Meet the Mentors

Dr. Cromwell is a successful entrepreneur and an innovative leader of instrument and assay product development teams. His passion is integrating new technologies into products that provide unexpected value to customers in the life sciences and other tech markets. He has founded or co-founded 6 companies and currently leads the team at Protein Fluidics that has brought a novel microfluidic platform to market for organoid assays. He has over 30 years of broad senior executive and technical experience in the Semiconductor, Analytical Equipment, and Life Sciences sectors. Prior to founding Protein Fluidics, he served as Director of Research at Molecular Devices and was a leader of a cross-OpCo scientific team for the Danaher Life Sciences group. His previous start-up, Blueshift Biotechnologies, was acquired by Molecular Devices. He holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Caltech and earned his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. He has authored over 50 publications and holds 21 patents.

Evens-Lemmo is a seasoned professional Laboratory Instrumentation Specialist with 30 years of experience in the laboratory instrumentation industry, specializing in regulated environments. Since 2020, she has focused on transforming laboratory workflows through automation, driving efficiency, and minimizing environmental impact while maintaining the highest standards of quality. Beyond her professional achievements, Helen is deeply committed to developing and mentoring emerging scientists, sharing her expertise to inspire and guide the next generation of leaders in the field.

Mayukh Guha is a High Throughput Biologist with over a decade of experience advancing HTP genomics, DNA assembly and protein engineering. He earned his PhD in Cellular Biology from the University of Georgia and did a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University School of Medicine, focusing on molecular mechanisms underlying cellular cytoskeleton.

Before joining Lila Sciences, he held scientific roles at Zymergen and Metagenomi, where he developed automated workflows and high-throughput screening systems that accelerated protein engineering, microbial strain engineering and HTP DNA assembly and sequencing. At Lila, he leads initiatives integrating AI-guided DNA design with automated assembly platforms to enhance the speed and scalability of science research.

An active contributor to the SLAS community, Guha has served as a mentor, travel award judge, and peer reviewer for SLAS journals. He is passionate about guiding early-career researchers and fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration at the interface of biology, automation and data science.

Kalpesh Gupta, Ph.D., is an experienced biotech engineer with proven expertise in both wet lab and automation. Gupta has extensive experience in analytical assay development for biologics and downstream automated protein process development, along with experience in automating complex workflows for analytical/upstream and downstream processes and implementing integrated barcoding/LIMS workflows for seamless integration of automation systems to data analytics/LIMS systems. He is also an expert in programming, troubleshooting and modifying current systems within the Hamilton liquid handler.

Gupta leads high-performing teams spanning scientific and engineering disciplines such as laboratory automation, process engineering, technical operations and high-throughput delivery and boasts more than 14 years of experience working in the biotechnology industry ranging from large organizations to small startups. He is passionate about leadership, organizational management frameworks and coaching the next generation of engineers and scientists to achieve their dreams.

Bio coming soon!

Nathaniel Hentz has nearly 30 years of experience and is currently President at NGH Scientific Consulting and works with small life science companies to accelerate commercial growth. Previously, he was Vice President at Artel, where he was instrumental in driving growth and providing leadership in the liquid handling quality control industry. Prior to that, Hentz was Assistant Director of the BTEC Analytical Lab at North Carolina State University for almost 11 years. In that role, he taught both undergraduate and graduate level courses as well as industry short courses focused on biopharmaceutical assay development and validation. Hentz's tenure in the drug discovery industry includes supporting the automated screening systems within the Lead Discovery group at Bristol-Myers Squibb in Connecticut and developing high-throughput screens and new technologies at Eli Lilly RTP Laboratories in North Carolina.

John Hickey is biomedical engineer that is passionately engaged in improving human health through research, mentoring, and teaching.

The Hickey Lab sits at the interface of engineering and immunology, using and developing systems immunology tools to investigate tissue structure in situ. They also use multiplexed imaging and computational techniques to characterize spatial cellular responses related to the effectiveness of anti-cancer cell or biomaterial therapies. Hickey has received a number of awards for his work, including the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, ARCS Scholar, Siebel Scholar, NCI Postdoctoral Fellowship and an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Shastine Keeney has been working in automation for 25 years. She began in industrial automation working in the semi-conductor and fiber optic cable manufacturing spaces. In 2004, she stumbled into biotech and quickly landed at Genentech working with the automation of fermenters and purification systems in the pilot plants. However, because she missed working on equipment that had moving parts, she searched Genentech's internal job postings for the word "robot" which is how she discovered laboratory automation and has never looked back. These days she runs her own very successful one-woman consulting firm, working with clients small and large and in all facets of biopharma from synthetic biology and diagnostics, to early and late-stage drug discovery and beyond.

When she's not working, Shastine likes to dance as well as spend time with her two grandchildren and her several cats. Keeney loves mentoring because she loves to help people understand their worth and get perspective on career growth by focusing on what they've already accomplished and how they can feel empowered to move their career in new directions. She is especially attuned to ways that both explicit and implicit bias can impact folks in the workplace and feels that it is an important part of the discussion about career growth.

As an Associate Principal Scientist in the Quantitative Biosciences organization at Merck, Kemper enables the discovery to preclinical advancement of therapies in neuroscience, infectious disease and vaccine programs. She co-leads hit-to-lead efforts and design efficient screening funnels that accelerate decision-making and de-risk early-stage projects.

Kemper’s role blends program leadership with technical execution: she manages multidisciplinary projects, develops and optimizes biochemical and cell-based assays and implements assay automation to increase throughput and reproducibility. She also drives laboratory process improvements and deploys software solutions that enhance scientific productivity and data quality.

