Dr Eric Perakslis
Eric is currently Chief Science Officer at Datavant, an innovative new company with the mission to organize the worlds healthcare data. Eric is also Visiting Scientist in the Department of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School and a frequent volunteer advisor to Médecins Sans Frontières and other international aid and relief NGOs. Most recently Eric was Senior Vice President and Head of the Takeda R&D Data Science Institute where he built an integrated institute of more than 165 multi-disciplinary data scientists serving all aspects of biopharmaceutical R&D and digital health. Prior to Takeda, Eric was the Executive Director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics and the Countway Library of Medicine, an Instructor in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member of the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program at Boston Children’ Hospital. Eric has a PhD in chemical and biochemical engineering from Drexel University and also holds B.S.ChE and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering.
Mason Victors
Mason earned his MS in Mathematics from BYU, where he focused on developing new approaches to identifying individuals at-risk for chronic kidney disease. After an internship with the NSA, being unable to decide between becoming a spook or pursuing a PhD he chose the obvious route: join a start-up instead. As part of a small team of data scientists at Red Brain Labs and later Savvysherpa, he developed algorithms to mine unstructured medical records, analyze human behavior through cell phone logs, and simulate complex call centers. Apart from work, he loves spending time with his wife and two daughters.
Mike Kellen
Peter Goodhand
Peter Goodhand is a leader in the global health sector as a senior executive and board member.
Goodhand played a key role in the creation of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health (GA4GH) and was appointed as its founding Executive Director in 2014, and as Chief Executive Officer in 2018. From May 2016 to April 2018, he also served as the President of the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (OICR).
Prior to the GA4GH and OICR, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Cancer Society, Canada's largest health charity. Before joining the charitable sector, Goodhand had a 20 year career in the global medical technology industry, including strategic leadership roles with multinational healthcare companies such as American Cyanamid and Johnson & Johnson; Board Chair and President of Canada’s Medical Device Industry association (MEDEC); and as the founding Managing Director and then Board Chair of the Health Technology Exchange (HTX).
Goodhand is currently a member of the Occupational Cancer Research Centre Steering Committee, Co-chair of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Global Genes, Co-chair of the International 100K+ Cohorts Consortium (IHCC), and a member of the of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaboration (G2MC) Steering Committee.
He chaired the Government of Canada’s Expert working group on the future of medical isotope production, and was a member of the Canadian delegation to the UN summit on non-communicable diseases.
Dr Vivien Bonazzi
Dr. Vivien Bonazzi joined the Office of Strategic Coordination in 2017 leading the NIH Data Commons, part of the broader New Models of Data Stewardship program.
Dr. Bonazzi has been advising the NIH Office of the Director (OD) on data science-related issues since 2014. Before joining the NIH OD, she served as program director for the Computational Biology and Bioinformatics program for the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).
Dr. Bonazzi was also part of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) a trans-NIH Common Fund Initiative whose aims are to characterize the microbial communities found at several different sites on the human body and to analyze the role of these microbes in human health and disease. Prior to joining NHGRI, she was a Senior Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton providing strategic development expertise in data science and also managing several genome and protein bioinformatics projects for NIH and biomedical companies. She has also held the positions of R&D Director for Bioinformatics at Invitrogen and Director of Gene Discovery at Celera Genomics where she was part of the team that sequenced and annotated the Human, Mouse and Drosophila genomes. Dr. Bonazzi received a BSc in Medical Laboratory Science from the University of Canberra, Australia, a MSc (prelim) in Pharmacology from the University of Melbourne, Australia and a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology and Computational Biology also from the University of Melbourne.
Prof Robert L Grossman
Dr Jinghui Zhang
Jinghui Zhang, Ph.D., is chair of the Department of Computational Biology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. She holds the St. Jude Endowed Chair in Bioinformatics.
Dr. Zhang began working in genomics as a second-year graduate student, which sparked her interest in investigating how genes contribute to the development of diseases like cancer. She joined St. Jude in 2010, leading the genomic analysis for the Pediatric Cancer Genome Project (PCGP) and the creation of new computational and visualization tools that have been adopted by researchers worldwide.
Her research in the genomic landscape of pediatric cancer has led to new directions in research involving high-risk leukemia, brain and solid tumors. She sees the importance of sharing data gained from her collaboration with other pediatric cancer research institutes. The sharing of information can help advance research not only for pediatric cancer, but for genetic research in other diseases.
Before joining St. Jude, Dr. Zhang led genetic variation analysis of the first assembled human genome. She also contributed to key discoveries in the pilot phases of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Genome Atlas Project and led the pan-cancer analysis of the Therapeutically Applicable Research to Generate Effective Treatment (TARGET) initiative which has unveiled striking difference in the genomic landscape of pediatric versus adult cancer.
Dr. Zhang received her undergraduate degree from Fu Dan University in Shanghai and her doctorate from the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Conn.
