Metabolomics SocietyMetabolomics SocietyMetabolomics Society
All members of the Metabolomics Society are welcomed and encouraged to participate in the 2022 Board of Directors election. Voting is open now through August 29, 2022, at 11:59pm USA CST. Complete details on elections can be found here.
This webpage contains a list of nominees as well as biographies and statements of interest regarding serving on the Board. Please take a moment to review this information before placing your votes.
Biography: Kati Hanhineva is a professor in food development with a special focus on Nordic foods and health effects at the University of Turku, Department of Life Technologies, Food Sciences unit since beginning of 2020 (hanhinevalab.com). She also holds a Research Director position at the School of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition at the University of Eastern Finland, Hanhineva completed PhD in biotechnology at the University of Kuopio 2008. During years 2008-2014 she conducted post-doctoral research at the Department of Public Health and Clinical Nutrition, at the University of Eastern Finland with several research visits to the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. She has been affiliated as visiting scientist (Marie Curie MoRE2020 Fellow) at the Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden 2019-2022. Since 2014 she has been the principal investigator in food, gut and nutritional metabolomics research group and led and participated in several national and EU-funded research projects including Academy of Finland Researcher Fellowship 2014-2019. Prof Hanhineva is also the founder and Chairperson of the company Afekta Technologies focusing on developing and providing metabolite profiling analytics for industry and academia, especially within food, gut and nutrition-related applications. The main research focus of Prof Hanhineva is within the biochemistry of foods, especially phytochemical compounds and the effect of food processing such as fermentation on their composition. Likewise, molecular level understanding of the role of nutrition in maintaining good health, and food – gut microbiota interactions are within the core of the research.
Statement of Purpose: I have served as a Board member of the Metabolomics Society for the past two years and would be happy to continue for the second term. If re-elected, I would continue reinforcing the approaches necessitated for efficient metabolomics data-preprocessing that is prerequisite for efficient and reliable data analysis of dense metabolomics matrixes. Furthermore, I will promote the discussion for formulating policies and actions to unify the downstream metabolite annotation practices that require focus in order to diminish the problematic issues related to overlapping nomenclature of biochemicals in metabolomics studies. In general, I will bring to the Board the expertise related to food and nutritional metabolomics applications, especially highlighting the necessity of multiple analytical approaches to gain comprehensive views of the extremely complex biochemical composition of plant-based foods and their health effects on the molecular level. Yet another intriguing aspect of food and nutritional metabolomics is the involvement of gut flora in the modulation of dietary compounds, and novel, straightforward tools and pipelines are required for the analysis of this interaction, combined smoothly with metagenomics applications. Furthermore, I would like to highlight the importance of efficient workshops and hands-on training activities to enable the scientific community to utilize the cutting-edge approaches constantly developed for various aspects of metabolomics data analysis, and I will promote these as a member of the Conference Committee, and in general in various Society-driven actions. Moreover, I will serve in the Publication Committee and focus especially on the topic of recommendations of reporting standards for metabolomics studies.
Biography: Fabien Jourdan is a senior research scientist at INRAE (the French National Research Institute for Agricultural and Environmental Research) Toulouse, France. He graduated with a PhD in computer science at the University of Montpellier (France) in 2004, working on the premises of social networks, in particular studying their topology. He then shared his time between a software startup company and a research assistant position. In 2005 he was hired by INRAE (Toulouse, France) to develop computational solutions for metabolomics studies (mainly NMR). In 2006 he spent a year as a visiting researcher at the University of Glasgow working with Pr. Barrett on metabolic profiling (HRMS) of Trypanosoma brucei, a parasite and causative agent of sleeping sickness. Fabien Jourdan has pioneered bioinformatics methods to study Genome-Scale Metabolic Networks using metabolomics (and other omics data) to predict metabolic impacts associated with genetic or environmental perturbations. His research team is currently applying these approaches to food toxicology and more broadly in studying the link between metabolism and human health (e.g. cancer). Since 2009, Fabien Jourdan has led the development of MetExplore open access web server which is used by more than 800 users worldwide and maintained and developed by a group of 10 computational biologists. Since 2021, Fabien Jourdan is director of the French National infrastructure for metabolomics and fluxomics, MetaboHub. He was president of the French-speaking Metabolomics and Fluxomics Network (RFMF) from 2015 to 2019. He was elected on the board of the metabolomics society in 2019 and is secretary since 2020. .