She brings deep experience in assay design, execution and automation, with a focus on translating biological hypotheses into robust, scalable workflows that support discovery and preclinical development.

Ary Shalizi is a Principal Scientist in the Cellular Phenotyping group at Calico Life Sciences. Shalizi received a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard University and did postdoctoral work at both Stanford University and the Broad Instituteon small molecule screening. At Calico, he uses laboratory automation and design-build-test-learn approaches to develop multimodal high-content assays for biological discovery, in collaboration with other research groups and core labs.

Prior to Calico, Shalizi was a Senior Scientist in the Functional Genomics group at Synthego, where he helped build out an end-to-end automated platform for cell-based arrayed CRISPR screens. Outside the lab he likes to write about books, cook, and coach his kid’s soccer team.

Timothy P. Spicer Ph.D. is a Professor and Senior Scientific Director in the Department of Molecular Medicine at The Wertheim UF Scripps Institute. He joined Scripps Research in Florida in 2005 which is now part of the University of Florida since April 2022. Tim has more than 35 years of experience in drug discovery, including 10 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb. Tim is currently the director of HTS and discovery biology and co-directs the screening center at UF Scripps. He is part of the UF Health Cancer Center on their executive leadership team where he co-leads the Cancer Targeting and Therapeutics Program and is on their Translational Research Council. He supervises HTS assay development & related efforts including 3D biology and technology development for which he has impacted on a worldwide scale. Tim serves on multiple boards including the Florida Center for Brain Tumor Research, Araceli Biosciences, ChemoSen3D, Ion Biosciences, as well as ViQi AI. He is a past President and Chairman for the Society of Lab Automation and Screening (SLAS) and is the Associate Editor of SLAS Discovery. He has authored more than 160 drug-discovery related publications, 10 patents, and has helped discover drugs that are now in man (ZEPOSIA and RUKOBIA). For further information please see his Linked In profile at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-spicer-5786943/; laboratory website at https://hts.scripps.ufl.edu/ and faculty pages at: https://wertheim.scripps.ufl.edu/profile/spicer-timothy/ and https://cancer.ufl.edu/research/research-programs/cancer-targeting-therapeutics/.

Virneliz Fernandez Vega is a Senior Scientist in the Department of Molecular Medicine at The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation and Technology in Jupiter, Florida. She joined the High Throughput Screening Molecular Screening Center in 2008. She is mainly responsible to develop, implement and validate physiologically relevant functional 3D cell culture models from diverse cancers such as glioblastoma for precision medicine therapeutic profiling applications, drug target screening and for phenotypic evaluation of anti-cancer drugs. As part of the molecular screening center, she also develops and implements biochemical and cell-based assays compatible for uHTS campaigns to screen large compound libraries for drug discovery of a multidisciplinary range of therapeutic areas including cancer, autoimmune diseases, neurological disorders, and infectious diseases. Before joining UF Scripps Institute in Florida, she worked at the University of Miami studying the gene expression of T box transcription factor TBX2 involved in breast cancer and tumor growth development. Prior to joining University of Miami in 2002, she worked in the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases in the Epidemiology Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD. Her primary focus was the characterization of the Norwalk virus N-terminal protein. Mrs. Fernandez Vega graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a major in Microbiology in 2001. All her work had led to multiple publications in peer reviewed journals throughout her career.

Curtis Walton, PhD, is the Director of Automation and Process Optimization at the Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI). He brings deep expertise in laboratory automation, bioinformatics, and protein engineering, with a strong track record of building scalable workflows that accelerate scientific discovery. Walton holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Ottawa, where he developed novel biocatalysts for pharmaceutical applications. At IPI and in previous roles, he has led multidisciplinary teams and spearheaded the integration of cutting-edge automation platforms, transforming research pipelines through innovative, and data-driven approaches.

David Westover, PhD, is a pharmaceutical development professional specializing in translational research, cellular and biochemical assay development, process analytics and laboratory automation. He has extensive expertise with both small molecule and vaccine products. He has performed drug development roles in both academia and industry.

He holds a BS in Biomedical Sciences and a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology and Cancer Therapeutics. He completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the laboratory of Christine M. Lovly, MD, PhD. There, he discovered and published novel mechanisms of resistance to osimertinib, an FDA-approved tyrosine kinase inhibitor and first-line therapy in lung cancer patients with an EGFR-activating mutation. He was hired to a permanent position with the Vanderbilt High-Throughput Screening Facility to develop and automate large-scale biological assays supporting drug discovery, medicinal chemistry and drug repositioning efforts.

Westover is currently a Senior Scientist within Merck’s Analytical Research & Development team, where he enables mRNA vaccine bioprocess development by automating analytical workflows and data analysis. His team is responsible for (1) automating and implementing a variety of analytical methods, including immunologic, cell-based, and biochemical assays; and (2) partnering with bioprocess- and formulation-facing colleagues to optimize and scale vaccine bioprocess for clinical trials.

Chi Yun successfully transitioned from academia to the startup world in 2021 and is excited to share her experience. To date, she has overseen hundreds of diverse, 2D and 3D cell-based, high-throughput screening projects from academic researchers in the New York City area. As an expert in functional genomics, high-content screening and cell-based assay development, she has also presented at high-content analysis meetings, directed courses on best practices for RNAi screening and teaches a graduate course section on automation, screening and data analysis. Yun co-founded the NYU Image Analysis Working Group which discusses software applications, image analysis standards, project-based examples and best practices for data retention and is also Chair of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Laboratory Research & Innovation Group (LRIG)