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Date: Thursday, October 21, 2021
Time:Ìý3 - 5ÌýPM, Eastern Time
Panelists: Dr. Sabine Dhir, Dr. Katrina Choe, Dr. Argel Aguilar-Valles, and Dr. Dara Shahrokh
Talk 1: The bridge between Academia and Industry: Real life experiences
Talk 2: Navigating an academic career in neuroscience: from Mexico to Canada and beyond
Talk 3: Academic Career in neuroscience
Dara Shahrokh
Dr. Dara Shahrokh is the national MSL for biosimilars at VIATRIS, a global pharma company with headquarters in Pittsburgh, Shanghai, and Hyderabad. He completed his B.SC. at UBC in general Biology in 2004, and then undertook his graduate studies at ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï in the IPN program later that year. Under the supervision of Dr. Michael Meaney, Dara studied the neuroendocrine basis for individual differences in mammalian maternal behavior and the effect on the offspring later in life. After graduating in 2011 he worked as a project manager/public relations at the Ludmer center for Informatics at ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï until obtaining his first position in Pharma in 2015. In the past 6 years, Dara has worked in several departments in various Pharma companies including business development, marketing and medical mostly focusing on Immunology and Oncology.
Katrina Choe
Dr. Katrina Choe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University. After obtaining her bachelor’s degree at the University of Toronto, she pursued her doctoral degree at ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï under the mentorship of Charles Bourque on the hydration state-dependent control of vasopressin neuron excitability. She then performed postdoctoral work at the laboratory of Thomas Otis at UCLA, identifying functional circuits that potentially mediate cerebellum-to-forebrain input using a combination of optogenetics and mouse fMRI. Her second postdoctoral research at the Daniel Geschwind laboratory at UCLA focused on investigating the role of the central oxytocin system on social deficits observed in the Cntnap2 knockout mouse model of autism. In her newly established laboratory at McMaster University, she will apply a multi-level, integrative research strategy to link how gene mutations associated with ASD disrupt social behaviour. She has published 13 papers in journals such as Neuron, NeuroImage and Journal of Neuroscience. Her research has been supported by prestigious awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).
Argel Aguilar-Valles
Dr. Argel Aguilar-Valles received his Ph.D. from the Integrated Program in Neuroscience at ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï in 2011. He went on to complete two postdoctoral fellowships at the Scripps Research Institute (Florida Campus) in 2012 and at Universite de Montreal and ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï in 2018. He joined Carleton University in 2019 as a faculty member and started his research lab. The Aguilar-Valles Lab is interested in the molecular mechanisms that underlie psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders. They use a combination of biochemistry, molecular biology, neuronal culture, and animal models to understand how genetic and environmental risk factors contribute to mental illness. Twitter: @ArgelAV Faculty page:
Sabine Dhir
Dr. Sabine Dhir is Managing Director of the Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management and Instructor at ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï’s Desautels Faculty of Management, where she leads a team committed to interdisciplinary and experiential learning while also developing Desautel’s thought leadership platform, Delve. She holds a doctorate in Neuroscience from ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï and a Hon BSc from the University of Toronto (Victoria College). Following her academic training, Sabine joined ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï as the Interdisciplinary Programs and Academic Affairs Officer at Graduate Studies. Previously, Sabine served as the Manager of the Brain Repair and Integrative Neuroscience (BRaIN) Program at the Research Institute of the ºÚÁÏÍø±¬³Ô¹Ï Health Centre (RI-MUHC) overseeing major scientific initiatives and strategic areas of investment for a research program composed of 130 scientists and over 400 students and fellows across the six MUHC affiliated research sites.
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