Join Dotmatics to #embraceequity on International Women’s Day 2023
Every year on March 8th, International Women's Day honors the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women around the world. In the scientific industry, the need for gender equity remains critical. Women have long been underrepresented in STEM fields. In the United States, only a quarter of science and engineering jobs are held by women. This lack of representation not only affects women's opportunities, but also has broader consequences for scientific progress and innovation.
This year’s theme is #embraceequity. Embracing equity means creating a level playing field for all scientists, including providing equal access to resources, funding, and mentorship opportunities to women in the field. Numerous studies have shown that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones. By embracing equity, we can foster a culture of innovation and creativity, tapping into the full potential of scientific discovery. By diversifying the ideas and perspectives in scientific research, we drive scientific progress forward faster, leading to more innovative solutions to the world's most pressing problems. At Dotmatics, we believe that fostering equity in scientific R&D can aid in our mission to make the world a healthier, cleaner, safer place.
Inspiring Women at Dotmatics
On International Women’s Day 2023 we take a moment to recognize a few of the gifted, dedicated and inspiring women of the Dotmatics scientists who make us better together.
Audra Dalton, Application Scientist Manager, U.S. Services Platform
After earning her AB in Chemistry, Audra went on to MIT to get an SM in Organic Chemistry. She worked as a Medicinal Chemist, doing both traditional synthetic chemistry as well as array synthesis at a small biotechnology company focused on cancer drug discovery. She joined Dotmatics in 2015 as an Application Scientist, using her scientific background to help customers better use Dotmatics solutions. On International Women’s Day, she’s participating in the Secret 3K for Women, held worldwide in support of women who live in countries where they are not allowed to run. She is also a member of 261 Fearless New England, a foundation created by Kathrine Switzer (the first woman to complete the Boston Marathon) that creates a non-competitive environment to empower and inspire women through physical exercise.
“I was inspired by my high school science teacher Eva Sacharuk. She was from the Ukraine and during WWII lived in a camp of displaced persons in Austria. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1949 and got her degree in Chemistry. She worked as a research chemist and later became a teacher of Chemistry and Physics to inspire the next generation of scientists. She retired at the age of 79, but not too long afterwards she was called out of retirement to teach physics at my high school once more. She was such a passionate teacher – everything we learned in the book we learned in the lab too. She inspired me to become a chemist.”
Tobi Oremule, Principal Solution Engineer PreSales, Platform
Tobi started her career as a Clinical Pharmacist, where she rotated around several different specialties, including Clinical Trials, Paediatrics and HIV/Infectious Diseases, looking after an Ebola patient during the pandemic. She transitioned into Healthcare Informatics, where she began her pre-sales career as a Solution Advisor with Oracle Cerner. Tobi developed a passion for presenting the value of digitization and digital transformation to healthcare organizations, as well as training global associates in presentation and demo skills. She undertook a Masters in Global Health (Policy) at The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine using data aggregation, data science, analysis and visualization to highlight inequalities, health needs and opportunities at a population level. In 2022, Tobi joined Dotmatics as a Principal Solution Engineer, where she gets to present our R&D solutions platform to European companies.
“It’s okay to take up space and to use your voice. Your voice is a window into your mind, if you don’t use it, people will never know what you have to offer.”
Mojgan Haddad, VP of Engineering Apps, Protein Metrics
Mojgan has 20+ years of experience in developing scientific software and bioinformatics pipelines in practical use. She received her PhD in Computer Science from Vienna University of Technology in Austria, and performed a postdoctoral study at University of California San Francisco in Computational and Mathematical Biology. She has held leadership positions at several biotech and medical device companies, including 14 years at Monogram Biosciences (a LabCorp company) where she led the design and development of software products and algorithms – major accomplishments include LabCorp’s HIV drug resistance algorithm and a novel computational method to characterize antibodies. Mojgan has published over 80 scientific articles in data science for virology, oncology, and personalized medicine.
“It's important to envision what you want your career path to look like and actively go after it. Seek new roles matching with the path you want to take, ask for growth opportunities and keep pushing yourself to gain skills necessary for those, make sure your voice is heard, and don't just wait for good things to happen.”
