Experiential learning opportunity for graduate students and post-doctoral researchers.
Entrepreneurial skills are critical for many high-impact careers, including academia, biotech, healthcare, private practice, investing, and consulting. Our fellowship program is a paid 10-hour weekly commitment for up to one year. This is expected to be in addition to the participants’ current responsibilities in academic research. Throughout the program, Fellows develop executive skills including competitive analysis, analytical marketing, regulatory affairs, intellectual property and aspects of legal and finance. The fellowship includes didactic sessions led by Celdara leadership, as well as invited subject matter experts. Select applicants, through expressed interest, will specifically study Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and be trained to critically examine novel AD innovations.
Lebanon, NH (CHEF Program)
Senior graduate students (at least 3 years into terminal degree), including MDs and dual degrees (e.g., MD/Ph.D., MD/MBA), as well as post-doctoral researchers are welcome to apply. Interested applicants should submit their CV, cover letter (1 page maximum), and a letter of support from PI or Department Chair to chef@celdaramedical.com.
The Lita Nelsen Prize
Celdara Medical celebrates the extraordinary contributions of Lita Nelsen as she retires from our Board of Directors after a decade of transformative leadership and visionary guidance. In honor of her unparalleled impact on the field of technology transfer, and her many contributions to our company, Celdara Medical is proud to announce the creation of the Lita Nelsen Prize.
The Lita Nelsen Prize will be awarded annually to the Celdara Fellow who demonstrates exceptional achievement in technology transfer. Honoring Lita’s legacy, the prize celebrates excellence in innovation sourcing, due diligence, and development planning. Recipients of this award will reflect her hallmark qualities of bold leadership, insight, and rigorous execution, serving as role models in advancing impactful innovation.
Alumni
Celdara has trained over 60 fellows who are pursuing a variety of academic, government and industry careers, including at Parexel, Acceleron, JDRF, Leerink, Bicycle Therapeutics, MIT, MGH, Monitor, Deloitte, Palantir, RBC Capital Markets, Genentech, Harvard, Cornell, Brigham & Women’s, and Advent Life Sciences, BMS, Virtici, and Celdara Medical.
Class of 2024-2025
Stuti Agrawal
Soumilee Chaudhuri
Hanna Doh
Neeti Mittal
Francine Nihozeko
Pranav Ojha
Ozlem Sert
Dartmouth College
Stuti Agrawal
I am currently a 4th year Cognitive Neuroscience Ph.D. student at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. Following graduation from the University of California, Irvine with a degree in Neurobiology and a minor in Business Management, I joined Dr. Kyle Smith’s lab at Dartmouth, where I also earned my en-route Master’s degree in Cognitive Neuroscience. My research focuses on the Nucleus Accumbens to Ventral Pallidum pathway and its role in regulating food- and socially-motivated behaviors in rodent models. I utilize techniques such as fiber photometry, large-scale behavioral experiments, and neural network-based behavior classification to investigate the neurochemical and circuit-level mechanisms underlying motivation, decision-making, and reward processing. This work not only advances our understanding of fundamental brain function but also informs potential therapeutic strategies for addiction, eating disorders, and other neuropsychiatric conditions.
Indiana University
Soumilee Chaudhuri
I am a 5th year PhD Candidate in Medical Neuroscience and Bioinformatics at Indiana University School of Medicine/Indiana Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. Broadly, my doctoral research aims to understand how cardiovascular risk factors influence Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in communities disproportionately impacted by dementia, with the goal of advancing therapeutics and precision medicine tailored to these populations. My work utilizes human neuroimaging, high-throughput proteomics, plasma biomarkers, clinical and demographic data to investigate how cardiovascular risk and other comorbidities such as high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. contribute to memory loss in dementia. My thesis specifically examines whether amyloid—one of the central proteins associated with AD—acts in concert with these cardiovascular risk factors to exacerbate cognitive decline, or if these factors contribute independently to the progression of cognitive impairment in dementia. As such, each of the research projects that I have contributed to emphasizes actionable insights, such as (1) identifying miRNA-based early AD biomarkers through novel blood tests, (2) mitigating cardiovascular risk early-on to prevent cognitive decline in heterogeneous populations, and (3) employing AI-driven multiomic approaches to visualize the cells in the AD brain for therapeutic targeting.
