2024 Board of Directors Election

All members of the Metabolomics Society are welcomed and encouraged to participate in the 2024 Board of Directors election. Voting is open now through August 20, 2024, 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. You can meet the candidates and review their mission statements by clicking on each nominee below. Please take a moment to review this information before placing your votes.

Running for a Second Term

Warwick "Rick" Dunn
Rick Dunn
María Eugenia Monge
María Eugenia Monge
Tomáš Pluskal
Tomáš Pluskal
Lynn Vanhaecke
Lynn Vanhaecke

New Nominees

Raquel Cumeras
Raquel Cumeras
Anna Halama
Anna Halama
Kyo Bin Kang
Kyo Bin Kang
Sakda Khoomrung
Sakda Khoomrung
Jia Li
Jia Li
Louis-Feliz Nothias
Louis-Feliz Nothias
Nicholas JW Rattray
Nicholas JW Rattray
Drupad Trivedi
Drupad Trivedi
Elizabeth Want
Elizabeth Want
Aurelia Williams
Aurelia Williams
Oana A Zeleznik
Oana A. Zeleznik

How To Vote:

Each member has seven (7) votes. You must be a current member of the Society. If you have not signed up for membership in 2024, sign up here: 2024 Membership. Once you have activated your membership you can vote in the election.

Voting is now open through August 20, 2024, at 11:59pm USA CST.

Contact for assistance.

The deadline to vote was August 20, 2024.

Warwick "Rick" Dunn

Warwick “Rick” Dunn

University of Liverpool
UK

Biography:

Rick is Professor of Analytical and Clinical Metabolomics at the University of Liverpool in the UK. He has spent the last 20 years working in metabolomics from being a technician in Sheffield to his current role in Liverpool. He has a passion for developing chromatography-mass spectrometry untargeted/targeted assays for collection of high quality data and in developing new tools (software) and resources (MS/MS and retention time libraries) for metabolite annotation/identification. He applies these to study health and disease in humans and other mammals. He is passionate about training the next generation of scientists at all levels from undergraduate to postdoctoral and to achieve this was Director of the Birmingham Metabolomics Training Centre and is Co-Director of the Liverpool Training Centre for Metabolomics; face-to-face and online training courses are operated to achieve training goals. He has significant experience of consortium, society and scientific conference management. He was a Director of the Metabolomics Society (2010-2015) where among multiple roles he was conference lead for three of the annual conferences. He was one of the organisers of a QA/QC workshop in 2017 which led to the development of mQACC where he was honoured to be the first chair of the coordinating committee. He has led the operation of two MetaboMeeting conferences in the UK and is co-chair of a Gordon Research Conference in 2025. He is also Reviews Editor for the journal Metabolomics and was awarded a Honorary Fellowship by the Metabolomics Society in 2020 for his commitment to the society and metabolite annotation. His career goals are to make metabolomics a standard resource applied in biological research and to train the next generation of metabolomics researchers.

Statement of Purpose:

Driving metabolomics forward has been a passion of mine for 20 years, both from a scientific aspect but also in supporting the metabolomics community through conferences and workshops (e.g. Metabolomics Society, MetaboMeeting), societies (Metabolomics Society), consortia (mQACC) and training (through training centres and Society-led training opportunities). I want to lead on driving the Metabolomics Society further forward as a community both as developers and users of metabolomics but also as promoting metabolomics to other research fields. My goals as a Director will be (1) to ensure the Society works for every researcher across the world and every researcher can contribute to the society through membership and events; (2) to ensure early career researchers or researchers new to the research area have availability of varied and appropriate training, educational and networking resources; (3) to ensure metabolomics is considered as a tool in all life sciences research through engagement with other societies and organisations including industry and academia and (4) to promote open science for data sharing and to ensure use of quality and reporting standards including revised/updated Metabolomics Standards Initiative reporting guidelines. I am requesting re-election for a further two years. Currently as a Director I chair the Website and Communications committee and Metabolite Identification task group and sit on the conference committee and education and training committee of the Metabolomics Society.

