• 

• Laura Towart Bandak, MSc

  Founder, Chairman, and Chief Strategic Officer

  linkedin

Laura Towart Bandak holds an MSc degree in Neuroscience from Cornell University (Weill Medical College/Sloan Kettering Institute, NYC). She performed her thesis work on the molecular pharmacology of the mu opioid receptor and is published in the field of gonadal hormones. In addition, Ms. Bandak has had extensive exposure to the biotechnology sector as an independent consultant. Ms. Bandak graduated cum laude from The George Washington University, Washington DC, with a BA in English Honors and a BS in Biology.

• 

• Piraye Yurttas Beim, PhD

  Founder and Chief Executive Officer

  linkedin

Dr. Beim is one of a handful of experts in the genetics of female fertility. Her postdoctoral work (Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, England) is in mammalian pre-implantation embryology and her doctoral work (Cornell University, Weill Medical College/Sloan Kettering Institute, NYC) focused on the molecular and genetic underpinnings of mammalian infertility. Dr. Beim holds a BA in Plan II Honors, an elite multidisciplinary honors program, and a BS in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin.

• 

• Steve Winick

  Director

  linkedin

Mr. Winick is a partner of Topspin Partners, a lead investor in Celmatix. He came to Topspin from Honeywell, Intl., where he most recently served as CIO of its $2 billion Security Group. Mr. Winick received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Electrical Engineering, also from University of Pennsylvania.

• 

• Michael Elashoff, PhD

  Vice President of Biostatistics

  linkedin

Dr. Elashoff was formerly the Senior Director of Biostatistics at CardioDx, where he developed the Corus CAD test, the first blood based molecular diagnostic for coronary disease. Previously, he was director of biostatistics at Gene Logic, which at that time had the largest genomic database in the world, and was a reviewer and team leader at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He received a PhD in Biostatistics from Harvard School of Public Health and a BA in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley.

• 

• Tina Hu-Seliger, PhD

  Bioinformatics Scientist

  linkedin

Prior to joining the Bioinformatics team at Celmatix, Dr. Hu was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University where she examined the evolutionary forces impacting lineage-specific patterns in the fruit fly Drosophila. Her graduate work ranged from detecting natural selection, quantifying linkage disequilibrium and understanding genome size evolution in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. She received her joint BA in Mathematics-Computer Science as well as BS in General Biology from the University of California, San Diego (Revelle College) and her MS in Computational Molecular Biology as well as PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from the University of Southern California.

• 

• Jer-Ming Chia, PhD

  Bioinformatics Scientist

  linkedin

Dr. Chia is an accomplished computational biologist specializing in cloud computing solutions for genomics and genetics data analyses. Prior to joining Celmatix, he was a Research Investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, analyzing genetic diversity in plants. He earned his PhD in Human Genetics from the National University of Singapore, where he studied the genetic complexity of the Major Histocompatibility Complex and how that impacts our understanding of immune-related diseases. He also holds a B.Eng from the National University of Singapore.

• 

• Hrishikesh Vikas Karvir, PhD

  Manager of Data Analytics

  linkedin

Prior to joining Celmatix, Dr. Karvir worked as a Machine Learning Scientist at Aureon Biosciences, a diagnostics company focused on developing novel prognostic models and imaging-based biomarkers for cancer. Dr. Karvir holds a PhD in Engineering and an MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Wright State University. His doctoral research focused on data mining and predictive analytics for imaging applications.

• 

• Rebecca Chodroff, PhD

  Manager of Clinical and Scientific Operations

  linkedin

As a recipient of an NIH-Oxford Biomedical Research Scholarship, Dr. Chodroff examined the roles of a series of non-protein-coding RNAs in mammalian brain development during her doctoral training at both the National Human Genome Research Institute (Bethesda, MD) and Oxford University (Oxford, England). She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Neuroscience (honors) and Anthropology.

• 

• Charlotte Frank Sage, PhD

  Clinical Liaison

  linkedin

Dr. Frank Sage was formerly the Vice President of Clinical Affairs and Operations at Extend Fertility, a pioneering company in the field of female fertility preservation. While at Extend, she managed both client and clinic relationships, served as a liaison between the company and its affiliated clinics, and performed sponsor-related duties for Extend’s multi-clinic scientific research protocols. She earned a PhD from Yale University where she studied the interactions of the yeast Candida albicans with human intestinal epithelial cells. She graduated first in her class at Wesleyan University with a BA in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

• 

• Anna Lee, MA

  VP of Operations

  linkedin

Ms. Lee formerly oversaw and managed business operations for TCC Group including direction of the firm’s administration, human resources, and technology departments. At McKinsey & Company, she worked with over 80 national and international consultants coordinating the business operations of McKinsey Alumni Consulting and its launch in North America. While at McKinsey and Company, she also founded Opera Singers Initiative, a nonprofit organization that provides business education for opera singers. Prior, Ms. Lee was on the faculty of the Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development as an Adjunct Professor at New York University. Ms. Lee received her MA from New York University and BM from New Mexico State University.

