Industrial Advisory Board
The following individuals currently serve on the department IAB:
| IAB Executive Committee | |
|---|---|
 Joseph Govoni – Chairperson Alnylam Pharmaceuticals |
Joe Govoni (B.S.Ch.E. 1986) Has been in industry since Co-oping with Dow Chemical in 1984. Joe has worked at Dow Chemical, GE Plastics, Aspen Aerogels, Myriant, and Alnylam over his career. His career focused on Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain and Procurement. He has led initiatives with Supply Chain, Six Sigma, and Global Measurement Systems. He enjoys mentoring the next generation of Chemical Engineers. |
 Holly Faria – Student Liaison Charles River Laboratories |
Holly Faria (Tift) received her bachelor’s from Northeastern in Chemical Engineering in 2006. She went on to receive her Masters in Clinical Laboratory Science from University of Rhode Island in 2008. She spent the beginning of her career at Amgen working in Process Development, Manufacturing and Learning and Development. She then spent three years of her career working in healthcare as a Patient Experience and Quality Trainer at Lifespan hospital systems. She returned to the pharmaceutical world with a brief stint at Genzyme and has spent the past five years at the Contract Research Organization Charles River Laboratories working in strategic initiatives, project management and business analysis. In her spare time, she enjoys jumping in puddles and exploring outside with her two young children. |
| IAB Members | |
 Christina (Santos) Alves Takeda Pharmaceuticals |
Dr. Christina (Santos) Alves is the Head of US Biotherapeutics Process Development at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. She started her career as a bioprocess engineer at Chiron Corp. and later joined Biogen as a scientist in Cell Line Development, eventually becoming Head of Upstream Process Development. Dr. Alves earned her BS in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University in 2000 and a PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. She has a passion for building industry-academia collaborations having served as chair of the AMBIC consortium, Industrial Liaison for the iBioNe network, a founding member of the AltHost consortium, and sitting on several PhD thesis committees. |
 Stéphane Bazzana DuPont Safety in Safety and Construction Division |
Dr. Bazzana (Ph.D. Ch.E. 2004) is the Global Director of Technology for the Safety Business in DuPont Water and Protection, a global leader delivering innovation to protect life’s essential product and processes, people in critical situations, our planet and our environment. He is responsible for the development of entrepreneurial teams to explore new markets and provide rapid solutions to customer problems. He is also a member of the DuPont Technology Directors Network.
Born in France, Dr. Bazzana graduated with a B.S. in Physical Chemistry and holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston MA. Dr. Bazzana worked with NASA under the direction of Dr. AL Sacco Jr. in conjunction with his Ph.D. research to synthesize carbon nanotubes in low temperature chemical vapor deposition environment. He began his career with DuPont in 2004 as a research engineer in the DuPont Central Research and Development Department. He has also worked for DuPont industrial Biosciences as a process development engineer, a Research Manager leading DuPont Central Research & Development Biofuels Bioprocess Group, Director of R&D for DuPont Canada, and a Global Technology Manager for the DuPont Enterprise. In 2016, he joined Nike as the sustainable material director and Nike Grind Business leader, but re-joined DuPont in 2018 in his current role. |
 Gary Broberg Practical Applications, Inc. |
Gary Broberg (B.S. Ch.E 1989) is the Founder/CEO of Practical Applications Inc. Practical Applications Inc. offers high quality Process Water Engineering Consulting, Service, and Equipment. Mr. Broberg has more than twenty-five years’ experience leading an organization who services the industrial water treatment, wastewater treatment, and regulatory compliance market. He has led engineering teams to service industries, businesses, and institutions concerning high purity water treatment, wastewater treatment, FDA compliance, National Pollution Discharge Elimination System compliance, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority discharge compliance, local town discharge compliance, waste management and minimization, hazardous chemicals/waste regulatory compliance, chemical use, and exposure assessment. He has also directed designs, options, and installations to optimize water and wastewater treatment systems which meet strict production limits and decrease disposal and operating costs. He is a founding member of the New England CEO Network, a member of the American Society of Plumbing Engineers, Massachusetts Water Pollution Control Association and serves on the Northeastern University Chemical Engineering Industrial Advisory Board. Mr. Broberg has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and is a registered Professional Engineer. |
 Alyssa D’Antonio Lerner David Littenberg Krumholz & Mentlik LLP |
Alyssa D’Antonio (B.S./M.S. 2014, J.D. 2017) is an Associate Attorney at Lerner David Littenberg Krumholz & Mentlik LLP, an Intellectual Property Boutique Law Firm. Ms. D’Antonio’s practice primarily focuses on patent prosecution and post grant procedures. In her prosecution practice, Ms. D’Antonio helps clients get patents in many different fields including batteries, polymers, material science, and medical devices. She also has experience in performing Due Diligence and Freedom to Operate opinions. In her practice, Ms. D’Antonio has also participated in various litigations relating to copyright, contract disputes and Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDA). Ms. D’Antonio is also actively involved in supporting The Alan T Brown Fund of the Reeve Foundation. |
 John Ellersick Next Rung Technology, LLC |
John Ellersick is the President and Founder of Next Rung Technology, LLC. Next Rung Technology provides consulting and execution services to organizations developing and delivering sustainable technologies – with expertise in water, energy, renewables, biotechnology, next-generation foods and materials, and wastewater treatment. John earned a B.S in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University in 1987 and a Master of Science in Engineering Management from Tufts Gordon Institute in 2013. |
| Paul Galasso (Retired) ExxonMobile Chemical Company |
Paul Galasso (B.S.Ch.E. 80) is a retired former executive of ExxonMobile Chemical Company. |
