A discussion on trends in science and the issue of trust in science from three leading global figures in communicating and furthering the development of science and technology,
Guest Panelists
Bernardo Mariano Junior, Chief Information Technology Officer, United Nations
Magdalena Skipper, Editor-In-Chief, Nature
Alejandro Adem, Ph.D., President of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Live at 11 a.m. EDT
When: Tuesday, September 1, 11:00 a.m. Where: LIVE on LinkedIn Live
Topic: A fireside chat with Bernardo Mariano Jr, Magdalena Skipper, and Alejandro Adem, Ph.D. on the future of science.
Speakers:Bernardo Mariano Jr, Chief Information Technology Officer, United Nations, Magdalena Skipper, Ph.D., Editor-In-Chief, Nature. Alejandro Adem, Ph.D., President of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of CanadaIn conversation with Seema Kumar.
Featured Speakers
About Magdalena Skipper, Ph.D.
Magdalena leads Nature’s magazine and research editorial teams. A geneticist by training, she has considerable editorial and publishing experience: having started in Nature Publishing Group in 2001, she was Chief Editor of Nature Reviews Genetics, Senior Editor for genetics and genomics at Nature, and Executive Editor for the Nature Partner Journals. Before joining Nature as Editor in Chief she was Editor in Chief of Nature Communications. She studied sex determination at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK, and Notch signalling in the vertebrate gut epithelium at the ICRF Laboratories (CRUK today), London. She is passionate about mentorship, research integrity as well as open and equitable research practice. She is the editorial champion of diversity, equality and inclusion at Springer Nature. She serves on the advisory board of the University of Oxford Centre for Personalised Medicine and of the International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publications; she is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council for the UK Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. She is a fellow of the International Science Council. Magdalena is based in the London office.
About Alejandro Adem, Ph.D.
Professor Alejandro Adem was appointed president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) in October 2019. As a highly accomplished researcher in the field of mathematics and a faculty member at the University of British Columbia, Professor Adem has significant leadership experience in the research and innovation ecosystem. Before joining NSERC, he was Chief Executive Officer and Scientific Director of Mitacs.
About Bernardo Mariano Junior
Mr. Junior brings to the position 28 years of experience within the United Nations system and international organizations, most recently serving as the Chief Information Officer and Director for Digital Health and Innovation at the World Health Organization (WHO), where he led the organization’s digital transformation journey, leveraging digital technologies and innovations to accelerate the achievement of WHO strategic goals. He started his career in 1993 with International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Mozambique and continued with IOM in Haiti, Mali, Angola, Kenya, Kosovo and South Africa in addition to Geneva, Switzerland before joining WHO in 2018. He served as IOM Senior Regional Adviser for Sub-Saharan Africa (2017-2018), Regional Director for Southern Africa (2009-2015) and served as IOM Chief Information Officer (2015-2017, 2002-2011), having championed several business transformation initiatives, driving innovations in operation and management systems, Enterprise Resource Planning systems, information technology, project management and network infrastructure. He holds a Master of Science in global management from Salford University in the United Kingdom and a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. He is fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish, with a very good knowledge of French.
About Seema Kumar
Seema joined Cure Experience in 2022 as the Chief Executive Officer. Prior to Cure, Ms. Kumar spent nearly 20 years at Johnson & Johnson in senior leadership roles, including most recently as the Global Head, Office of Innovation, Global Health and Scientific Engagement, and served on J&J’s Innovation Strategy, Public health leadership and the COVID-19 vaccine steering committee, where she led the company’s external affairs efforts and public education program on COVID and vaccine literacy. Before her tenure at J&J, Ms. Kumar was the Chief of Staff to Dr. Eric Lander and the Chief Communications Officer at the Whitehead Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Genome Research where she played a leadership role in the Human Genome Project. She also has held leadership positions at the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institutes of Health, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Ms. Kumar holds an M.S. in Science Journalism and Communications from the University of Maryland.
