Inside Rensselaer, December 5, 2008: Women in Entrepreneurship Symposium Focuses on Women’s Health

	NewsChannel 13’s Benita Zahn moderated the event.

Women in Entrepreneurship Symposium Focuses on Women’s Health

The sixth annual Women in Entrepreneurship Symposium, “Advancing Women’s Health,” brought together 130 women — from future leaders and entrepreneurs to patients and activists — on the Rensselaer campus Nov. 7.

Sponsored by the Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship in the Lally School of Management & Technology, the annual symposium seeks to encourage women to pursue careers and entrepreneurial ventures in science and technology. The Rensselaer Paul and Kathleen Severino Future Leader Award is also presented at this event. This year, 30 distinguished high school junior women from across the United States and Canada received the award, recognizing their demonstrated leadership and interest in science and technology.

The symposium provides a forum through which Rensselaer’s undergraduate admissions office can introduce these prospective women candidates to the Institute’s campus, student life, and faculty and research facilities. The Center for Initiatives in Pre-College Education provided an exhibit of its summer programs.

From Nepal to New York, and from the laboratory, where basic research fuels the discovery and development of life-saving drugs and therapies, to clinical and regulatory affairs that determine how and when they are made available to patients, five ordinary women making extraordinary strides in women’s health shared their journeys.

Lee Ligon, assistant professor in the biology department, discussed cell biology re-search in the Ligon laboratory as it relates to breast cancer; Sue Dubay, senior manager of medical and clinical affairs at Welch Allyn, spoke about her journey from single mother to pioneer and patent holder for a new procedure and biomedical tool used to diagnose and treat cervical cancer; Dorothee Goldman, founder and chief technical officer of Oratel Diagnostics, LLC., shared her experience as a neighborhood science class teacher and how she stumbled upon an answer and potential treatment for endometriosis, currently being evaluated at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and at Cornell University; Paula Miller, director of corporate-community relations for CXTec and a trustee for the William G. Pomeroy Foundation, described her efforts to expand the ethnic diversity of donors registered with the National Marrow Donor Program; and Erica Murray, a college student of biracial descent who was diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia in 2006 and while unable to find a perfect match, echoed Miller’s call (via video) for all of us to consider being a marrow donor. Murray is currently producing a documentary on young adults living with cancer and on the National Marrow Donor Program.

The symposium was moderated by Benita Zahn, co-anchor for NewsChannel 13 Live, who encouraged the audience to discover “what refuels you to put your feet on the floor every day and make a change.”

Future Leader Award
Rensselaer’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship at the Lally School of Management & Technology has announced the 2008 recipients of the Rensselaer Paul and Kathleen Severino Future Leader Award. The award was given on Nov. 7 to 30 female high school seniors in recognition of their academic excellence in mathematics and science, leadership, service, and devotion to their respective schools and communities, and entrepreneurial pursuits. The students come from Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The students were honored during the annual Women in Entrepreneurship (WIE) Symposium.

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Inside Rensselaer, Strategic Communications and External Relations
1000 Troy Building, 110 Eighth Street, Troy, N.Y. 12180 or to leibat@rpi.edu.

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