OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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OPA is a postdoc run organization designed to provide professional development and community for all postdocs at OSU. We offer workshops, events, and even small grants to help you get the most out of your experience while preparing for the next stage in your career. Stay tuned and follow the links for upcoming events. GO BEAVS!
Monthly writing session: April 18
President
Michael A. Pitino, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Health
Michael completed his MSc (2018) and Ph.D (2023) in Nutritional Sciences from the University of Toronto, Canada. His current research is focused on maximizing the nutritional quality and bioactivity of donor human milk, to improve acute and long-term health outcomes in vulnerable preterm infants. Compared to traditional pasteurization, he is currently investigating whether novel non-thermal processing technologies applied to donor human milk better preserve biologically-active proteins in human milk and whether they remain functionally intact throughout digestion.
Vice President
Amrapalli Garanaik, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Amrapalli received her PhD from Colorado State University, USA. She has a master's from Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur, India and a bachelor's degree from VSSUT, Odisha, India. She worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA as a postdoctoral researcher before joining Oregon State University. Her research interests are Fluid Dynamics, Turbulence, Ocean modeling and Earth Climate system. Other than research she enjoys hiking, tennis, badminton and painting.
Secretary
Md Abdul Wazed, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Health
Dr. Abdul is a postdoctoral scholar at Dallas Lab, School of Nutrition and Public Health. He is a food engineer and has expertise in food processing techniques and their impact on nutritional profile. He investigates how emerging technologies affect food proteins and bioactivity of peptides released in the gut of infants following digestion assay, proteomics and peptidomics. He is passionate about specialty dairy ingredients and New Product Development (NPD). He loves blending engineering approaches with food science
Treasurer
Rowan McLachlan, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Science & College of Agricultural Sciences
Rowan obtained her Ph.D in Earth Sciences from The Ohio State University in 2021. Rowan's research focuses on understanding the influence of the seawater environment on the phenotype of coral holobionts. Her current research focuses on the impact of global and local stressors such as ocean warming, ocean acidification, nutrient pollution, and over-fishing on coral physiology, morphology, and recently, the microbiome.
Professional Development Coordinator
Claudio Guevara, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Forestry
Claudio received his PhD and master's degree from Oregon State University and a Bachelor of Science from Pontificia Universisad Catolica de Chile. His research focused on sustainable silviculture, reforestation, ecophysiology, and plant community dynamics to help Pacific Northwest forests become more resilient to climate change. His current work focuses on the ecocultural restoration of grasslands in partnership with Indegenous peoples from north central Montana and the Bureau of Land Management, aiming to improve the relationship between nature and culture.
Social Coordinator
Léo Mahieu, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
Léo is working at Buck Lab on metal speciation in the ocean, aiming to understand the processes linking the chemical, physical, and biological processes driving metal distribution in contemporary waters. He received his Ph. D. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Liverpool (UK) in 2023, and his Masters in Chemistry of the Marine Environment form the Université de Bretagne Occidentale (France) in 2018. Contrasting with his professional focus on ocean, Léo's hobbies are playing music, travelling, hiking and camping.
Networking Coordinator
Muhammad Hafez, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Agriculture
Muhammad obtained his Ph.D in Agricultural Insect and Pest Control from the College of Plant Science and Technology at Huazhong Agricultural University Wuhan, Hubei Province, P.R. China. Muhammad currently serves as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the USDA-ARS Horticultural Crops Research Unit, sponsored by Oregon State University. His research focus is on agricultural insects and pest control. Beyond his academic pursuits, Muhammad enjoys a variety of hobbies and fun activities including reading, vlogging, traveling, hiking, and cooking.
Membership Coordinator
Sumandeep Kaur, Ph. D., Postdoctoral Scholar, College of Engineering
Sumandeep received her Ph.D. from Punjab University in Chandigarh, India. Her research focuses on predicting the structure-property relationship in two-dimensional material employing state-of-the-art theoretical methods to explore their applications in energy-related areas. Presently, she is doing the computational analysis of heterogenous catalysis
Please contact any of the current Board member or email [email protected]
Current open position, responsibilities, and availability:
Web Administrator & Public Relations Coordinator: Develops, manages, and maintains the OPA website, posts minutes from monthly meetings to the website, takes the lead on advertising for OPA events through social media, and acts as a liaison with other OSU departments, associations, and campus units to collaborate on events that benefit the OSU Postdoc community. No prior skill is required, except your interest to learn website designing and interact with online platforms by managing a Drupal website that is being used by OSU.
The Oregon State University Postdoctoral Association (OPA) is a postdoc organization which provides opportunities for professional development and networking for all OSU-affiliated postdocs. We also work with the Associate Dean of the Office of Postdoctoral Programs (OPP) in the Graduate School to improve the postdoctoral experience across OSU.
