Heather Lasseter, PhD

Associate Director,
Scientific Programs

Dr. Heather Lasseter earned her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the field of behavioral neuroscience. As a doctoral candidate in Dr. Rita Fuchs’ laboratory, Heather explored the neural circuity that regulates the ability of a drug-paired environmental context to produce cocaine-seeking behavior in a preclinical model of addiction. Her doctoral dissertation research – which earned the 2012 Linda Dykstra Distinguished Dissertation Award in Social Sciences – focused on the contribution of a mesocorticolimbic subcircuit to the reinstatement of cocaine seeking. After earning her doctoral degree, Heather was awarded a post-doctoral Health Communications Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. She subsequently transitioned into the medical communications community as a Senior Medical Writer for Percolation Communications LLC, working within a number of therapeutic areas, including psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Kristophe Diaz, PhD

Senior Manager,
Scientific Programs

After earning a doctorate in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Diaz investigated key mechanisms of cell division. He has also studied Life Science Innovation at Harvard Medical School and Business Law for Entrepreneurs at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Chantelle Ferland-Beckham, PhD

Senior Manager,
Scientific Programs

Dr. Chantelle Ferland-Beckham is a translational neuroscientist with over 12 years of experience in behavioral models of stress-related psychiatric disorders. The major goal of her research has been to develop animal models to investigate the complex molecular and epigenetic underpinnings of stress-induced pathology, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Tulane University under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Schrader and then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she was awarded the Ruth L Kirschstein National Service Award (T32) from the National Institute of Drug Addiction to investigate the role of the endogenous oxytocin system in a model of comorbid methamphetamine addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. Most recently, Chantelle was a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where she worked as a Science Policy Analyst, developing policies to promote progress in biomedical research and serving as a legislative analyst to strengthen the relationship between the NIH and Congress. As a fellow, she worked on the Fellows in Innovation initiative, spearheaded by the Obama administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, to analyze current strategies and provide policy recommendations for suicide prevention in current and former members of the US military.

Lauren Chaby, PhD

Manager,
Scientific Programs

Dr. Lauren Chaby has a background in cognitive neuroscience, including experience in preclinical models of stress. The goal of her research has been to investigate the impact of early adversity on adult outcomes using a systems approach, including cognitive skills and vulnerability to stress-linked psychopathology. To do this, she has used translational, preclinical, and theoretical approaches to create a high-resolution map of how environmental conditions during development modulate vulnerability to traumatic stress in adulthood. Her research awards have included the Radboud Excellence Initiative Fellowship and the J. Lloyd Huck Graduate Research Innovation Grant. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Pennsylvania State University under the mentorship of Dr. Victoria Braithwaite and Dr. Sonia Cavigelli. She then conducted postdoctoral research under the mentorship of Dr. Israel Liberzon and Dr. Shane Perrine. As a postdoctoral researcher, she investigated preclinical models of post-traumatic stress disorder and the capacity for stress to shape epigenetic regulation of protein expression and neurotransmitter levels within specific regions of the brain. Lauren also has experience in the intersection of technology and neuroscience pedagogy and has been involved in research to accelerate neuroanatomical learning using 3D models of the brain. Additionally, she served as a program coordinator for Developing Future Biologists, an immersive outreach short course through the University of Michigan.

Thomas Nydam

Senior Director,
Clinical Programs

Thomas Nydam is a pharmaceutical clinical research professional with expertise in clinical development, clinical operations, and medical affairs, including experience in leading study teams, CROs, and multinational clinical trials. His background includes the drug development process, safety assessments, regulatory guidelines, and lifecycle management, with extensive experience in a broad range of disease indications, including oncology/hematology malignancies using antibodies, chemotherapy, small molecule, and targeted therapies.

Retsina Meyer, PhD

Senior Manager,
Clinical Programs

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”-Goethe

Dr. Retsina Meyer pairs pursuit of scientific endeavors with the passionate execution to make real her vision to develop cures for mental illness.

Dr. Meyer is a translational neuroscientist, scientific founder of Resilience – a startup focused on novel treatments for PTSD and other brain diseases, and is currently consulting Scientific Program Manager for Cohen Biosciences. An active member of the biotech entrepreneurship community, Retsina works on local, national, and international programming to inspire scientist-entrepreneurs. Dr. Meyer has produced over 40 articles, abstracts, and lectures. Her academic discoveries gained international press, earned her a speaking engagement at the local TEDx conference, and served as the instigating discovery to found Resilience.