Tomáš Pluskal

Tomáš Pluskal

IOCB Prague
Czechia

Biography:

I am a Junior Group Leader at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. My laboratory develops new computational and experimental approaches for connecting plant specialized metabolites to their biosynthetic enzymes, and for engineering novel biosynthetic circuits using synthetic biology tools. Presently I am supervising 5 Ph.D. students and 4 postdocs with both computational and experimental expertise. I myself have an interdisciplinary background in computer science (MSc) and molecular biotechnology (Ph.D.). I first started working in metabolomics in 2006 during my PhD in Japan. I am fascinated by the complex chemistry and molecular interactions that we can observe in nature, and in my own lab I am trying to apply diverse approaches to address this complexity. Some people might know me for my work on the MZmine software for mass spectrometry data processing in metabolomics.

Statement of Purpose:

I have been on the MetSoc board for the last two years, and I have mainly been active in the Conference committee and the Website and Communication committee of the Board. I am also proud to be the local chair for the upcoming Metabolomics 2025 conference that will take place in Prague, Czech Republic. I am a big proponent of data sharing, open science, and open software tools. My research interests are focused on the study of non-model organisms in nature, especially plants. Therefore, I would like to advocate for these important aspects in metabolomics. I would also advocate for community-driven projects and collaborations, particularly in the area of data processing and tool development. I plan to revive the Computational Mass Spectrometry task group, which has not been very active in recent years. I would also like to propose to start a new task group focused on metabolomics in non-model organisms, as opposed to the existing Model Organism Metabolomes task group.

Raquel Cumeras

Raquel Cumeras

Fundació Institut d’Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili
Spain

Biography:

“I am leading the Advanced Metabolomics Team from GIOTEC (IISPV, Spain). As a postdoc, I secured two competitive fellowships: Martí-Franquès fellowship (unique university recipient), and European Marie-Curie Fellowship (14% success rate). During my Marie-Curie postdoc, I did a 2-years stay at UC Davis with Prof. Oliver Fiehn. I am versatile with different metabolomics, lipidomics and volatilomics instrumentation (GC-HRMS, GCxGC-HRMS, LC-HRMS and 1H-NMR).

My current research is focused on: i) oncological physiopathological biomarkers and its translation to the clinics; ii) developing tools to improve metabolomics field: for example, the Amanida solution for meta-analysis (PMID: 38480474, 34406360) or the Metabolites Merging Strategy for compounds harmonization (PMID: 38132849). I’ve secured 750k€ in competitive grants, and I have 2 patents and 2 patents applications, and several tools registered.

I believe that serving scientific societies makes us all improve. Currently I am co-chair of the reference and test materials working group of mQACC, leading a “beyond the certificate of analysis” from SRM1950 blood NIST reference material (https://www.mqacc.org/srm1950). Currently, we are finalizing the merging of >20 submitters and publicly available data. I’m also member of SESMET, the metabolomics Spanish society, and of GIPS, the Catalan interdisciplinary health professionals’ group with whom we released the Good Praxis guide for the incorporation of medical technology in the Catalan environment in May 2024.

Past society services include MANA ECM (2021-2023), EOSC European Open Science Cloud future users’ group (2021-2023), and EU MSCA (2019-2023).

All this, amidst a career break after my first postdoc, covid lockdowns, and having two kids.

Statement of Purpose:

“I plan to join the Education and Training Committee and the Conference Committee. I have a strong background in developing and promoting educational resources (“Science in 1 minute: What is metabolomics?” on YouTube, or Biofluids (lifefluids.com) with >40 social media capsules and 1grant obtained). I have also organized workshops and served as judge in several conferences. By joining these committees, I aim to help advance the current educational and training efforts and to deliver a high-quality and valuable conference experience for participants.

Ensuring the clinical relevance of metabolomics is key to becoming a regular practice in clinics. By better reporting our results (w/means and SD or SE!) we will be able to perform regular meta-analyses (the top evidence-based pyramid and the strongest forms of evidence). I’ve led the first meta-analysis tool for non-integral data (p-values and fold-changes/trends), however much more is needed. Societal implication through white papers or guidelines is essential. I intend to join the MetSoc Precision Medicine, as I’ve doing since now at MANA too.

My previous societal services have prepared me to embrace the responsibilities and time commitments associated with the esteemed role of Metabolomics Society director. My best fit will be in the Membership Committee, to help with awareness of society services or news. Nonetheless, I am willing to help wherever I am needed (I am not afraid of challenges!). In conclusion, I believe my extensive background and passion for advancing metabolomics make me well-suited to uphold the metabolomics society’s values and drive its continued growth.