• 

• Sofia Akber, PhD

  Machine Learning Scientist

  linkedin

Dr. Akber brings years of experience in computational modeling. She has worked for a number of start up companies and before the private sector, held an Assistant Professorship in Geophysics at the University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institution of Oceanography). She holds an Honors BS in Electrical Engineering from Caltech.

• 

• Pavithra Shivakumar, PhD

  Bioinformatics Associate

  linkedin

Dr. Shivakumar holds a PhD from Yale University in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Her thesis work focused on structural assessment of compounds and pharmacogenomic profiling in cancer. She has a BS with highest honors in Computer science and honors in Biology from Rutgers University.

• 

• Upasana Bhattacharjee, MSc

  Bioinformatics Analyst

  linkedin

Ms. Bhattacharjee, holds an MS degree in Bioinformatics from Polytechnic University of NYU. As part of her masters training, she interned at Celmatix in a guided study program. She earned a BS degree in Biotechnology from North Dakota State University where her undergraduate research and thesis focused on the synthesis of peptides in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department.

• 

• Cory Ondrejka

  Vice President of Mobile, Facebook

  linkedin

Mr. Ondrejka’s experience spans several fields from defense contracting to video game development. He co-founded Walletin, which was acquired by Facebook, and Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life. He served as Executive Vice President for Global Digital Marketing at EMI Music and was a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

• 

• Christina Carlisle Jones

  Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Extend Fertility, Inc.

  linkedin

Ms. Jones co-founded Trilogy Software and has served as President and Founder of pcOrder. Ms. Jones is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow and served on the Board of Directors of Fertile Hope, before it was acquired by the Lance Armstrong Foundation. She received a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

• 

• Roger Gosden, PhD, DSc

  Professor and Director of Research in Reproductive Biology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY (retired)

  linkedin

Dr. Gosden received his research training in Cambridge under the physiologist Robert Edwards who, with the gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, achieved the world’s first successful in vitro fertilization (IVF) pregnancy. Dr. Gosden has remained an active member of the global reproductive biology community through publications and conference lectures.

• 

• Alan Copperman, MD

  Director of Infertility & Vice Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mount Sinai Medical Center; Co-Founder & Co-Director, RMA of New York

  linkedin

Dr. Copperman is a widely respected Reproductive Endocrinologist. He has published award-winning papers on egg freezing, infertility and IVF. Dr. Copperman has received awards from patient advocacy groups including The American Fertility Association and Resolve. He currently serves on the Fertility Advisory Committee to LIVESTRONG.

• 

• James Hicks, PhD

  Research Professor & Director of Women's Cancer Genomics Initiative, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

  linkedin

Dr. Hicks is a leading expert on the role of chromosomal deletions and duplications in cancer and autism. His current research involves applying genome-wide microarray strategies to identify diagnostic and prognostic markers in autism spectrum disorders as well as breast, ovarian and cervical cancer.

• 

• Richard G. Rawlins, Ph.D, HCLD, ELD (ABB)

  Laboratory Director, Reproductive Medicine Institute, Oak Brook, Illinois; Professor, Rush University Department OBGYN & Department Anatomy and Cell Biology

  linkedin

Dr. Rawlins received his Ph.D. in zoology from Michigan State University in 1984, specializing in the reproductive physiology and preimplantation embryology of nonhuman primates. He joined Rush University Medical Center in Chicago the same year and began development of the Center’s In Vitro Fertilization Program. He also built out and directed the mainland clinics service the metropolitan and greater metropolitan areas of Chicago, downstate Illinois, southern Wisconsin, southern Michigan and all of Indiana. In conjunction with clinical responsibilities, Dr. Rawlins is an active academic. He lectures on reproductive anatomy and histology to medical students, has participated in the Division of Cell Biology in the Rush Graduate College, trained clinical fellows in the ABOG approved clinical Fellowship Program for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Rush and lectured to the residents on reproductive endocrinology and statistics. Dr. Rawlins has also trained 68 clinicians and biologists in IVF/ART and he has established more than 15 IVF/ART programs globally.