As an entrepreneur, Retsina is an alumna of MassBIO’s MassCONNECT program and SpringBoard’s Life Sciences Accelerator and is the 2014 champion of the international OneStart competition awarded by GSK’s SR One.
She obtained a Neuroscience Ph.D. at MIT where she earned five named fellowships, was a Presidential Fellow, Imperial College of London Global Fellow, and a Graduate Woman of Excellence. She served as a science advocate with the Science Policy Initiative, performing outreach, giving lectures, and meeting with members of congress to appeal for science and scientific funding.
Prior to her work at MIT, Dr. Meyer was a Fulbright Scholar, serving as a representative of the U.S. to Norway, where she worked in the lab of 2014 Nobel Prize winners Drs. May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser. She holds bachelor’s degrees in applied mathematics, biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and biopsychology from the University of Arizona where she was a Baver Scholar, and worked in the laboratories of Dr. David Rowe, Dr. Carol Barnes, and Dr. Bruce McNaughton.

Timothy Vaughan, PhD

Deputy Director,
Data Science

Tim joined Cohen Veterans Bioscience in May 2019. For the prior 10 years, he worked at PatientsLikeMe, most recently as principal scientist within the biocomputing team. His research focused on the mathematical characterization of disease and predictive modeling of patient outcomes. He has an extensive and eclectic background in mathematical modeling, which began with his Ph.D. in theoretical particle physics at Rutgers University. Tim developed his data modeling skills as a research associate at MIT, investigating the biological effects of electromagnetic fields, including transdermal drug delivery using electromagnetic fields. As a research fellow at Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, he designed models to assess the effectiveness of ultrasound surgery. He has also worked as a financial engineer, and is a Top 20 Contributor to the MATLAB user community.

Stephen Larson, PhD

Executive Director (Consulting),
BRAIN Commons

Stephen Larson is the CEO of MetaCell, global leaders in neuroscience software, with clients ranging from top-20 academic institutions to big pharma. He is a cofounder of the international OpenWorm project that is constructing a detailed digital simulation of a whole animal in an open science fashion. He has and co-developed a patent, presented at more than two dozen forums and published over a dozen articles in academic journals such as Nature and Frontiers in Neuroscience. Stephen has had his work featured in the Economist, the New York Times, Wired, the Atlantic, at two TEDx forums and a Science Channel show with Morgan Freeman. He holds a Bachelor and Masters from MIT in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and received a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, San Diego.

He previously served as the Chief Information Officer of One Mind for Research, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating brain disease through innovative public-private partnerships. He has worked as a professional software engineer for a major global investment bank He has served as a mentor in the Google Summer of Code program, a volunteer leader in the Startup Leadership Program, an entrepreneurial incubator, and the INCF, an international organization for coordinating the information science of neuroscience.

Deepti Cole

Associate Director,
Data Science

Deepti Cole is an informatics professional with more than ten years experience in the governance of biological and clinical data, supporting research through translational science, and leveraging open-source bioinformatics applications to deliver innovative and customized solutions.

As a former Data Scientist at Clarivate Analytics/Thomson Reuters she led numerous projects specializing in data and web-services integration and analytical pipeline designs. Her wide-ranging experience provides a balance of understanding the dynamics of operating in several fast-changing industries, along with the nuances of partnership rapport at all levels.

Deepti received her Master of Science degree in Bioinformatics from Boston University and began her career at Harvard and Partners Center for Genetics and Genomics, followed by The Jackson Laboratory. In her free time she spends time with her family and trains and competes with the Greater Boston Track Club, where she aims to improve her current personal best marathon time of 3:06.

Terri Gilbert, PhD

Engagement Director,
BRAIN Commons

Dr. Gilbert is a neuroscientist passionate about scientific communication, education and the open science movement. She has over 20 years’ experience effectively communicating high- level concepts to groups with a wide range of education and background, from non-scientific audiences to highly technical researchers. As the leader of outreach and training at the Allen Institute for Brain Science, she was an advocate for the user; including specifying friendly user interfaces, managing user support as well as launching their world-renowned educational programs. Her early experience researching the complex signal transduction mechanisms in G protein coupled receptors in both the immunological and neurological systems sparked her desire to share the elegance and beauty of complex systems, and to impart the joy of discovery to people around the world.

Dr. Gilbert obtained her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, and her BS in Physics from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology.