Anna Halama

Anna Halama

Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar
Qatar

Biography:

Anna Halama is an Assistant Professor of Research in Physiology and Biophysics in the Medical Education Division at Weill Cornell Medicine Qatar (WCMQ). She received her PhD from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) in Germany in 2013, where she obtained knowledge and skills in the field of metabolomics. Her research led to characterization of metabolic switches related to apoptosis and adipogenesis.

Anna joined WCMQ in 2013 as a postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Karsten Suhre’s group and continued her career development at WCMQ as a research associate, a position she held from 2016-2019. In this period, she conducted research in the field of metabolism and supported fellow scientists in the design of metabolomics-based experiments and analysis of metabolomics data. Anna significantly contributed to the establishment of a metabolomics platform in Qatar at Antidoping Laboratory Qatar (ADLQ).

Anna became an Assistant Professor of Research in Physiology and Biophysics at WCMQ in 2019. Her research focuses on metabolic deregulations in complex diseases, particularly cancer and diabetes. She is committed to advancing precision medicine through integrative omics solutions. In her ongoing study of breast cancer patients, she is aiming to assess tumor metabotypes and their role in resistance to standard of care treatment.

Beyond research Anna is dedicated to teaching a new generation of clinicians and scientists by using technologies and creativity to bring attention and engagement. She is probing a gaming and virtual reality (VR) approaches as strategy for more efficient knowledge delivery.

Statement of Purpose:

I have been witnessing the growth and development of the Metabolomics Society for over ten years. This period has resulted in great success related to technological development, more precise measurement capabilities, and achievements in data accessibility and big data analysis. With these advancements, I strongly believe that now, there is a need to focus on clinical applications and translation.

As a candidate for the position of Director of The Metabolomics Society, I am excited to contribute to the ongoing advancement of metabolomics in the life sciences, particularly towards clinical implementation. Metabolomics has significant potential to support clinical practice, especially in the field of complex diseases. This can be achieved by strengthening initiatives within the Precision Medicine and Pharmacometabolomics Task Group as well as the Metabolic Epidemiology Task Group. These efforts aim to explore how the integration of metabolomics into clinical settings can be achieved, by establishing universal protocols and selecting robust methods that are compatible with clinical environments.

Additionally, I am committed to promoting the growth and application of metabolomics in the Arab region. By fostering collaborations and educational opportunities, we can increase the visibility and impact of metabolomics research, ultimately improving scientific understanding in this region. Moreover, to ensure propagation of metabolomics into clinical space, promotion of technology among the clinicians and other healthcare professionals would be also my objective.

I would be thrilled to get an opportunity to work for the Society towards clinical application and translation and promote it in the Arab region!

Sakda Khoomrung

Sakda Khoomrung

Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University
Thailand

Biography:

I have an MSc degree from the Chemistry Department at Prince of Sonkhla University, Thailand (2006), and a PhD in Chemistry from Karl-Franzens University in Austria (2011). I worked as a postdoc from 2011–2013 and as a project leader from 2013–2017 on metabolomics at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden. In addition, I co-founded and co-directed the Chalmers Metabolomics Centre, subsequently renamed Chalmers Mass Spectrometry Infrastructure, offering metabolomics services to researchers across Sweden and beyond.

In 2017, I was recruited as an instructor and associate professor (2019) at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, Thailand, where I direct a research team of more than 20 people. Here, I established a metabolomics and systems biology research field and served as the director of Siriraj Center of Research Excellence in Metabolomics and Systems Biology. My research goal is to develop metabolomics and systems biology tools for better understanding cellular metabolism and disease. Our research integrates wet chemistry, including mass spectrometry (MS), ion mobility MS, and imaging MS, as well as the development of new bioinformatic tools for quantitative biology. So far, I’ve published over 40 papers, with over 1,300 citations (H-index of 20). I’ve mentored 18 postdoctoral researchers and over 15 master’s and PhD students. I have received many awards and grants at the national and international levels. I am also an associate editor for a computational and structural biotechnology journal and a reviewer for several others. For non-research activities, I co-founded and presently serve as secretary of the Thailand Metabolomics Society.

