Nicole (Niki) Woitowich, PhD, is the Executive Director of the Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences (NUCATS) Institute and a Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Social Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine. Her work focuses on advancing women’s health and the representation of women in science and medicine, aiming to transform the biomedical research landscape through her research, advocacy, and outreach.  Trained as a biochemist, Dr. Woitowich earned her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She has specialized knowledge in neuroendocrinology, reproductive physiology, and enzymology. Her current research investigates the intersections of sex and gender in biomedicine, from research policy to practice, emphasizing the importance of considering sex as a biological variable and the inclusion of women in the biomedical research workforce. Dr. Woitowich holds a longstanding interest in science policy. In 2016, she was awarded the Presidential Management Fellowship. She continues to advocate for women’s health research and played a key role in establishing January 25th as Women’s Health Research Day. Committed to making science accessible, Dr. Woitowich collaborates with researchers nationwide to enhance their communication and public engagement skills. She holds leadership positions within the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the non-profit organization Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM).

Dr. Stoddart received her B.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto. As an Immunology Ph.D. student in the laboratory of Dr. Chris Paige she studied the process of B cell commitment and cloned the gene encoding a sialic acid specific 9-O acetylesterase and characterized the expression of the sialic acid-binding lectin CD22, whose interactions are modified by 9-O-acetylation. In her post-doctoral work at the University of California San Francisco in Dr. Frances Brodsky’s lab, she showed that signaling in lipid rafts is integrated with clathrin-mediated endocytosis. Working in Dr. Michelle LeBeau’s lab at the University of Chicago, she received grants from the Leukemia & Lymphoma, Cancer Research and Lauri Strauss Leukemia foundations to develop a working mouse model of AML with the recurring translocation t(10;11) (p13;q14), involving the fusion of the MLLT10/AF10 gene with the PICAM gene, a clathrin assembly protein. In 2010, Angela assumed responsibility for overseeing the research on therapy-related myeloid neoplasms (t-MNs) conducted under the auspices of Dr. LeBeau’s NCI-funded grants. During this time, she contributed to many seminal findings in del(5q) t-MN including the development of a mouse model of del(5q) AML and demonstration that haploinsufficient loss of more than one del(5q) gene contribute to disease progression. She showed that myeloid disease can be prevented by modulating WNT signaling in the bone marrow niche and that prior cytotoxic therapy induces senescence in the cells of the niche and contributes to malignant transformation. In Dr. McNerney’s lab, she is using her expertise to continue understanding the mechanisms leading to therapy-related myeloid disease with an eye towards clinical translation.