W. Evan Johnson, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Associate Chief of the Division of Computational Biomedicine in the Department of Medicine at Boston University. He received his Ph.D. in Biostatistics from Harvard University in 2007. The focus of his research is to develop computational and statistical approaches for the accurate determination of optimal diagnostic, prognostic, and therapeutic regimens for individual patients. His lab specializes in the development and application of statistical methodologies for the analysis of genomic data across a wide range of platforms, including next-generation sequencing technologies for gene expression and epigenetics. Over the years, he has received NIH funding for the development of novel computational tools and for the application of these tools in various fields, including cancer and infectious diseases. His group has published dozens of papers associated with the analysis and application of sequencing data, most of these through ongoing collaborations with multiple different researchers. His group has developed several user-friendly software tools for facilitating clinical and biomedical research applications, including algorithms for profiling transcription factors (MAT, MA2C), preprocessing and integrating of genomic data (ComBat, SCAN-UPC), aligning sequencing reads (GNUMAP), developing multi-gene biomarker signatures (ASSIGN), and metagenomic profiling (PathoScope). His group has successfully applied their tools for precision genomics in several clinical scenarios, including the prediction of cancer drug efficacy in individual patients, metagenomic profiling in the airways of patients to identify colonizing pathogens commonly associated with disease development and exacerbation, and the identification of the genetic variants causing a rare but lethal X-linked disorder. Current work in his group focuses on the development of genomic biomarkers for multiple chronic diseases including TB and cancer, understating and visualizing host-microbe interactions, and the integration of data of multiple types, or from different technology platforms. Dr. Johnson is the co-founder of Aperiomics, which is a molecular diagnostics company able to detect every known bacteria, virus, fungus, and parasite in clinical samples through Deep Shotgun Metagenomic Sequencing, using their world renown database containing over 37,000 microbes. Aperiomics helps doctors and their patients identify the causes of infections that other tests cannot identify, thus streamlining the path to a positive clinical outcomes.

Lisa Wardle, MA is the Director of Talent Management at Converse - Nike. She is a high-energy leader with over 18 years of professional experience in the areas of executive and leadership development and strategic human capital. A self-starter who meets deadlines and has a strong sense of teamwork. Strengths include:

• Executive learning design, development and delivery

• High Potential and Accelerated Program design, development and delivery

• Client relationship management

• Behavior change initiatives

• Talent Management

• Project management

• Lead and manage human resources programs: recruitment, selection, retention, performance management

• Business development

• Organizational development

• Coaching/Counseling

• Facilitation/teaching 

Jonathan Bowen, MBA grew up in the Boston area when there was only 1 stake called the Boston stake. The old Boston stake is now broken up into the Boston stake, Cambridge stake, North shore stake, and Blackstone valley stake. His parents moved to Boston for graduate school in the 60s from Utah. They loved it so much and decided to stay.

Jonathan’s father is an academic so I grew up knowing that education is important to use in life.

College took him to Utah, where he graduated with a business management degree and began looking around the country for work. From Wilmington Delaware with Amazon, to Jackson Tennessee with Toyota, then back to Boston for business school.

Jonathan now works for the largest dental billing company in the country, running all operations for the company.

He has been married 17 years this May and has 4 kids and lives in Woburn Massachusetts.

Mathew Romano, JD is a Senior VP at USI Insurance Services. for the past 20 years has been working as an insurance broker advocating for coverage of the most complex and difficult claims. Matt also helps clients as an insurance advisor evaluating risks and designing insurance programs to maximize coverage and performance.