Harvard University
Hanna Doh
I am a PhD candidate at Harvard Medical School in Dr. Taru Muranen’s lab, where I am studying molecular mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance in pancreatic cancer. My research focuses on NDRG1, a novel DNA repair protein, and examines how its interactions with binding partners influence DNA replication and repair. Currently, I am characterizing a protein-protein interaction that enhances DNA replication efficiency. This work uncovers novel nuclear functions for these proteins and supports their potential as therapeutic targets in cancers with high replication stress signatures.
Dartmouth College
Neeti Mittal
My fascination for understanding disease mechanisms led me to graduate with a Bachelors and Master of Technology in Biotechnology from Jaypee Institute of Information Technology, India and a Master of Science in Regulatory Sciences of Biopharmaceuticals from Northeastern University, Boston. Subsequently, I worked at various start-ups and mid-sized biotech companies in Boston and Cambridge with a focus on preclinical oncology research. There, I gained monumental experience in drug discovery and target validation studies and contributed to moving lead drug candidates from proof of concepts to first in human clinical trials. As my love for developing novel therapeutics deepened, I decided to pursue doctoral studies in cancer immunology at Dartmouth College in Dr. Mary Jo Turk’s laboratory. I am currently a 4th-year PhD candidate conducting translational research on the development of a novel lymph node based resident memory T cell (Trm) therapy in cancer which has also culminated into a patent submission. Parallelly, utilizing mouse melanoma models and spatial transcriptomics, I am also investigating maintenance requirements of lymph node and skin Trm in the setting of melanoma associated vitiligo. My long-term goal is to bring paradigm changing therapies to clinic and foster impactful collaborations to achieve this vision.
UT Health San Antonio
Francine Nihozeko
My path into cancer biology began with an unexpected teacher: planaria, the tiny flatworms famous for regenerating their entire bodies from a sliver of tissue. After earning my undergraduate degree in Biophysics from St. Lawrence University in 2018, I spent over two years at Yale University studying the stem cells and molecular pathways that give these animals their remarkable regenerative powers. That work sparked my fascination with how cells can be reprogrammed, sometimes toward healing, and sometimes, as in cancer, toward disease. In 2021, I began my PhD training in the Cancer Biology discipline at UT Health San Antonio. Now in my fifth year, my dissertation focuses on unraveling how specific epigenetic mechanisms drive leukemia development, and how these pathways can be targeted to improve therapy. Outside the lab, I lead student organizations to strengthen my leadership skills and volunteer at a local clinic, where I have seen firsthand how physicians diagnose and treat leukemia. I aim to bring together my seven years of research experience, clinical exposure, and passion for translational science to help develop innovative biotech solutions for cancer and other diseases.
Brandeis University
Pranav Ojha
I am a PhD candidate in Molecular and Cell Biology at Brandeis University. My doctoral research investigates transcriptional regulation within Drosophila circadian neurons, specifically the role of chromatin organization in regulating time-of-day and cell-type specific gene expression patterns. Using novel protocols, sequencing-based approaches, molecular biology, and bioinformatics, I have identified unique regulatory features of different core circadian genes and am further investigating the transcription factors that govern them. I am eager to explore entrepreneurial science and biotech innovation through the Celdara Fellowship.
Baylor College of Medicine
Ozlem Sert
I am a translational researcher with expertise in neuroscience, oncology, and life-science consulting, passionate about turning scientific discoveries into solutions that improve lives. My Ph.D. in Matthew Rasband’s neuroscience lab at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) focused on how excitable domains such as the axon initial segment and neuromuscular junction are maintained, leading to published findings that certain spectrinopathies causing muscular myotonia may have a neuronal origin. As a postdoctoral researcher, I contributed to studies on the cognitive effects of androgen deprivation therapy in prostate cancer through manuscript editing, scientific storytelling, and collaborative research in clinical oncology. Beyond the lab, I founded the International Students Association at BCM and led career development programs to equip scientists and their science with the resources and networks they need to thrive.