Statement of Purpose:

I am Sakda Khoomrung from Thailand, and I am applying to the Metabolomics Society Board of Directors (BOD). I hold a PhD in analytical chemistry from Karl-Franzens University in Austria. My academic journey began in pure chemistry and has since advanced to metabolomics, systems biology, yeast cell factories, and now precision medicine, where I am currently employed at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University in Thailand. This multi-disciplinary journey allowed me to collaborate closely with researchers from various disciplines, and these professional experiences have driven my interest in sustainable and community development. After more than a decade of research in Denmark, Austria, and Sweden (2007–2017), I realized the potential of metabolomics in various biological applications. However, this field of study was still in its infancy for the Thai and Southeast Asian communities. Thus, the ultimate goal of my career is to not only contribute to the development of innovative metabolomics strategies, but also to promote the growth and development of metabolomics in this region and beyond. To achieve this, I, along with a number of Thai researchers, founded the Thailand Metabolomics Society in 2019 (https://thailand-metabolomics.org/) and used this platform to advance metabolomics research in Thailand and elsewhere. As one of the BOD members, I hope to stimulate, encourage, and communicate with new generations of young scientists in this region to enter the field of metabolomics research. In the next few years, I wish to see more exciting metabolomics research come out of this part of the world, along with others.

Jia Li

Jia Li

Imperial College
London, UK

Biography:

Dr. Jia Li is an Associate Professor in Biological Chemistry at Imperial (London, UK). She obtained her undergraduate degree in Chemistry at Nankai University, China and her PhD in Biochemistry at the University of London. She has been honored with several esteemed fellowships, including the Imperial College Research Fellowship, Medical Research Council New Investigator Grant, European Research Council Starting Grant, Wang-Kuan-Cheng Research Fellowship, and Elsie Widdowson Fellowship Award. She is the Chair of the Chinese Life Scientists Society in the UK, and a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Metabolomics Society, the Biochemical Society (UK), and a committee member of Metabonomics Academic Subgroup, Biophysical Society of China. Dr. Li is a visiting professor from Khon Kaen University.

Dr. Li obtained a Master’s degree in Education in 2022 and is a Higher Education Academy Fellow. She was a Deputy Director of Imperial College International Phenome Training Centre and has designed and led Hands-on NMR spectroscopy-based metabolic profiling short course. In 2014 she established a MRes Microbiome in Health and Disease (MHD) steam, marking it the first course of its kind worldwide. She also established a BSc MHD module in 2016 to enhance the continuity of microbiome education across BSc, MRes, and PhD levels.

Dr. Li’s lab applies both NMR- and MS-based metabolomics to explore intricate interplay of host-diet-microbiota. Furthermore, her research extends to functional metabolomics and investigating effects of metabolites derived from this interplay on gut health by employing a multidisciplinary approach involving multi-omics, imaging and flow cytometry.

Statement of Purpose:

I am enthusiastic about the opportunity to serve the Metabolomics Society as a board member, bringing over 15 years of experience in metabolomics research (both NMR- and MS-based approaches) and its global development. I have collaborated with researchers globally, including those from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Switzerland), Federal University of Alagoas (Brazil), Khon Kaen University (Thailand), Stellenbosch University (South Africa), and the University of Pittsburgh (US), among others. This experience will enable me to promote the global growth of metabolomics.

I have served as a co-director of the Gut Health theme in the NIHR-BRC (National Institute for Health and Care Research-Biomedical Research Centre) at Imperial, where I promoted collaboration between basic scientists in metabolomics and clinicians in inflammatory bowel disease. I am committed to expanding these opportunities to demonstrate the value of metabolomics in improving human health.

I have a proven track record of designing and organizing workshops and conferences. I am eager to bring this experience to the Society, contributing to the organization of high-quality events that not only highlight the latest research achievements but also provide valuable learning opportunities for newcomers to the field. Furthermore, I have served on several editorial boards and acted as a peer-reviewer for many scientific journals. Through these roles, I have advocated for the publication of high-quality research and the appropriate reporting of metabolomics data.

I am keen to contribute to the Society’s mission as a Board Director and to help foster a vibrant, collaborative, and innovative global metabolomics community.

