Please welcome our newest board members!

At our 2021 Annual General Meeting, we had the pleasure of welcoming four new members to SCWIST’s Board of Directors.

Their broad range of skills and experience will be an asset to our board and we are looking forward to working with them. Please join us in welcoming them to the team!

We would also like to thank those board members who have finished their terms and are now stepping down: Paloma Corvalan, Heidi Hui, Nasira Aziz and Neha Batta.

Meet our new Board Members

Lily Takeuchi, BMLSc, MSc

STEM Field: Biomedical Engineering

Lily Takeuchi is a PhD Student in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto who is researching the development of drug screening platforms and organ-on-a-chip devices. Prior to her PhD, Lily was a Business Development Specialist with Mitacs where she worked on fostering industry-academic relationships to further Canada’s knowledge and innovation-based economy.

Lily has been a SCWIST volunteer for the last 3 years under various committees in the Strategic Development Portfolio including serving as the Grants Committee Lead and as a Strategic Development and Finance Committee member. Lily is passionate about accessibility in STEM and has worked with organizations such as the Canadian Association for Girls in Science, Let’s Talk Science and the Centre for Blood Research to deliver educational workshops to young students. In her spare time, Lily enjoys staying active through hiking, powerlifting, and going on walks with her dog, Melly.

Dr. Poh Tan, BSc, PhD (Exp. Med), PhD ABD (Sci. Educ)

STEM Field: Stem cell research, biotechnology, entrepreneurship, science education 

Poh is a mother, entrepreneur, scientist, and educator. She obtained her first PhD from the University of British Columbia investigating proteins that regulate the mobility of hematopoietic stem cells. She is currently completing her second PhD in science education at Simon Fraser University to understand and extend the definition of scientific literacy through an Indigenous Hawaiian lens. 

Poh has experience in both academia and industry and is a national and international published scholar.  She is a two-time TEDx speaker and an author and founder of two businesses (consulting and science education). Poh’s entrepreneurial spirit and personality means she is never satisfied with the status quo, and her motivation and dedication means she always has the organization’s best interest in mind to continually strive for positive change. When she’s not managing projects, she spends her time with her two sons, dancing hula, playing ukulele, and looking for the best spots for tidal fishing.

Dr. Aska Patel, RPh, PharmD., BSc. Pharm.

STEM Field: Sciences, healthcare, pharmaceutical sciences, pharmacist

Dr. Aska Patel is a pharmacist, entrepreneur, a patient advocate, and change agent in healthcare. She completed her Bachelors of Pharmacy from the University of Waterloo in 2012 and went back to the same to complete her Doctor of Pharmacy degree in 2016.

Since then she has worked in community, hospital, government and home care settings, creating new roles for pharmacists’ involvement within our healthcare system. She recently launched her entrepreneurial venture providing healthcare consulting while joining a digital health venture as a startup advisor. Aska is passionate about creating opportunities for women in STEM and advocates to create networking and mentorship opportunities for women in pharmacy.

As a passionate advocate for equitable healthcare by breaking down barriers to care, Aska is part of various committees at various provincial, national and global organizations. In her spare time, Aska enjoys spending time with her family, travelling, keeping active and exploring new cuisines. 

Noeen Malik, PhD

STEM Field: Nuclear Medicine (Oncology, Neurodegeneration)

Noeen Malik, PhD, is the nuclear medicine scientist (specialization: drug discovery and PET/CT imaging), business strategist (specialization: Theragnostics), and acting Director of Events at SCWIST. Being a scientist, her duties revolve around managing bench work to preclinical evaluations to cGMP production of clinical radiopharmaceuticals to facilitate the commercialization of innovations. At SCWIST, she manages and coordinates the flow of events.

Her recent venture is the SCWIST Science Symposium, which she conceptualized and organized. This mini-symposium projected SCWIST in 10 out 13 provinces of Canada (89 abstracts from 38 out of 91 participating universities/institutes across Canada; sponsorships sought: Northeastern University, adMare Bioinnovations, AbCellera, Microsoft, Acuitas Therapeutics, Sixsense Strategy group, MOLLI Surgical, and SOPHOS).

In addition, she is also executive director of public affairs and infrastructure committee member of GIANT (Global Immunization Action Networking Team) that works together with WHO/UN in collaboration with 20 countries globally to bring awareness about immunization/vaccines.

She also volunteers as a human rights activist (Amnesty International, IRC, and IYC-UN) and fundraiser (SOS Children’s Village). She is also a cartoonist and science illustrator.