These judges will choose the 1st, 2nd, and 3nd place awardees from among the finalists at the live Postdoc Slam event on September 18, 2024. See also the screening judges who reviewed initial video entries and selected the finalists.
Teaster Baird, Jr., PhD, is associate dean of the College of Science and Engineering at San Francisco State University (SFSU), where he is also a professor of chemistry and biochemistry. His lab researches protein structure-function relationships using the serine protease trypsin as a model system. He has mentored over 75 students in his lab and has served as teaching mentor for several UCSF IRACDA postdocs. Dr. Baird was instrumental in launching SF BUILD, an NIH-funded partnership between SFSU and UCSF which seeks to diversify the biomedical research workforce. In 2021, he became an American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology inaugural Fellow. A native of Ashland, Mississippi, Baird received a BS in chemistry from Tougaloo College in Mississippi, and a PhD in biochemistry from Duke University, after which he did a postdoc at UCSF with mentor Dr. Charles Craik.
Josh Kornbluth is a monologuist and filmmaker who lives in Berkeley. For two years he was an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health, based at UCSF's Memory and Aging Center (MAC), where he launched his "Citizen Brain" video series (citizenbrain.org) and developed his latest solo show, also titled Citizen Brain. He also served as Hellman Visiting Artist at the MAC. Previously he was Artist-in-Residence at the Zen Hospice Project. He publishes a blog on the Substack platform titled "But Not Enough About Me." For two years he hosted an interview show on KQED-TV, cleverly titled The Josh Kornbluth Show. You can find him at joshkornbluth.com. (Photo by Atlantic Institute/Lee Atherton)
Wylie Liu, MPH, MPA is assistant vice chancellor of UCSF’s Center for Community Engagement and Anchor Institution Mission, where she facilitates community, academic, health and healthcare partnerships at UCSF. Her work focuses on community engaged research, community health, education and economic inclusion. Wylie grew up in Thailand and Singapore. In a former life, she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Papua New Guinea and worked for Save the Children Fund United Kingdom and Oxfam Hong Kong in Asia. She earned her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley, an MPH from Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Robin Marks, MA is a senior public information representative in the UCSF Office of Communications, where she covers new discovery science, including biochemistry, biotechnology, diabetes, microbiome, neuroscience, pain, pathology and psychiatry. She was a reporter for many years, working for various NPR stations around the U.S. and freelancing for Reuters and other news agencies abroad. She later spent 10 years as a writer and multimedia specialist for the Exploratorium, after which she expanded her freelance career to include designing science curricula, tutoring students, and developing science-themed walking tours. She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota (Biochemistry), and a master’s from the University of Washington (International Studies).
Ben Polacco, PhD ʼ07, is a computational biologist who serves as lead bioinformatician at UCSF's Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), where he works on the Krogan Lab team. The QBI team works collaboratively to study the basic biological mechanisms underlying diverse human diseases via data-driven, systems-biology methods. Ben received his PhD in Bioinformatics at UCSF, studying under Dr. Patsy Babbitt, and later did a postdoc at UCSF, with mentor Susan Miller.