Louis-Feliz Nothias

Louis-Felix Nothias

CNRS & University Côte d’Azur
France

Biography:

Dr. Louis-Félix Nothias is a CNRS junior group leader based at the University Côte d’Azur & the Interdisciplinary Institute for Artificial Intelligence Côte d’Azur, France. In 2023, he founded the Holobiomics Lab, which develops experimental and computational methods for studying host/microbial metabolism in holobionts and their microbiomes. The lab is engineering advanced mass spectrometry-based metabolomics techniques in multi-omics studies using artificial intelligence. Prior to this, Dr. Nothias was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Diego with Prof. Pieter Dorrestein, where he contributed to the GNPS ecosystem (2016-2021), and a research associate at the University of Geneva with Prof. Jean-Luc Wolfender (2021-2023). He has contributed to computational methods for MS-based metabolomics annotation (see CASMI 2023 in collaboration with the SIRIUS team/Boecker lab) and has pioneered integrative multi-omics studies for studying microbiota metabolites in ecosystems, including through the collaborative Earth Microbiome Project.

Statement of Purpose:

I am excited to apply for a position on the Board of the Metabolomics Society and to serve the community, specifically on the Education & Training Committee. Building on my experience in metabolomics and my passion for scientific education, I am particularly interested in leveraging AI technologies to accelerate training at the community scale. We have released at the MetSoc 2024 annual meeting a chatbot prototype (https://metaboxguide.holobiomicslab.eu) that exemplifies how AI-driven educational tools can enhance learning and support in computational metabolomics. By integrating these technologies, we can significantly improve the availability, quality, and accessibility of training materials, fostering a more interactive, inclusive, and scalable learning environment for the field of metabolomics. I am eager to contribute to the Committee’s mission by coordinating the open curation of existing educational resources, creating educational AI tools, and facilitating the exchange of emerging ideas to advance training in metabolomics.

Nicholas JW Rattray

Nicholas J.W. Rattray

University of Strathclyde
UK

Biography:

Nicholas (Nik) is an associate professor of clinical metabolism at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, Glasgow, Scotland. He holds a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics from the University of Manchester and has subsequently held postdoctoral roles at the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, researching ageing and frailty, and at the Yale School of Public Health, researching clinical biobanking and colon cancer metabolism.

Nik runs a productive research team that collectively investigates biomolecular changes throughout life, focusing on dysregulated energy metabolism. The team uses mass spectrometry-based metabolomics, proteomics, and imaging mass spectrometry to identify the biomolecular basis of frailty and to develop and translate novel biomarker panels. He currently holds a Royal Society Industry Fellowship, where his group is developing first-in-class prognostic biomarkers for poor surgical outcomes in older adults. He is also co-director of the Strathclyde Centre for Molecular Bioscience and PI of two Centers for Doctoral Training that support and develop PhD students in omics data fusion and biomarker development. He has over 70 publications in metabolomics research and has obtained over £3M in research funding as lead PI.

He is also a past founding committee member of the Early Career Member’s Network (EMN) of the Metabolomics Society, serving from 2013-2015 and acting as chair in 2015. In this role, he also sat on the Board of Directors and the Conference and Training committees. Currently, he is the chair of the Scottish Metabolomics Network and contributes to the affiliates and education/training committees of the Metabolomics Society.

Statement of Purpose:

My current involvement within the metabolomics community spans the local, national and international levels and I am keen to leverage my expertise, leadership skills, and passion for metabolomics to help guide the society’s strategic initiatives. I am passionate about recognizing and rewarding the essential contributions of technicians in our society. A primary goal I will promote is to engage and encourage underrepresented technical roles to become more involved in the Metabolomics Society by developing the following initiatives:

  • Implement a regular online ‘technical’ sounding-board session within the society. All community members will be able to discuss technical problems and use our collective minds to help solve them. This approach is currently being trialed in Scotland.
  • Network the technician landscape in Metabolomics to assess global demographics of technical support and identify areas (geographical and technical) of need through a position paper.
  • Develop an action plan to enhance visibility, recognition, and career development for technicians within the Metabolomics Society.