Daniela Brunner, PhD

Executive Director,
Digital Health

Dr. Brunner received her PhD from Cambridge University, did post-doctoral work at Columbia University, and had a lab at CUNY before joining PsychoGenics Inc. in 1999 as Director R&D, and later as Senior Vice President, until 2015. Dr. Brunner worked on developmental, psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease models for 20+ years; she introduced computer vision and machine learning techniques to the study of behavioral signatures for phenotyping, drug screening and systems biology projects. Working with the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance, Dr. Brunner set up a consortium of industry and academia to accelerate the drug development for tuberous sclerosis. At Cohen Veterans Bioscience, Dr. Brunner is leading Digital Health programs focusing on data passively captured with wearable and home sensors.

Friso Postma, PhD

Senior Director,
Digital Health

Dr. Friso Postma has a masters in Medical Biology, University of Amsterdam, and a PhD on G-protein coupled receptor signaling and downstream cellular effectors, Netherlands Cancer Institute. As a post-doc at Harvard Medical School (Cambridge, MA) he used molecular and electrophysiological techniques to study the role of gap-junctions in the retina and CNS. As a Senior Scientist at Seaside Therapeutics (Cambridge MA) he worked on the development of treatments for fragile-X syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder. He continued his work as Associate Director of Electrophysiology at Psychogenics, a contract research organization, and as a scientific consultant for Boston-based biotech companies (SAGE therapeutics).

Kevin Urban, PhD

Associate Director,
Digital Health

Kevin has over a decade of experience exploring a diverse range of complex data sets stemming from NASA and NOAA spacecraft missions in Earth’s ionosphere, magnetosphere, and interplanetary space, and from global-scale networks of ground-based instrumentation, and has leveraged this data to forecast space weather at the outer limits of Earth’s upper atmosphere and its effects in Earth’s polar cap regions, culminating in several peer-reviewed research papers. Kevin has also published on space mission design and dynamical system modeling of granular fluid systems. After receiving his PhD in physics from New Jersey Institute of Technology and Rutgers University, Kevin worked as a data scientist at WWE, where he built predictive models for subscriber behavior on the WWE Network (a monthly, direct-to-consumer, video streaming service averaging ~2 million daily active subscribers), and led various data engineering efforts, such as the collection, ingestion, and harmonization of WWE fan data across a host of social media and online platforms.

Zhanna Rozenberg

Associate Director,
Digital Health

Zhanna received her BA at Cornell University where she triple majored in Economics, Comparative Literature, and an College Scholars major that tread on philosophy, critical theory, and sociology. She completed a minor in East Asian Studies. She later went to study statistics, econometrics, and machine learning at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, Universität Mannheim, and the Metis’s data science bootcamp. Zhanna is interested in making technology that helps people live more meaningful lives, using data to improve human performance. Zhanna is active in NY’s meetup culture focusing on data science, neuroscience, wearables, IoT, and habit design. Zhanna’s major individual project, “Hindsight”, explored the interaction between subjective and objective measures of human performance.

Nikolai Shokhirev, PhD

Senior Data Scientist,
Digital Health

Dr. Shokhirev received a Master of Science Degree in theoretical physics from Novosibirsk State University, Russia, and his Doctor of Philosophy degree in Physics and Mathematics from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk. Dr. Shokhirev has conducted research in quantum mechanics, magnetic spectroscopy, econophysics, stochastic processes and kinetics. He has also been involved in data analysis and processing in pulse spectroscopy, indirect measurements and remote sensing, scientific, engineering and financial data. He has published over 70 papers in those fields. Dr. Shokhirev joined the Digital Health team to apply his data science skills to the emerging area of remote health monitoring and healthcare.

Nicole Harmon, PhD

Executive Director,
External Affairs

Nicole Harmon brings more than 18 years of experience in psychology, philanthropy, patient advocacy, public health, and clinical research, most recently as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief of Staff for Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), FDA’s partner for data standards. During her tenure there she transformed CDISC’s financial roadmaps, program management and global brand. Additionally, she developed and managed complex partnerships with leading U.S and International funding partners, U.S. FDA, Japan PMDA, European Medicines Agency, NIH, WHO, EU’s Innovative Medicines Initiatives, Global Patient Foundations and others to drive data standards and sharing initiatives and oversaw grants cultivation and management successfully achieving funding for and administering multiple large-scale projects.  Prior to her time with CDISC, Dr. Harmon evaluated patients with Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychiatric conditions in a post-acute rehabilitation hospital.

Nicole earned her doctorate in Counselor Education and Supervision at Texas Tech University with dissertation focus on understanding the caregivers experience associated with acquired brain injury following discharge from rehabilitation.

Nicole joins Cohen Veterans Bioscience to oversee development and engagement of strategic partnerships, grant management, events and the Brain Trauma Blueprint to further the Cohen Veterans Bioscience mission.