Mission Statement: Serving as a board member and secretary since 2019 has been an honor. In addition to board activities, I worked on improving the award process. I would like to pursue my role as secretary by increasing the visibility of the awardees (invited talks during the conference). I was involved in the communication activities like revamping the website. I reactivated the tweeter account of the society (from 500 new followers per year to 900). With the president, we worked on the affiliations of regional networks (Latin America, Poland). Promoting them is essential since they are key in disseminating metabolomics and supporting young scientists worldwide. Beyond going further in my initiatives, if elected as secretary, I would like to be part of the effort to increase diversity in our community through support of regional societies and increase open online resources. I would also like to stay active in the digital transition which allows reducing financial barriers to access cutting edge science. I would like to pursue supporting EMN by providing more visibility through communication to facilitate kicking off young scientist careers. On a scientific point of view, one of the challenges I foresee is the interpretations of metabolomics data. We need to foster connections with data mining, visualization and network science. It would be an honor to continue serving as the secretary of the society. I would like to use my two years of experience to accompany the board in the implementation of ambitious projects for current and future Metabolomics Society members.
Biography: Dr. Candice Z. Ulmer is the Chemistry Branch Chief for the Eastern Laboratory of the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in Athens, GA. In her current role, she oversees the chemical residue, food chemistry, and nutritional testing of meat, poultry, egg, and fish products for the USA. Dr. Ulmer formally served as the Acting Chief of the Clinical Reference Laboratory for Cancer, Kidney, and Bone Disease Biomarkers in the Clinical Chemistry Branch of the CDC (Atlanta, GA). Her responsibilities included the accurate measurement of chronic disease biomarkers (e.g., steroid and protein hormones) and the assessment of clinical analytical methods in patient care using novel mass spectrometric methodologies and clinical analyzer platforms. Dr. Candice Ulmer began her scientific tenure at the College of Charleston where she graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry and Biochemistry. While at the College of Charleston, she investigated the pharmaceutical photodegradation of NSAIDs using ESI-LC-MS/MS. Dr. Ulmer graduated with a PhD in Chemistry as a McKnight Doctoral Fellow from the University of Florida (Analytical Chemistry division). She secured her NIST NRC Post-doctoral Research Associate Fellowship at a NIST satellite location in Charleston, SC and was involved with multi-omic UHPLC-HRMS method development, lipidomics interlaboratory studies, reference material development, and environmental exposure monitoring on human/marine life. Her talents and contributions as a mass spectrometrist have been recognized in podcasts and magazine features such as The Analytical Scientist’s 2021 Top 100 Power List, “Mass Spec at the Analytical–Clinical Interface” in the March 2020 article highlight for The Analytical Scientist, and “Faces of Mass Spectrometry” in the June 2018 issue of JASMS. For the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS), Dr. Ulmer serves on the Board of Directors in the Member at Large (MAL) for Membership role as well as chair of the Diversity & Inclusion committee and co-chair of the clinical chemistry interest group. In addition, she assumes appointed/elected memberships in eleven committees for other scientific organizations that include the International Metabolomics Society, the Metabolomics Quality Assurance and Quality Control Consortium, Metabolomics of North America, the CLSI Expert Panel on Clinical Chemistry and Toxicology, and the American Chemical Society.
Mission Statement: If elected Treasurer, I will strive to maintain accurate and timely records of the following as an USA delegate for the MetSoc BOD: society transactions/monthly expenses, BOD member information, invoices, existing/expiring contracts, and all other reports. I will work with the current Society President and past-Treasurers to file the e-annual report with the State of Massachusetts as well as income taxes with the IRS. Lastly, I will work to issue reimbursements and reconcile expenses by any predetermined deadlines.