Pernilla Wittung Stafshede - Curriculum Vitae#

EDUCATION

• 1988-92 Combined B.S. and M.Sc. Chem. Eng., Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden
  Master-Thesis advisor: Prof. Andrew Miller, Imperial College, London.
  
• 1993-96 Ph.D. Physical Chemistry, Chalmers University, Gothenburg, Sweden
  
• 1997-98 Post-doctoral fellow California Institute of Technology, Beckman, Pasadena, CA
  

SUPERVISION OF GRADUATE STUDENTS AND POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWS

Postdoctoral fellows 10 postdocs supervised during 2002-2015. I have 6 current postdocs.
Graduate students Thesis advisor for 13 students that have completed their PhD (first PhD completed in 2002). 3 PhD students completed at Umeå University, 6 PhD students completed at Rice University, 4 PhD students completed at Tulane University. I have four current PhD students.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES AS FACULTY

Tulane: Special Topics: Protein Folding (Chem-714), Tulane Science Scholars Program (teaching exceptional high-school students), Introduction to Biochemistry (Chem-383/683), General Chemistry (Chem-107 and Chem-108), Physical Chemistry-II (Chem-312), Special Topics: Biomolecule Structure and Function (Chem-714). Rice: Molecular Biophysics, Undergrad/Grad level, Design of new course content and material, Introduction of computer-aided distance learning (Bios-481/551); Molecular Interactions, Grad level (Bios 583). Umeå: Lectures in Protein structure and function (C level), General Chemistry (A level) (shared responsibility with another teacher), Inspiration lecture in Biological Chemistry (1st year course in Life Science program). Chalmers: Lectures in Chemistry with biochemistry (1st year students) and Molecular Biotechnology (3rd year students), Design and development of new Master level course titled Protein folding and function

SERVICES (committees, institutional commitments, commission of trust etc.)

Current services:

• 2014-2017 Chair, Evaluation committee for Wallenberg Fellows program, Natural Science panel
  
• 2014-2017 Member, Professional Opportunities for Women Committee CPOW, Biophysical Society
  
• 2015- Division head for Chemical Biology Division, Chalmers
  
• 2015- Editorial Board for Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics sister journal, Discovery
  
• 2015- Chair, Faculty board, Biology and Bioengineering department, Chalmers

Previous services:

As faculty at Tulane University 1999-2003 I was involved in several department and university committees, including search committees and acting as the co-director of an interdisciplinary graduate student program. I kept my links to Sweden and was a member in the chemistry study section at the Swedish Research Council and I co-organized several Nobel workshops in Sweden. Early on at Tulane, I founded the New Orleans Protein Folding InterGroup (NOProFIG) that connected protein researchers across universities in New Orleans. Although I left Tulane, this group still has regular bi-weekly meetings now 16 years after its initiation. Also at this period, I became a board member of US Friends of Chalmers University of Technology Inc. (alumni organization). When in Houston at Rice University (2004-2008) I advanced to president of US Friends of Chalmers University of Technology Inc. I was also an editorial board member of the journal Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics for a 2 year period. Like at Tulane, I was involved in both department and university committees at Rice. I also became a steering committee member for the Houston Area Molecular Biophysics Training Program funded by NIH. In 2007, Rice got an NSF award called ADVANCE that focused on women in science. Within this program I was the chair for the ADVANCE Retention/Climate Committee at Rice and I also organized a larger conference on this theme. When I moved to Umeå Univ. in 2008, I quickly became involved in committees within the department, at the school level, and university-wide committees. At the national level, I became a member of the Swedish National Committee for Molecular Biosciences which is linked to the Swedish Royal Academy of the Sciences. I was also selected as a member in the Scientific Council for Natural and Engineering Sciences (8 members totally) at the Swedish Research Council. This Council oversees all study sections within natural and engineering sciences. In this capacity, I wrote one call (Molecules of Life) offered three years in a row. As the PI of a strong research environment at Umeå Univ., I obtained internal funding in 2010 with which I created a local core facility, the Protein Expertise Platform, which aims to become a national facility in the future. In 2010, I founded the subgroup Biopolymers in vivo (BIV) at the Biophysical Society. I served as the chair of this subgroup for 2 years. In 2012, I became a member in the Natural Science evaluation panel for the Wallenberg Academy Fellows program; I currently chair this committee (see above). In 2013 I acted as external observer at the Research Council, Nanyang Technical University, Singapore and in 2016 I participated in their selection of Nanyang Assistant Professors.

PREVIOUS FUNDING

Tulane: Louisiana Board of Regents Individual Research grant, Co-PI NSF Major Research Instrumentation Grant for NMR upgrade, ACS-PRF Starter G Grant, Cancer Association for Greater New Orleans (CAGNO), NSF Grant MCB-0075902 (3 years), NIH R01GM59663 (five years), Co-PI Louisiana Board of Regents Enhancement Fund for Instrumentation. Rice: Welch Foundation Research Grants, US Army Medical Research Grant, IBB Hamill Innovation Grant. Umeå: Swedish Research Council individual research grants (renewed), Kempe Foundation, Umeå University Career Grant, Umeå University strong research environment grant, Göran Gustafsson foundation, Swedish Research Council Infrastructure grant (one of five co-PIs) for high resolution electron microscopy.

