Sarah Snider, PhD

Dr. Snider is an experienced behavioral pharmacologist in the field of substance use disorder and decision-making. She has led BEAM through the successful execution of NIH-and-regionally-funded small business technology transfer grant projects and the validation and commercialization of BEAM’s product, Beacon, and its assessment modules.

Pernessa C. Seele

“Balm in Gilead, Inc., a not-for-profit organization celebrating three decades of providing technical training and services that strengthen the capacity of faith institutions in the United States and Africa to promote health education, disease management, and services that contribute to the elimination of human suffering. Time magazine named her one of the 100 Most Influential People. Essence magazine, in its 35th-anniversary edition, selected her as one of the 35 Most Beautiful and Remarkable Women in the World. Ebony magazine named her one of its Power 150. And she was selected by Women’s eNews as one of its 21 Leaders for the 21st Century. She believes loving your neighbors as you love yourself is key to healing our world of stigma, hate, fear and shame.”

Josh Nicholson, PhD

Josh Nicholson is co-founder and CEO of scite.ai, a next-generation citation index that puts citations into context and provides scholarly references to ChatGPT.  He holds a PhD in cell biology from Virginia Tech, where his research focused on the effects of aneuploidy on chromosome segregation in cancer.

Stephanie K. Goodwin, PhD, MPH, RD

Stephanie Goodwin joined the Public and Government Affairs team at Danone North America (NA) in 2019 and recently started a new role to focus specifically on Nutrition Policy. She has been with Danone for 8.5 years, first on the science team for the division of medical foods, and then on the regulatory affairs team. Prior to joining Danone, Stephanie worked within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the 2015 Dietary Guidelines. She is a Registered Dietitian having served her Dietetic Internship in 2002-2003 at Virginia Tech, which is what brought her to Southwest Virginia area. She completed her Post-Doctoral Fellowship in metabolic science at the National Institutes of Health with the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Disease. She also has experience as a Clinical Dietitian with Carilion Health System, as an independent consultant at several Skilled and Long-Term Care Centers, and working at the state level for Virginia’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-ED).

Jeff Danto

Jeff Danto is an experienced Health IT leader having worked with Epic and other EMR systems and technology for 16 years.  He has led projects with numerous Academic Medical Centers including large enterprise system implementations, expansion and optimization projects, and has overseen the IT/infrastructure needs for the design and construction of acute care facilities.  He lives in Houston with his wife and three daughters and is excited to reconnect with the Virginia Tech community of students, faculty, researchers, and staff.

Cameron Casasanta, PhD

After completing her doctorate Dr. Casasanta joined the Penn State Biomedical Engineering department as an Assistant Research Professor. Then in late 2021 she was awarded the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship and was placed within the Department of Defense. Upon the conclusion of the Fellowship she continued her work in science policy and joined Alexa Research and Engineering. Cameron's work covers health readiness policy and efforts within the Department.