Archives: Speakers

Uber Health provides a modern, tech-enabled logistics platform that is designed to expand access to reliable transportation, deliveries, and meals. Our mission is to enable patients from all demographics to have equal access to healthcare, and to reduce work for staff by giving them tools that optimize their time. Our partnerships arm focuses on engaging organizations that are looking to improve recruitment, retention, and overall experience for both patients & medical staff.

Tara Safakish is a Software Engineer with over 15 years of experience in different roles such as Software Developer, Software Quality Engineer and Quality Computer System Validation specialist in medical device and biotechnology/pharmaceutical industries. She is also a Certified Medical Device Auditor (CMDA) and Six Sigma Green Belt (CSSGB).

She started her career as a software developer and after a few years found her passion in software quality engineering field. She worked for several medical device and biotechnology companies in North America including, CryoCath, enLabel Global Services, Sciex, Avalanche Biotechnologies. Presently, Tara is the Associate Director, QA Computer System Validation at Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc. where she has worked for over 5 years.

The combination of her education and experience as a software quality engineer involved in all aspects of software development life cycle, including risk management, gives her a unique perspective to identify and assess data integrity risks through its life cycle.

Jacqueline Lee has been working in the clinical research industry for over 30 years. She brings a unique perspective in that she has worked in several different capacities, including at the site level, the CRO level, and the Sponsor side of this industry. For the past 17 years, Jacqueline has been working at Cytokinetics, a biopharmaceutical company located in South San Francisco, California. She is currently the Senior Director of Clinical Operations and has provided strategic planning, leadership, and oversight for over 35 clinical trials, the majority of which were conducted internationally.

Jeff Lewis is the Sr. Director of QA Computer Systems & Data Integrity for Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical, which focuses on bringing life-changing medications to patients with rare and ultra-rare genetic diseases. Prior to Ultragenyx, Jeff consulted for more than fifteen years for a wide range of life sciences companies, where he provided quality systems, computer system validation, software development and data integration services. Jeff served on the ISPE Data Integrity Special Interest Group, which produced a series of GAMP Data Integrity Good Practices Guides. He lives in Oakland with his wife and three children.

Amy is the Sr. Director and lead for Information Technology (IT) Research and Development (R&D) at Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical. Amy leads teams as they build IT strategies, develop innovative and efficient technology portfolios, implement best in class and emerging technologies, and enable business capabilities through technology enablement. She has promoted technology advancements across the Life Sciences, from building the nation’s most successful private health insurance exchange platforms, to improving state Medicare & Medicaid technology solutions, and growing the technology portfolios of both biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Amy promotes strong partnership and collaboration across IT and functional stakeholders, as it has proven to promote speed and efficiency in pre-clinical drug development and clinical trial execution. With experience in IT consulting at the nation’s leading strategy consulting firm, as well as a background in International Public Health, Amy combines deep analytical approaches with a desire to save the world one patient at a time. Amy spends her free time learning about new cultures as she travels across the globe, with her knitting needles always along for the ride.

Andy Lipetz has 19 years of experience in clinical research including time at PPD and IQVIA where he held a broad range of roles across operations, sales, analytics, and strategy. Andy is now the head of CRO Partnerships at Castor where he collaborates with customers to build long-term relationships and to deliver decentralized and hybrid clinical trials. Andy holds an economics degree from UCLA and an MBA from UNC Chapel Hill.

Aryana Hosseinkhani is the Director of Patient Cloud at Medidata, a Dassault Systemes Company. She completed her education at University of California, Davis in Genetics and shortly after began working as a bench scientist in stem cell research. Aryana began her clinical research career at Science 37 around 7 years ago, as the third employee and a founding partner. At Medidata she focuses on product and patient communications in patient facing technologies. She believes that when sponsors, sites, and patients have optimized experiences, drug development timelines can be expedited and clinical research can become an option for more people. Aryana is passionate about the value of research and seeing it through from the bench to the real world. Over her career, she has focused on disruptive and innovative technologies that can simplify clinical trials for patients, sites and sponsors.

As Vice President, Business Development at Curebase, Wayne leverages more than a decade of experience in clinical research across both clinical operations and strategic sales to identify new areas for growth within the company. He is a key member of the leadership team responsible for defining the company’s go to market strategy and value proposition across the many segments of the pharmaceuticals and device research industry. Before joining Curebase, Wayne served as Vice President at mid-sized Florida based CRO Biorasi, where he helped to lead that company to a successful acquisition by a private equity partner in 2018. Wayne holds an MBA and B.S. degree in Neurobiology and is the author of several peer-reviewed papers in prostate cancer and premature ovarian failure. Wayne resides in Miami, Florida.

Estela Mata is the President and co-founder of Looms for Lupus, a non-profit organization that provides Lupus, Fibromyalgia and Mental Health Awareness, advocacy, and support to those living with these conditions, their loved ones, and caregivers. Estela has worked in healthcare for over 30 years, currently supporting private practices with electronic medical records, office workflows to help the practice and patients for a top leading healthcare organization. In 2011 she co-founded Looms for Lupus when her sister almost lost her life to Immune thrombocytopenia and Lupus; she is alive today because she advocated for herself. Estela has supported her sister and her passion to help others has evolved to “iLOOMinating”, Engaging, Empowering and Supporting the community as a whole to take control of their healthcare. For the past 10 years, Estela has co-facilitated support groups, led, and participated in educational symposiums, advocated locally and nationally. As a community leader and healthcare advocate she partners, collaborates with initiatives including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Minority Health and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Minority Health and Health to increase awareness on the need for diversity in lupus clinical trials, All Of US Research, Scripps Digital Trials Center and Congresswoman Grace Napolitano’s Mental Health Consortium. Estela is an exceptional community engagement liaison for both English and Spanish speakers.