 Christopher McLaughlin DSP Group |
Chris McLaughlin (B.S.Ch.E 2006) is a project manager with DPS Group, offering over 15 years of experience in management and industrial automation and control systems for various companies in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Chris has held many roles serving clients and has had significant experience working both as an end user, at Sanofi Genzyme, and as a service provider with Practical Applications, DECCO, and New England Controls. With DPS Group, he has executed projects for companies such as Moderna, ElevateBio, CRISPR Therapeutics, Spark Therapeutics, and Imvax. Prior to becoming a project manager, he worked as an engineer in process systems design, automation, instrumentation & controls, and finally as a discipline manager at DPS. His breadth of project management experiences includes greenfield, brownfield, and refurbish/expansion projects. |
 Lauren Morton Science Exchange |
Lauren Morton (B.S.Ch.E 2012) is a Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Science Exchange, a marketplace software for R&D outsourcing in the life sciences, pharma, and biotech industries. Science Exchange is based in Palo Alto, CA and has raised over $70M in venture funding from leading Silicon Valley investors. Lauren leads strategic and operational efforts for the sales team, including software implementations, key metrics reporting, and sales enablement. Prior to this role, she was a Director in Business Development, where she generated new business opportunities, negotiated, and executed commercial agreements with new clients, and managed several key biotech and pharma client accounts. Her prior experience includes Management Consulting for Deloitte, and several years of industry experience at EMD Millipore and Genzyme. She has an MBA from Harvard Business School (class of 2016). She brings advisory skills for students who are interested in business-focused careers (i.e., business development, sales, operations) at scientific companies, including the growing software technology industry. |
 Shashi Murthy Nanite Inc. |
Shashi Murthy, Ph.D., is a Co-Founder and CTO of Nanite, Inc., which employs machine learning to design gene delivery vehicles. Dr. Murthy previously served on the faculty of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern from 2005-2019 as Assistant, Associate, and Full Professor. Additional leadership roles at Northeastern included Acting Department Chair (2012) and Founding Director of the Sherman Center for Engineering Entrepreneurship Education (2013-18). He is a Senior Member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) and an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Dr. Murthy also founded two companies in the cell and gene therapy space, both spin outs from his lab at Northeastern. The first company, Quad Technologies, developed reagents for cell activation and separation and was acquired by Bio-Techne in 2018. The second company, Flaskworks, which Dr. Murthy led as CTO, commercialized automated cell therapy manufacturing technologies, and was acquired by Northwest Biotherapeutics in 2020. Dr. Murthy received his Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University. |
 Norman Phillibert Retired |
Norman has over 40 years of experience as an engineer in the chemical processing and petroleum distribution industries. He retired from the Marathon Petroleum Company as an environmental compliance manager for facilities located in the states of Indiana, Minnesota, and Ohio. His focus was primarily multimedia environmental compliance, securing flexible environmental permits, and building compliance management systems. Previously he was with the Monsanto/Solutia Company as an environmental engineer. He has served on various boards such as the University of Massachusetts College of Engineering Multicultural Engineering Industrial Advisory Group, Process Safety Progress Editorial Board, and OrthoIndy YMCA. He started his career with the Monsanto Company in Springfield MA, with various assignments with increasing responsibilities from a process engineer, operations leadership, and environmental compliance management. He has chemical engineering degrees from Northeastern University (BS 1979) and the University of Massachusetts (MS 1985). He is a cycling enthusiast and enjoys riding with friends. |
 Dean Poillucci IPS – Integrated Project Services, LLC |
Dean Poillucci (B.S.Ch.E. 1988) is a recognized leader in the planning, design and construction of large-scale research/development and manufacturing projects for the BioPharma/Life Science industry. He currently leads a team of design, construction and compliance professionals providing operational leadership and strategic business planning for the New England region. In previous roles he has served as the Vice President of Engineering, Sr. Vice President of operations and Life Science Core Market leadership and process development engineer. Mr. Poillucci has led multi-disciplined teams providing day-to-day leadership and management and delivery of BioPharma/Life Science capital projects across the USA, Puerto Rico, and Europe. |
 Belinda Slakman Relay Therapeutics |
Belinda Slakman (Ph.D.Ch.E. 2017) is a Senior Data Scientist at Relay Therapeutics (formerly ZebiAI Therapeutics). In this role, she builds machine learning models, based on DNA-encoded library screening data, in order to develop novel therapeutics. Belinda has spent her career thus far applying computational models to problems in chemistry, formerly at X-Chem Pharmaceuticals, Kyulux, and Intel. Her Ph.D., at Northeastern under the direction of Prof. Richard West, involved developing detailed kinetic models for application to liquid-phase fuel systems and silicon electronics processes. She received a B.S.E. in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University in 2010. |
 Charlie Weidhas SCORE Southern Maine |
Charlie Weidhas has B.S. Ch.E (1982) and an MBA (1988) from Northeastern University.
He spent 40 years in the chemical industry working in the US and abroad. He started his career at Monsanto, where he started as a coop engineer, later moving to Solutia Inc and finally to ICL. At ICL Charlie spent 13 years in the C-Suite as CEO of ICL Performance Products, CEO of ICL Industrial Products and retiring as COO of ICL Group. He is currently the Chair of SCORE Southern Maine, an organization offering business mentoring, workshops, webinars and on-line resources to start-ups and small businesses. Charlie leads the mentor network for the department’s Capstone course. |