outreach events through Biocom. Diane graduated from Widener University in 1990 with a B.S. in biology, then went on to the University of Michigan where she earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology studying gene regulation in E. coli. During her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Diane investigated genes involved in the pathogenesis of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Diane is currently Director of Molecular Biology at Pfenex Inc.,a leading biotechnology company focused on recombinant protein expression for a broad range of applications including therapeutic proteins, vaccines, research, reagents and biosimilars. Click here to email Diane.
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		Member at Large: Dody Sears
		Dorothy earned a B.S. at the University of Southern California in 1988 and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Genetics from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1994.  Dorothy has been conducting research in the fields of insulin resistance and diabetes since 1995 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego.  Dorothy also collaborates with and consults for several private research companies.  She has been a San Diego AWIS member since 2001. To email, click here
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		Updated 05/25/2010 ba