EXECUTIVE BOARD
Shen Wang
President
Shen Wang is a postdoctoral associate in the McGovern Institute for Brain Research since Oct. 2020 (Feng lab). Shen currently studies neural mechanisms in circuits implicated in psychiatric disorders and focuses on using computational methods to reveal neural dynamics in behaving animals. Prior to MIT, Shen did his PhD at Brandeis University in the systems neuroscience field, studying the circuit mechanisms of contextual modulation in the primary visual cortex.
As the president of the MIT PDA, Shen is committed to supporting all committee chairs to improve the postdoc experiences of work and life with focuses on strengthening the rights and benefits of postdocs, building communication channels such as town hall meetings, providing career development opportunities and knowledge support of visas for international postdocs.
Ayo Arowosola
Vice President
Ayo is a post-doctoral research associate in the Materials Systems Laboratory at MIT with a research focus on key sustainability pathways across industries and organizations. She is also affiliated with the Harvard Extension School as a teaching assistant in the Life Cycle and Supply Chain Sustainability Assessment course. Her previous role as the DEI in the PDA chair has prepared her for her current role as the vice president of the PDA. She recognizes the importance of an effective liaison between the institute and its staff, especially postdocs. Ayo believes when people come together with a common goal and have a clear direction, efforts can be utilized more effectively. She hopes to foster such efforts between the institute and the postdoc community, where all stakeholders achieve their goals and benefit from the relationship.
Kamila Mustafina
Treasurer
Kamila is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Bioengineering, Synthetic Biology Center since November 2021. She is interested in controlling gene expression in mammalian cells and high-throughput screening of functional RNAs. Her current project is focused on optimizing genetic circuits for cancer immunotherapy. Kamila is from Kazakhstan, Almaty, and lived there until she completed her undergraduate degree in Biology at Nazarbayev University. Then she moved to Okinawa, Japan, to do her PhD in Nucleic Acid Engineering. It was also in Japan where she got converted into a karaoke-addict. Kamila likes the sense of community, and although being a treasurer is a lot about emails and Excel spreadsheets, it’s also about interaction with a lot of people! In her free time, Kamila likes to listen to the Strokes and ride a bike, play basketball, table tennis or ice-skate.
Winald Kitzmann
Recording Secretary
Winald is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Chemistry at MIT. His research revolves all around how light interacts with matter and how we can use these interactions to tackle our current challenges in energy and sustainability. In his current work, he uses ultrashort laser pulses to understand what happens in a molecule right after light is absorbed.
He obtained his PhD in chemistry in the University of Mainz, Germany. There, he established the doctoral student representatives and served as their speaker for 2 years. Winald is committed to continue his advocacy work to improve the conditions for postdocs at MIT.
STANDING COMMITTEEs
Lukas Schmid
Advocacy Committee Chair
Lukas Schmid is Postdoctoral Fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the MIT-SPARK Lab in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His research focuses on enabling robots and intelligent systems to build an understanding of their complex and dynamic environment that enables them to act in it. To this end, he develops novel methods for scene representation, incremental map building and belief updates, and embodied active robot perception algorithms. He obtained his PhD from ETH Zurich, Switzerland, working on robotic mapping and perception. Next to his research, he is a passionate pianist, enjoys team sports such as volleyball, and engages in various water sports such as sailing, surfing, or diving when possible.
At ETH, Lukas Schmid was a member of the board of the departmental association of scientific staff, representing the interests of PhDs and postdocs in several departmental bodies and building an inclusive and vibrant community. As the chair of the advocacy committee, he is committed to advocating for postdocs to address concerns about work and life as a postdoc at MIT and continuing to build a vibrant postdoc community with fulfilling academic and private life experiences.
Markus Schmidt
Orientation Committee Chair
Markus is a postdoctoral associate at the Fluid Dynamics of Disease Transmission Laboratory with Prof. Bourouiba and Prof. Heldt. He studies the transmission of diseases at the interface of physics and microbiology. Markus started his academic career at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences (Gelsenkirchen, Germany) with a cooperative degree program in cooperation with Siemens Power Generation. During this program, he finished his apprenticeship as industrial mechanic (Industriemechaniker IHK)in 2007. During a stay abroad, he successively studied at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia and worked for Voith Turbo Australia. After his graduation with a Bachelor of Engineering at the Westphalian University, he moved to Zurich and joined the master’s program at ETH Zurich in mechanical engineering, where he graduated in 2014. He completed his Ph.D. at the Institute of Fluid Dynamics at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, in 2021. He hopes to provide incoming postdocs with useful information and serves as the first point of contact with the PDA.
