MASS AWIS is offering an opportunity to make professional connections across a variety of career paths. ‘Join Me for Coffee’ gives a chance to meet with a STEM professional for 1 hour online. This special ‘Join Me for Coffee’ event will be 75 minutes. Participants will not only learn about that person’s career but also establish a new professional connection. These events are a great opportunity for participants to practice networking in an intimate setting, a skill that helps open doors to meaningful careers in STEM.

The upcoming ‘Join Me for Coffee’ event series will feature Dr. Emy Chen & Kate Strayor-Benton. If you would like to participate in this ‘Join Me for Coffee’ event, first complete the event application form. A committee will then review all applications and select 4-6 participants for each event. For this special ‘Join Me for Coffee’ event featuring two panelists, 8 participants will be selected. Selected applicants will be notified by email at least one week prior to the event. Upon selection notification, you will be required to formally register for the event and pay the registration fee via our secure website. Selected applicants who fail to complete registration on time forfeit the opportunity to participate.

Dr. Emy Chen

Emy Chen, PhD, is Senior Director of Licensing and Contracts in the Belfer Office for Dana-Farber Innovations. In this role, she has oversight over the both the Licensing and Contracts teams, which manage intellectual property strategy for researchers across Dana-Farber and negotiate transactions to facilitate the translation of early stage research to the bedside. A primary goal for her is to further refine and optimize the team’s ability to provide excellent partnership and collaboration both with clinicians and research scientists at Dana-Farber and with external stakeholders in industry. Prior to joining Innovation, Emy was most recently a Director of Licensing at Partners HealthCare Innovation (now Mass General Brigham Innovation), where she spent 13 years supporting investigators and building relationships with biotech and pharma companies, primarily for innovators in the disciplines of Medicine, Neuroscience and Dermatology. Emy holds a PhD from Harvard University in Molecular and Cellular Biology, a BA from University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology, and is a registered patent agent with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

Kate Strayer-Benton, MBA

As Senior Director of Business Development in the Belfer Office for Dana-Farber Innovations, Kate’s goal is to accelerate the time it takes for breakthrough science to get to patients—working with investigators and companies to identify new opportunities for collaboration, building a robust BD pipeline, and developing and driving the BD process. Helping to translate Dana-Farber’s research discoveries into new products for diagnosing and treating cancer and related diseases is the primary job of the Innovation Office. In building out the BD team, Kate’s focus is on developing a robust resource for business development, marketing, and strategic alliance management efforts to promote the incredible early-stage oncology work taking place at Dana-Farber.

Kate was formerly Director of Strategy & Corporate Development at Momenta Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Momenta, she spent a decade at Health Advances as a strategy consultant working with healthcare leaders to bridge technical and business objectives and advance medical innovations with the greatest impact on patient lives. Kate received her MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where she focused on healthcare, strategy, and innovation, and has a BA in Psychology/Neuroscience from Dartmouth College.

Registration fee: Free for MASS AWIS members; $5 for non-MASS AWIS members

Application deadline: Sunday, November 28th, 2021 at 11:55 PM.

For other Join Me for Coffee opportunities, click here.