CURRENT EXTERAL FUNDING

• 2017-22, Wallenberg Scholar renewal (Total 15 MKr)
  
• 2016-19, Swedish Research Council Mechanistic principles of copper transport (Total 4,8 MKR)
  
• 2017-18, Olle Engkvist Foundation Role of copper transport in Parkinson’s disease (Total 1,4 MKR)
  

LECTURESHIPS (since 2010)

• 2010 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, February, San Francisco (invited speaker)
  
• 2010 ’Proteiner: ett spel på liv och död’, public seminar series, Umeå (Café Station)
  
• 2010 Copper 10: Copper in Biology Meeting, October, Sardinia, (invited speaker)
  
• 2010 Educational days for teachers, Umeå Universitet, (invited plenary lecture)
  
• 2011 K.A. Wallenberg foundation, invited speaker at Scholars symposium with board
  
• 2011 Protein Society Biannual Europe meeting (invited speaker), May, Stockholm
  
• 2011 SFBM Annual meeting (invited speaker), September, Tällberg
  
• 2012 Swedish-Korea Royal Academies of Sciences, 11th bilateral meeting KAST-RSAS, Seoul. Research seminar and summary speech (chemistry) for the Swedish king
  
• 2012 Cutting Edge Biophysics, SFBBM Annual meeting (invited speaker), Tällberg
  
• 2012 Copper 12: Copper in Biology Meeting, October, Sardinia, (invited speaker)
  
• 2012 Royal Academy of Sciences Belgium, Brussels, crowding symposium (invited speaker)
  
• 2013 ACS national meeting, New Orleans April 7-11, PHYS section (invited speaker)
  
• 2013 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (two invited speeches)
  
• 2013 STIAS, Stellenbosch, South Africa (invited popular seminar)
  
• 2013 Stellenbosch University, Biochemistry department (invited seminar)
  
• 2013 University of Cape Town, Chemistry department (invited seminar)
  
• 2013 Göran Gustafsson stiftelsen, invited seminar
  
• 2013 SFBBM annual meeting (invited speaker), October, Marstrand
  
• 2014 Heraeus-Seminar Folding & Assembly, Bad Honnef, Germany (invited speaker)
  
• 2014 Advanced Seminar series, Integrative Medical Biology, Umeå Univ. (invited speaker)
  
• 2014 BioMetals 2014 conference, Duke University, Durham, USA (invited speaker)
  
• 2014 Copper 14: Copper in Biology Meeting, October, Naples, (invited speaker)
  
• 2014 Educational days for teachers, Umeå Univ., workshop for teachers about protein folding
  
• 2015 Inorganic-Electrochemistry seminar series, Caltech, Pasadena, CA (invited speaker)
  
• 2015 University of California Santa Barbara, Chemistry department, CA (invited speaker)
  
• 2015 Signaling Center seminar series, Caltech, Pasadena, CA (invited speaker)
  
• 2015 FASEB conference, Mechanisms of Protein Aggregation, Florida (invited speaker)
  
• 2015 Life Science Area of Excellence, Seminar series, Chalmers
  
• 2015 Popular Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2015 lecture, Chalmers
  
• 2015 Linnaeus Center SUPRA, invited speaker at annual conference
  
• 2016 Gordon Conference on Protein Folding, Galveston, Texas (invited speaker)
  
• 2016 Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (invited speaker)
  
• 2016 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, LA, CA (invited speaker and platform chair)
  
• 2016 Popular seminar at public event on International Parkinson’s Disease Day
  
• 2016 The Swedish Chemical Society, Seminar in the Gothenburg chapter
  
• 2016 The Science Festival Gothenburg, popular seminar, Nordstan (shopping center)
  
• 2016 BioMetals 2016 conference, Dresden, Germany (invited speaker and session chair)
  
• 2016 Molecular Frontiers Symposium, Tokyo University, Japan (invited speaker)
  

Major contributions to the early careers of young researchers

Since I started my independent career in 1999, I have participated in many outreach programs targeting young students; I have also given inspirational lectures to high-school students choosing university programs and to teachers further developing themselves. In 2008 I organized (and gave a talk) in an ADVANCE Career Success Workshop for junior faculty (100 participants) at Rice University. Within the academic departments I have worked, I have given seminars about being a woman in science and how to make an academic career. I am currently affiliated with the Nobel museum in Stockholm to give Skype discussions about science with their visiting school classes. I always act as an advocate and mentor for young (often women) scientists in my surroundings; high school students often visit my lab for smaller school projects. I am progressively increasing my involvement in the youth organization Molecular Frontiers (http://www.molecularfrontiers.org/) with the plan to take on its directorship in the near future.
The PhD students I have supervised have obtained postdocs at prestigious universities (Oxford University, UK; Pacific Northwest National Laboratories; University of California, San Diego; Yale University, as examples). Also, many of my PhD students have got jobs in academia (one is a professor at Yale University, another is manager at Texas A&M University in College Station; a third is Associate Professor at Safarik University in Kosice, Slovakia) and in industry (examples of advanced positions are Associate Director at MedImmune LLC (Astra Zeneca) and Director of IP at ZyGEM; several students have got research positions at companies including Pfizer Biotherapeutics, Health Diagnostic Labs, ForteBio, Beckman Coulter, and Cambrex).