Career Options Luncheon - Kay Wagoner, PhD

We’re happy to announce that C&MP will hold regular (exact timing TBD) informal luncheons for grad students and post-doctoral fellows on career options for PhDs, featuring an invited guest speaker each time. These will be informal meetings over a box lunch provided by the Department.

Our first luncheon will take place on Monday, November 23; Dr. Kay Wagoner will be our guest.

Dr. Wagoner received her Ph.D. in physiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is a co-founder of Icagen. She has served as president and director since Icagen’s inception and as chief executive officer since September 1996. Prior to founding Icagen, Dr. Wagoner served in research management positions at Glaxo Inc. where she initiated and led Glaxo’s U.S. ion channel discovery efforts in central nervous system, cardiovascular and metabolic disease. In 2001, Dr. Wagoner received the distinguished alumna award for science and business from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Dr. Wagoner also serves or has served on a variety of boards of directors, including the University of North Carolina’s Graduate School Advisory Board and the Governing Body of the Biotechnology Industry Organization’s (BIO) Emerging Companies Section. In 2004, Dr. Wagoner was awarded the Entrepreneurial Excellence Award by the Research Triangle-based Council for Entrepreneurial Development, the largest entrepreneurial support organization in the United States, and the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Regional Award for Life Sciences and Healthcare. In 2007, Dr. Wagoner received the Women in Bio outstanding achievement award for excellence in capital raising.

Please sign-up outside Rich Lotstein's office by November 2 so we can anticipate both number of meals to order and appropriate room size. Rich will send a follow-up message prior to the event to inform you of the location (somewhere in MBRB). The setting will be informal with ample time for discussion, but if you have specific questions you’d like to raise beforehand or anonymously, please write the question down and leave it with the sign-up form, or email it to Samantha Strickland (Samantha_strickland@med.unc.edu), who will be hosting Dr. Wagoner.