• 

• Gurinder Singh “Mickey” Atwal, PhD

  Assistant Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

  linkedin

Mickey is an Assistant Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and an adjunct faculty member of Stony Brook University. After a few years in medical school at the University of Cambridge, when biology was still largely a qualitative science, he opted to break his family’s heart by pursuing a PhD in theoretical physics. As the biological sciences emerges into the quantitative arena, Dr. Atwal finds himself going back almost full-circle, developing and deploying mathematical and computational tools to address quantitative principles governing the behavior of complex biological systems, ranging from biomolecular networks to the evolution of the species Homo sapiens. Fueled by large-scale genotyping technologies, he has recently focused on population genetics with a view to understanding the evolutionary forces at play on the genome and to underpin the genetics of some human diseases, including cancer, infertility and neuropsychiatric disorders.

• 

• RMA of New York

It’s what you want most: to raise and love your own healthy child. At Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, our mission is to offer patients the most up to date, appropriate infertility treatment available in a caring, compassionate manner. We want your experience with us to be as stress-free and successful as possible.

Our medical facility in Midtown Manhattan, both modern and spacious, is open seven days a week so each patient can be closely monitored. We house our medical suites, in vitro fertilization (IVF) surgical procedures rooms and embryology laboratories all under one roof, enabling us to provide you with continuous, convenient care. In addition, we have satellite offices in Westchester and on Long Island to provide patients closer access to RMA of New York’s services.

• 

• RMA of Philadelphia

The team at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Philadelphia, formerly Northern Fertility & Reproductive Associates, has helped thousands of women and men in the Delaware Valley achieve their dream of parenthood. We are proud to be a trusted resource for so many hopeful parents – and especially proud of the many families we have helped create.

• 

• RMA of Texas

The Reproductive Medicine Associates of Texas is the premier Texas fertility center. At RMA of Texas, the mission of our team of experienced professionals is to individualize your care to the most appropriate treatment, using the most advanced and safest technologies available.

We want to know you as a person with your own medical, emotional and financial needs while considering your ethical and social values.

Our aim is to make you feel safe and pampered in our stress-free, spa-like Texas fertility clinic while offering cost-effective treatment options. Our main goal is to successfully guide your transformation: Today you, tomorrow a family™.

• 

• Cory Ondrejka

  Vice President of Mobile, Facebook

  linkedin

Mr. Ondrejka’s experience spans several fields from defense contracting to video game development. He co-founded Walletin, which was acquired by Facebook, and Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life. He served as Executive Vice President for Global Digital Marketing at EMI Music and was a visiting professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California.

• 

• Christina Carlisle Jones

  Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Extend Fertility, Inc.

  linkedin

Ms. Jones co-founded Trilogy Software and has served as President and Founder of pcOrder. Ms. Jones is an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow and served on the Board of Directors of Fertile Hope, before it was acquired by the Lance Armstrong Foundation. She received a BA in Economics from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

• 

• Roger Gosden, PhD, DSc

  Professor and Director of Research in Reproductive Biology, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY (retired)

  linkedin

Dr. Gosden received his research training in Cambridge under the physiologist Robert Edwards who, with the gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, achieved the world’s first successful in vitro fertilization (IVF) pregnancy. Dr. Gosden has remained an active member of the global reproductive biology community through publications and conference lectures.

• 

• Alan Copperman, MD

  Director of Infertility & Vice Chairman of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mount Sinai Medical Center; Co-Founder & Co-Director, RMA of New York

  linkedin

Dr. Copperman is a widely respected Reproductive Endocrinologist. He has published award-winning papers on egg freezing, infertility and IVF. Dr. Copperman has received awards from patient advocacy groups including The American Fertility Association and Resolve. He currently serves on the Fertility Advisory Committee to LIVESTRONG.

• 

• James Hicks, PhD

  Research Professor & Director of Women's Cancer Genomics Initiative, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

  linkedin

Dr. Hicks is a leading expert on the role of chromosomal deletions and duplications in cancer and autism. His current research involves applying genome-wide microarray strategies to identify diagnostic and prognostic markers in autism spectrum disorders as well as breast, ovarian and cervical cancer.

