Relaunching Careers in Biotech/Life Sciences/Pharma -
How It's Done

Indira Krishnan, PhD

Indira Krishnan has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi, India and subsequently moved to the U.S. She was actively working in her field for ten years, and was a Senior Scientist involved with antibody engineering at a biopharmaceutical company when she took a thirteen-year hiatus from research, including a seven-year career break to raise her daughters. After seven years at home, Indira began teaching Chemistry at a state college in Ohio and went on to become a Faculty and Department Coordinator in the Chemistry department. She found she loved the experience of teaching, motivating and mentoring students. However, she was extremely eager to get back to biomedical research and, with this goal in mind, relocated to Boston to participate in the MIT Career Reengineering Program (CRP). Through the CRP Program, Indira completed a fellowship in RNA interference therapeutics at Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Cambridge, MA. Her experience at Novartis further strengthened her resolve to return to research. During the time she was looking for a suitable laboratory, Indira has held positions as Adjunct Faculty at MCPHS University, Boston, MA and as Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Fitchburg State University, Fitchburg, MA. Currently, Indira is a Research Fellow in the lab of Dr. Daniel Tenen, Department of Hematology-Oncology at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center-Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA working in the fields of leukemia and lung cancer.

Enith Morillo

Enith Morillo is a versatile & multilingual Quality Assurance professional with 9+ years of experience in the FDA and DEA regulated pharmaceutical space. Her specialty revolves around cGMPs and supplier quality, with technical competency in hosting and performing quality audits, driving remediation, and supporting drug product filings and commercialization. Enith currently works as a Quality Assurance Consultant at Complya Consulting Group, and has a M.S. and B.S. in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). She is one of the recipients of WEST 2016 Giving Back awards. Her successful “late-entry” career story was recently featured in iRelaunch, covering her 9 year hiatus after college, and her impressive journey into forging a career by accessing resources and playing to her strengths.

Theresa Singleton, PhD

Theresa Singleton is Owner and Principal Scientific Writer at Singleton Science, LLC. She holds a BS in nutritional science from Cornell University and a PhD in microbiology and immunology from Boston University School of Medicine. Her dissertation research focused on host-pathogen interactions of the Gram-negative bacterium Neisseria meningitidis. Following her graduate studies, Theresa continued on the academic track by completing a Ruth L. Kirschstein postdoctoral fellowship in mucosal immunology at Children’s Hospital Boston. During her postdoctoral training, Theresa learned about the field of medical writing/scientific communications, and she became an active member of the American Medical Writers Association (AMWA). She took an 8-month career break when her postdoc funding ended; during that time, she transitioned from the bench to a scientific writing position in the marketing department at Cell Signaling Technology. After 2 years there, she started her own writing and editing business specializing in the planning and preparation of scientific publications for pharma and biotech clients. Theresa currently serves as the immediate past president of the New England Chapter of AMWA.

Carol Waghorne, PhD, MMSc

Carol received her PhD in medical Genetics from the University of Toronto and then, as an Assistant Professor at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, she conducted a nationally funded cancer research program. When she moved to the US with her physician husband and family she set aside her research career and focused on raising her two children. Ten years and one divorce later she found herself looking for a job. After several months and hundreds of unsuccessful attempts at obtaining a job in the biotech industry she decided she needed to do something to update her training. However she could not afford to go back to school and did not want to rack up student loan debt. She discovered and was able to obtain a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for re-entry into science careers. View the program announcement (PA-15-321) . Under this program she worked at the bench as a research fellow with Bruce Zetter in the Vascular Biology Program at Children’s Hospital Boston. Realizing that she really wanted to do more clinically related research she again discovered a program at Harvard Medical School designed to train clinical researchers. She was one of only a few PhD’s ever accepted into the Scholars in Clinical Sciences program and received full scholarship from NIH.  http://hms.harvard.edu/departments/master-medical-sciences-clinical-investigation Upon graduating with a brand new master’s degree from HMS she was able to land a good job in industry and worked for 5 years at ArQule directing their biomarker program. Carol is now employed as a senior curation specialist by a small start-up company, Intervention Insights, and works from her NH home most of the time. http://www.interventioninsights.com/our-solution/

Carol Fishman Cohen

Carol Fishman Cohen, CEO of iRelaunch, is a leading expert on career reentry. She consults to some of the world's largest corporations on career reentry strategy and programming. Her seminal Harvard Business Review article "The 40 Year Old Intern" and TEDx talk of the same name focuses on the use of the internship as a vehicle for employers to engage with experienced professionals returning from career break. Carol originated and co-leads the STEM Reentry Task Force with the Society of Women Engineers, in which 7 major global engineering-based companies are piloting reentry internship programs in 2016. The iRelaunch Return to Work Conference is the largest and longest running dedicated career reentry event and the major external supplier of successful candidates for the Wall Street reentry internship programs. Carol has presented on career reentry strategy more than 200 times to combined audiences of over 16,000 people. Carol is the co-author of ​career reentry strategy book Back on the Career Track and a returning professional herself. Carol’s return to work at Bain Capital after 11 years out of the full-time workforce is documented in a Harvard Business School case study. Carol has connected with thousands of professionals who have successfully returned to work after a hiatus, and has engaged with hundreds of hiring managers to understand their perspectives on hiring people returning from career break. Carol is married and is the mother of four adult children. She lives in Boston, MA.