Guangchun (Grant) Ruan
Human Affairs / Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Chair
Grant is a postdoctoral fellow with the Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS) at MIT. His research focuses on data-driven decision making in the electricity market and power systems. Before joining MIT, Grant was a postdoc with the University of Hong Kong in 2022, a visiting scholar with Texas A&M University in 2020, and a visiting scholar with the University of Washington in 2019. Grant received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University. In his free time, Grant enjoys outside activities and sports including badminton, swimming, and hiking. As the Human Affairs/DEI Chair, Grant aims to make the postdoc community more engaged and inclusive by efforts in enhancing communication and hosting regular educational initiatives.
Juan Felipe Torres Gonzalez
Community Building Committee Chair
Juan is a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Chemistry. His research in the Dincă laboratory focusses on developing new strategies to apply metal organic frameworks to catalysis. Before joining MIT, he got his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Florida, where he worked with multimetallic complexes for small molecule activation. Juan is originally from Colombia, he loves to dance, to run, to bake and to bond with new people. Through his position as Community Building Chair, Juan expects to offer the postdoctoral community an opportunity to connect with others.
Maria De Simone
Interim Community Building Committee Co-Chair
Maria is an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Theatre and Performance Studies. Her research brings together performance history, immigration law, and critical race theory to understand how immigrant artists in the USA have used racial impersonation on stage. She received her Doctorate from Northwestern University and comes to MIT following a term as Visiting Assistant Professor at Brown University. Prior to her academic activities, Maria was a dancer and theatre production manager in Rome, Italy—her country of origin. In her free time, Maria loves to go to shows and museums, eat good food, and hike with her puppy. After three years of limited social activity, Maria is committed to reintroducing in-person events both on campus and in the broader Boston area.
Vipindev Adat Vasudevan
Alumni Committee Chair
Vipindev is a postdoctoral associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT. His research focuses on network coding and its wide variety of applications in enabling secure and highly efficient future networks. He was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Fellow during his Ph.D. in information and communication technologies. He enjoys playing soccer and badminton as well as cooking traditional South Indian cuisine. In his role as the MIT PDA Alumni Committee Chair, Vipindev strives to ensure that every postdoc creates a strong bond with MIT that extends beyond their tenure at MIT. He aims to work with the MIT Alumni Association to make this ‘Infinite Connection’ as smooth as possible.
Oliver Gottfried
Professional Development Committee Chair
Oliver is a postdoctoral fellow at MIT Sloan with focus on VC investments into climate technology involving generative AI driven business models. Before that he was visiting scholar at Stanford’s Sustainable Finance initiative. He is an Investment Director & Head of Partnerships at AI.FUND in Hamburg, Germany, managing VC investments in the applied AI space with focus on generative AI investments. Oliver also worked for HongDao Capital, a Chinese AI-focused Venture Capital firm where he was responsible for AI-based investments with focus on mobility (autonomous driving) as well as climate technologies. In his role as the Professional Development Committee Chair of the PDA, Oliver aims to provide postdocs, PhDs and MBAs with the adequate resources and connections to achieve their professional goals.
Bettina Schmerl
Sports Committee Chair
Bettina is a postdoctoral associate in the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. Her research focusses on the structural and molecular heterogeneity of inhibitory synapses in the visual cortex. During her PhD she worked on understanding the function and interactions of postsynaptic scaffold proteins that are implicated in neurodevelopmental disorders. Outside of the lab Bettina has too many interests to fit in short biography. For her, exercise and sport are a great way to balance and decompress and also find a sense of achievement outside of work. As the chair of the Sports Committee, she wants to support the network of postdoc sport activities to enhance the postdoc community wellbeing and personal interactions in fun activities. She is also captain of the MIT postdoc running club for that spirit and further wants to encourage and support the postdoc community in fostering group activities, like running or hiking together, because those are ideal to connect with postdocs of your own and other departments and fields.
David Rohrbach
IT & Information Committee Chair
David is a Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the MIT Department of Chemistry. In his research, he generates intense electromagnetic pulses at THz frequencies and uses those to characterize the nonlinear and collective behavior of various material systems.
Prior to joining MIT, he received his Ph.D. in strong-field THz spectroscopy from the University of Bern, Switzerland. In his spare time, he is an avid runner, enjoys board games and hiking.
During his time in Bern, he served as a Ph.D. student representative and was also responsible for the IT infrastructure at his institute. As Chair of the IT & Information Committee, David hopes to update the PDA website, efficiently deliver MIT PDA information to MIT postdocs, and thereby contribute as much as possible to making their postdoc experience a pleasant one.
Haoran Li
IT & Information Committee Co-Chair
Haoran serves as a postdoctoral associate at MIT, working within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Concrete Sustainability Hub. He earned his PhD from the University of Pittsburgh in 2023, a master’s degree from the University of Ottawa in Canada in 2017, and obtained his bachelor’s degree from Southwest Jiaotong University in China in 2015. As the role of co-chair of the IT & Information Committee, Haoran aims to improve the PDA website, facilitating the effective sharing of MIT PDA information with both MIT postdocs and the wider public. His overarching objective is to enhance the postdoctoral experience at MIT and amplify the voice of postdocs within the community.