Bio:Farzaneh Masoud earned her PhD from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in May 2012, from the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. Dr. Masoud has a broad background in molecular, cell, and developmental biology as well as mammalian reproductive biology, and regenerative medicine. Her doctoral research concerned identifying factors that can cause mesothelial cells to undergo Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition (EMT). The EMT process is a developmental phenomenon that underlies metastatic cancers.Prior to joining IFSI as the Director of Research, Dr. Masoud worked at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) as a project manager but quickly moved on to develop the Strategic Research and Proposal Development office and has served as an Interdisciplinary Research Development Officer. Dr. Masoud was responsible for leading pre-proposal coordination for large and strategic grant opportunities that bring together NCSA staff campus faculty, and industry. She was responsible for identifying pertinent interdisciplinary grants and personnel and facilitating proposal development and communications among the team. Dr. Masoud has extensive experience in working with a diverse range of faculty, staff, and students and has contributed to the climate of inclusivity at NCSA. Prior to joining NCSA, Dr. Masoud worked at The University of Illinois Computational Science and Engineering (CS&E) in the College of Engineering as a Research Coordinator. She promoted and implemented the research objectives of CSE. Dr. Masoud was responsible for attracting and maintaining external research funding and forming interdisciplinary teams of researchers on the UI campus to collaborate together and pursue funding opportunities. In these endeavors, she worked closely with the University of Illinois CSE faculty and affiliates. She also works closely with the University of Illinois Campus research funding programs along with the private, federal, and state sectors of research funding programs. Previously Dr. Masoud worked as an assistant director and administrator of Midwest Stem Cell Based Tissue Regeneration Consortium for the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) and UIUC. She initiated the development of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary working groups, coordinating the working groups with potential internal and external funding resources. As a visiting scholar in department of Institute for Genomic Biology, Dr. Masoud participated in organizing a multidisciplinary group of scientist developing R01, R21 and R03 proposals. She was involved in designing and coordinating the NIH proposal for a multidisciplinary team in regenerative medicine, stem cell biology, biomedical and mechanical sciences and engineering. She assisted in the successful completion of a proposal for Future Interdisciplinary Research Explorations (FIRE) from College of ACES. Prior to The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Dr. Masoud was employed as a research associate in a bio-tech start-up, EpiGenX in Santa Barbara, CA. At EpiGenX she developed and utilized a high throughput enzyme and cell based screen to discover novel antibiotics. |