Wendy Harrison, Director Solution Architecture, Platform
Wendy has worked in the bioinformatics industry for more than 25 years. She received her PhD in Chemistry from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Wendy was originally a synthetic organometallic chemist, but switched to informatics starting in quality assurance, later moving on to project management, and then finally moving into the services side of scientific software. Dotmatics has been fortunate to benefit from that expertise for the past 10 years, most recently in her present role as Director Solution Architecture.
One of my favorite quotes is, "Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment." — Rosalind Franklin
Claire Mayo, Director, EMEA PreSales
Claire obtained her master’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Strathclyde before joining GlaxoSmithKline as a Radioisotope Chemist. Her role involved the synthesis of stable isotopically and radioactively labeled compounds for use in ADME and QWBA studies. She then joined MRC Technology as a Medicinal Chemist where she designed and synthesized small molecule compounds as part of HTS to lead candidate programs. During her time in the laboratory, she was privileged to work on a number of therapeutic areas, including oncology, respiratory and infectious diseases. Claire joined Dotmatics in 2017 as an Application Scientist and has spent the last five years using the experience obtained in the lab to help other scientists capture and manage their data more effectively.
“Don’t limit yourself…embrace new challenges even when you think you’re not quite ready. And don’t be afraid to diversify. You never know where an opportunity might lead, so bring passion and enthusiasm and you will succeed.”
Julia Prier, Product Manager, Geneious Prime
Julia gained her PhD from the University of Melbourne, in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor Doherty. During her postdoctoral studies she led a joint project with A*Star in Singapore, which employed sophisticated flow cytometry and sequencing techniques combined with machine learning to better understand cells responsible for defense against cancer and viruses. During her 10+ years in the laboratory in the fields of Immunology and Virology, she gained experience in the broad areas of molecular biology, cell biology and bioinformatics. In other words, she spent her 20s strapped to flow cytometers, sequencing machines, in the mouse house and teaching herself R. These discoveries were published in journals such as Nature Immunology, Cell Reports, Immunity, PNAS. Despite leaving academia, she remains passionate and outspoken about women in STEM.
“Find a good mentor. As a woman in STEM you can add it to the list of things you have to actively seek out rather than something you are given, but it is worth it.”
Hiro Takahashi, Senior Application Scientist, Platform, Services
Hiro majored in Chemical Engineering at college, where she conducted research on surfactants in her university laboratory. That included designing surfactants whose properties change when subjected to external stimuli and exploring synthetic pathways, evaluating and analyzing their properties, and searching for new ways to utilize the stimulus-responsive surfactants of their products. Hiro earned a Master of Engineering from Tokyo University of Science. She joined Dotmatics in 2018 and is currently a Senior Application Scientist.
“Embracing equity is essential for scientific innovation…to truly achieve equity we must offer the same opportunities and choices regardless of gender or status, whether you’re single or married, with or without children, and so on.” #embraceequity
Melanie Nelson, Director of Product, Solutions, and Integration, Dotmatics Platform
As the Director of Product, Solutions, and Integrations at Dotmatics, Melanie is focused on building solutions to streamline scientific workflows. She has a PhD in Biochemistry from The Scripps Research Institute, where she studied protein structure and function using NMR spectroscopy and protein engineering. After graduate school, she began a career in scientific information management and now has more than 20 years of experience helping other scientists get more value from their data.
“The best career advice I ever got was from another woman in science, who was my manager at the time. She told me I needed to slow down and make sure to always meet people where they are. In this industry, we work with people from many different backgrounds. On the best, most effective teams, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. To reach that level of effectiveness, team leaders need to take the time to make sure everyone has the context they need to contribute fully.”
International Women’s Day on March 8 and Women’s History Month throughout March in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia are opportunities to honor amazing women in science. We are so grateful for the amazing women who work at Dotmatics and we want to recognize all of our female colleagues for their participation and leadership in our mission to help make the world a healthier, cleaner, safer place to live through scientific discovery.
And if you’d like to join the team, visit our Careers page to check out current openings.