• 

• Richard G. Rawlins, Ph.D, HCLD, ELD (ABB)

  Laboratory Director, Reproductive Medicine Institute, Oak Brook, Illinois; Professor, Rush University Department OBGYN & Department Anatomy and Cell Biology

  linkedin

Dr. Rawlins received his Ph.D. in zoology from Michigan State University in 1984, specializing in the reproductive physiology and preimplantation embryology of nonhuman primates. He joined Rush University Medical Center in Chicago the same year and began development of the Center’s In Vitro Fertilization Program. He also built out and directed the mainland clinics service the metropolitan and greater metropolitan areas of Chicago, downstate Illinois, southern Wisconsin, southern Michigan and all of Indiana. In conjunction with clinical responsibilities, Dr. Rawlins is an active academic. He lectures on reproductive anatomy and histology to medical students, has participated in the Division of Cell Biology in the Rush Graduate College, trained clinical fellows in the ABOG approved clinical Fellowship Program for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility at Rush and lectured to the residents on reproductive endocrinology and statistics. Dr. Rawlins has also trained 68 clinicians and biologists in IVF/ART and he has established more than 15 IVF/ART programs globally.

• 

• Gurinder Singh “Mickey” Atwal, PhD

  Assistant Professor, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

  linkedin

Mickey is an Assistant Professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and an adjunct faculty member of Stony Brook University. After a few years in medical school at the University of Cambridge, when biology was still largely a qualitative science, he opted to break his family’s heart by pursuing a PhD in theoretical physics. As the biological sciences emerges into the quantitative arena, Dr. Atwal finds himself going back almost full-circle, developing and deploying mathematical and computational tools to address quantitative principles governing the behavior of complex biological systems, ranging from biomolecular networks to the evolution of the species Homo sapiens. Fueled by large-scale genotyping technologies, he has recently focused on population genetics with a view to understanding the evolutionary forces at play on the genome and to underpin the genetics of some human diseases, including cancer, infertility and neuropsychiatric disorders.

• 

• Laura Towart Bandak, MSc

  Founder, Chairman, and Chief Strategic Officer

  linkedin

Laura Towart Bandak holds an MSc degree in Neuroscience from Cornell University (Weill Medical College/Sloan Kettering Institute, NYC). She performed her thesis work on the molecular pharmacology of the mu opioid receptor and is published in the field of gonadal hormones. In addition, Ms. Bandak has had extensive exposure to the biotechnology sector as an independent consultant. Ms. Bandak graduated cum laude from The George Washington University, Washington DC, with a BA in English Honors and a BS in Biology.

• 

• Piraye Yurttas Beim, PhD

  Founder and Chief Executive Officer

  linkedin

Dr. Beim is one of a handful of experts in the genetics of female fertility. Her postdoctoral work (Gurdon Institute, University of Cambridge, England) is in mammalian pre-implantation embryology and her doctoral work (Cornell University, Weill Medical College/Sloan Kettering Institute, NYC) focused on the molecular and genetic underpinnings of mammalian infertility. Dr. Beim holds a BA in Plan II Honors, an elite multidisciplinary honors program, and a BS in Biology from the University of Texas at Austin.

• 

• RMA of New York

It’s what you want most: to raise and love your own healthy child. At Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York, our mission is to offer patients the most up to date, appropriate infertility treatment available in a caring, compassionate manner. We want your experience with us to be as stress-free and successful as possible.

Our medical facility in Midtown Manhattan, both modern and spacious, is open seven days a week so each patient can be closely monitored. We house our medical suites, in vitro fertilization (IVF) surgical procedures rooms and embryology laboratories all under one roof, enabling us to provide you with continuous, convenient care. In addition, we have satellite offices in Westchester and on Long Island to provide patients closer access to RMA of New York’s services.

• 

• RMA of Philadelphia

The team at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Philadelphia, formerly Northern Fertility & Reproductive Associates, has helped thousands of women and men in the Delaware Valley achieve their dream of parenthood. We are proud to be a trusted resource for so many hopeful parents – and especially proud of the many families we have helped create.

• 

• RMA of Texas

The Reproductive Medicine Associates of Texas is the premier Texas fertility center. At RMA of Texas, the mission of our team of experienced professionals is to individualize your care to the most appropriate treatment, using the most advanced and safest technologies available.

We want to know you as a person with your own medical, emotional and financial needs while considering your ethical and social values.

Our aim is to make you feel safe and pampered in our stress-free, spa-like Texas fertility clinic while offering cost-effective treatment options. Our main goal is to successfully guide your transformation: Today you, tomorrow a family™.

• 

• Steve Winick

  Director

  linkedin

Mr. Winick is a partner of Topspin Partners, a lead investor in Celmatix. He came to Topspin from Honeywell, Intl., where he most recently served as CIO of its $2 billion Security Group. Mr. Winick received a BS in Economics from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Electrical Engineering, also from University of Pennsylvania.

