Top image: Performing at Inwood Hill Park, NYC 

SCIENCE CONSULTING

06/2020 to present: Adjunct Faculty; Public Health Foundation of India 
PHFI is helping to build institutional and systems capacity in India for strengthening education, training, research and policy development in the area of Public Health.
As an adjunct faculty, I am creating a module on common neurological disorders for general practitioners in India. Structure of rthe modules:

• ​Overview on common neurological disorders. 
• Epilepsies and seizure disorders. 
• Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, tremors. 
  
• Stroke. 
• Other neurological disorders e.g. headaches and migraines, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). 
  

11/2019 to present: Director of Programming; Bright Mind Enrichment 

• Envision, plan, and execute innovative programming that focuses on community engagement and education, incorporating science and the arts into the context of overall wellness; create and teach online and in-person programs.
• Act as organization's science expert, actively work to ensure that all programming, content, and media support and align with organization's mission and goals.  
• Coach and collaborate with Bright Mind Enrichment's team of educators and support their lesson planning, programs, and professional development as science-grounded educators.
• Liaise with relevant organizations and individuals, connect organization with other entities and people, bring new opportunities to organization to partner on, work on, or provide co-programming on.

Phase Five Communications 
04/2018 to 02/2020: As an Associate Medical Director with Phase Five Communications - a global medical education company - I was involved in creating content and strategies for Pfizer and Novartis. I have worked in disease areas of oncology (solid tumors and blood cancers), inflammation, and infectious diseases on the following kinds of engagements and projects:  

• Series of webinars 
• Key opinion leaders (KOL) video series 
• Speaker decks 
• Decks for symposiums 
• Strategic planning 
• Development of a publication plan
• Gap analyses 
• Advisory boards: creating content, liaising  with clients and KOLs, creating summary decks to advise future strategy

My work led to organic business growth, and I have provided assistance for new business pitches. 

ILAE / AES task force 
10/2016 – present: Member of the ILAE/AES Translational Research Task Force.

• ​Discoveries made in animal studies often fail to translate into clinically relevant therapies; the ILAE/AES Translational Research Task Force is working to optimize epilepsy research and lead to new treatments for people with epilepsies. As part of an initiative to systematically review the animal data for their relevance to particular clinical syndromes and comorbidities, I co-authored this paper for the peer-reviewed journal Epilepsia that outlines the rationale and protocol of the systematic analyses.  
• Currently, we are working on extracting information from studies to eventually enable machine learning.  
• My experience in basic and clinical epilepsy led me to think of the translational implications of my work; in this article, I write about my personal motivations for joining the Task Force.  ​

Citizens' United for Research in Epilepsy (CURE)
10/2018 – present: Infantile spasms (IS) is a devastating epilepsy syndrome that typically begins in the first year of life. Symptoms consist of stereotypical spasms, developmental delay and an abnormal EEG pattern known as hypsarrhythmia.

• With CURE, I am putting together results of their team science initiative - a novel method to fund scientific discoveries.
• This initiative brought together an interdisciplinary group of investigators who would have not otherwise have collaborated to find transformative therapies for IS. 

Centers for Disease Control 
03/2019-11/2019: ​I worked on two projects with the CDC: 

• Translating educational materials from Spanish to English. These materials were on the following topics: alternative therapies for epilepsy, febrile seizures, caregiver burnout, and basic concepts of epilepsy 
• A study looking at the effect of social media on conversations among persons with epilepsy.

The observations of this study conclude that social media is a viable and powerful space for conversations about epilepsy self-management. Our study showed that more complex conversations and interventions about sustaining epilepsy self-management may be possible on social media, outside of the medical setting. This work was presented at the AES meeting in Baltimore in December 2019. 

Boston Strategic Partners 
10/2016-03/2018: I worked as a consultant with Boston Strategic Partners - a global life-science consulting firm with comprehensive clinical, scientific, and business skills providing a multitude of high-value services to clients.  

• At BSP, my engagements focused primarily on the firm’s Medical Communications and Health Economics practice.
• My responsibilities included developing abstracts, posters, manuscripts, articles, and analysis plans for a broad range of client needs. I worked on a project on ZULRESSO™. (brexanolone) Injection, which eventually got approval from the FDA for its use in postpartum depression (PPD). This is the first and only drug indicated specifically for PPD. 

The publications from my time at Boston Strategic Partners are listed here. 
Additional select projects: 

• Assessed the impact of hepatorenal syndrome to facilitate the launch of client’s product. 
• Developed materials for two clients’ new medications in preparation for FDA approval. 
• Developed a budget impact model for sublingual DSUVIA™ -  a noninvasive option to deliver opioids in a medically supervised setting. 
• Developed abstracts to understand perioperative nurse preferences towards fibrin sealants with regards to ease of use and operating room (OR) efficiency​.