• 

• Michael Elashoff, PhD

  Vice President of Biostatistics

  linkedin

Dr. Elashoff was formerly the Senior Director of Biostatistics at CardioDx, where he developed the Corus CAD test, the first blood based molecular diagnostic for coronary disease. Previously, he was director of biostatistics at Gene Logic, which at that time had the largest genomic database in the world, and was a reviewer and team leader at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. He received a PhD in Biostatistics from Harvard School of Public Health and a BA in Statistics from the University of California at Berkeley.

• 

• Tina Hu-Seliger, PhD

  Bioinformatics Scientist

  linkedin

Prior to joining the Bioinformatics team at Celmatix, Dr. Hu was a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University where she examined the evolutionary forces impacting lineage-specific patterns in the fruit fly Drosophila. Her graduate work ranged from detecting natural selection, quantifying linkage disequilibrium and understanding genome size evolution in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. She received her joint BA in Mathematics-Computer Science as well as BS in General Biology from the University of California, San Diego (Revelle College) and her MS in Computational Molecular Biology as well as PhD in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics from the University of Southern California.

• 

• Jer-Ming Chia, PhD

  Bioinformatics Scientist

  linkedin

Dr. Chia is an accomplished computational biologist specializing in cloud computing solutions for genomics and genetics data analyses. Prior to joining Celmatix, he was a Research Investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, analyzing genetic diversity in plants. He earned his PhD in Human Genetics from the National University of Singapore, where he studied the genetic complexity of the Major Histocompatibility Complex and how that impacts our understanding of immune-related diseases. He also holds a B.Eng from the National University of Singapore.

• 

• Hrishikesh Vikas Karvir, PhD

  Manager of Data Analytics

  linkedin

Prior to joining Celmatix, Dr. Karvir worked as a Machine Learning Scientist at Aureon Biosciences, a diagnostics company focused on developing novel prognostic models and imaging-based biomarkers for cancer. Dr. Karvir holds a PhD in Engineering and an MSc degree in Biomedical Engineering from Wright State University. His doctoral research focused on data mining and predictive analytics for imaging applications.

• 

• Rebecca Chodroff, PhD

  Manager of Clinical and Scientific Operations

  linkedin

As a recipient of an NIH-Oxford Biomedical Research Scholarship, Dr. Chodroff examined the roles of a series of non-protein-coding RNAs in mammalian brain development during her doctoral training at both the National Human Genome Research Institute (Bethesda, MD) and Oxford University (Oxford, England). She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania with a BA in Neuroscience (honors) and Anthropology.

• 

• Charlotte Frank Sage, PhD

  Clinical Liaison

  linkedin

Dr. Frank Sage was formerly the Vice President of Clinical Affairs and Operations at Extend Fertility, a pioneering company in the field of female fertility preservation. While at Extend, she managed both client and clinic relationships, served as a liaison between the company and its affiliated clinics, and performed sponsor-related duties for Extend’s multi-clinic scientific research protocols. She earned a PhD from Yale University where she studied the interactions of the yeast Candida albicans with human intestinal epithelial cells. She graduated first in her class at Wesleyan University with a BA in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry.

• 

• Anna Lee, MA

  Vice President of Operations

  linkedin

Ms. Lee formerly oversaw and managed business operations for TCC Group including direction of the firm’s administration, human resources, and technology departments. At McKinsey & Company, she worked with over 80 national and international consultants coordinating the business operations of McKinsey Alumni Consulting and its launch in North America. While at McKinsey and Company, she also founded Opera Singers Initiative, a nonprofit organization that provides business education for opera singers. Prior, Ms. Lee was on the faculty of the Steinhardt School of Education, Culture and Human Development as an Adjunct Professor at New York University. Ms. Lee received her MA from New York University and BM from New Mexico State University.

• 

• Sofia Akber, PhD

  Machine Learning Scientist

  linkedin

Dr. Akber brings years of experience in computational modeling. She has worked for a number of start up companies and before the private sector, held an Assistant Professorship in Geophysics at the University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institution of Oceanography). She holds an Honors BS in Electrical Engineering from Caltech.

• 

• Pavithra Shivakumar, PhD

  Bioinformatics Associate

  linkedin

Dr. Shivakumar holds a PhD from Yale University in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. Her thesis work focused on structural assessment of compounds and pharmacogenomic profiling in cancer. She has a BS with highest honors in Computer science and honors in Biology from Rutgers University.

• 

• Upasana Bhattacharjee, MSc

  Bioinformatics Analyst

  linkedin

Ms. Bhattacharjee, holds an MS degree in Bioinformatics from Polytechnic University of NYU. As part of her masters training, she interned at Celmatix in a guided study program. She earned a BS degree in Biotechnology from North Dakota State University where her undergraduate research and thesis focused on the synthesis of peptides in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department.