I am also passionate about metabolomics education and sit with colleagues on the Metabolomics Society Education and Training Committee where I have recently started as co-lead on the development of a Metabolomics Curriculum. Defining a curriculum involves outlining a structured educational framework that includes the essential knowledge, skills, and competencies students need to acquire. Stakeholder engagement is central to comprehensive course design and alongside committee members I will look develop an inclusive approach surveying feedback from educators, industry professionals, and students, to develop a comprehensive account of metabolomics theory, experimentation and interpretation.

Drupad Trivedi

Drupad Trivedi

University of Manchester
United Kingdom

Biography:

Dr. Drupad Trivedi has been a leading researcher in the field of metabolomics since completing his doctoral studies in 2012, where he developed analytical methods for detecting metabolic biomarkers for fetal aneuploidy in maternal urine. He has continued his research in metabolomics, applying these methods to study microbial metabolomics, characterize novel enzymes in microbes, detect food adulteration, and develop novel instrumentation for high-throughput metabolomics.

Dr. Trivedi was the metabolomics lead in a UK-wide project involving 28 NHS trusts, pioneering the use of human sebum to reveal insights about human metabolism in disease in 2019. He was awarded prestigious fellowships, including the CAMS Lectureship in 2020 to develop a mass spectrometry-based sebum metabolomics platform, and the RSC Horizon Prize in 2021 for his contributions to the discovery of odorous compounds in Parkinson’s disease using sebum metabolomics. In 2022, he was appointed as Chair of Data Analytics within industry-led Community for Analytical and Measurement Sciences (CAMS), UK.

Dr. Trivedi has significantly advanced the understanding of changes in the chemical composition of sebaceous secretions, odourous VOCs and their association with diseases such as Parkinson’s, tuberculosis, COVID-19, and REM sleep behaviour disorder (RBD). He has co-founded a spin-out company, Sebomix Ltd., to develop “sebomics” applying chemometrics methods to study mechanisms of sebaceous flux in diseases.

Throughout his career, Dr. Trivedi has contributed to the metabolomics community through his novel research, teaching, networking and leadership roles. He has authored/co-authored over 40 original research publications in metabolomics, which have been cited more than 2100 times.

Statement of Purpose:

As an established metabolomics researcher and passionate advocate for the field, I am honoured to be nominated for a position on the Metabolomics Society’s Board of Directors. With over 15 years of experience in both academic and industry settings, I believe I can make valuable contributions to the society’s mission and goals.

If elected to the board, my primary objectives would be to:

  1. Strengthen the society’s growing global reach and impact by expanding membership and fostering greater international collaborations, while supporting strong national affiliate networks as an immediate resource for newcomers to the field.
  2. Enhance the society’s educational initiatives for training researchers while supporting resources to embed metabolomics in mainstream teaching across global higher education institutions.
  3. Spearhead efforts to ensure the long-term sustainability at the core of Metabolomics Society through access to diversified expertise and strategic partnerships amongst members’ institutions and affiliate networks.

I am particularly keen to explore innovative ways to reduce the society’s environmental footprint. Transitioning to more eco-friendly events, shared digital resources and programs to leverage industry-academia partnership for sustainable growth of the society. I would make efforts to diversify how society invests in new programs and support its newly establishing members.

With my wider understanding of the metabolomics landscape, proven network leadership skills, and passion for advancing the field, I am confident that I can make meaningful contributions to the Metabolomics Society as a member of the Board of Directors. I look forward to the opportunity to serve this stellar, friendly international community.

Oana A Zeleznik

Oana A. Zeleznik

Harvard Medical School
USA

Biography:

Dr. Oana A. Zeleznik is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston MA, USA. She is an emerging national leader in the integration of omics data with epidemiological data to understand the pathogenesis of chronic disease. Her novel approaches bridge data science with molecular epidemiology to advance our understanding of human health, and incorporate LC-MS as well as NMR metabolomics. Dr. Zeleznik has published 49 metabolomics papers (12 as first or senior author), with additional 8 first/senior author manuscripts in preparation or under review, many in top-tier journals, and she was invited to orally present at multiple national and international meetings. She is the principal investigator of two federally funded projects focused on metabolomics (National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense) and is a co-investigator on seven additional federally funded metabolomics grants. Dr. Zeleznik is passionate about supporting the next generation of scientists. She served on three national and international early career researchers committees (one as co-chair, one part of the Metabolomics Society), and has (co-)mentored ten students and postdocs. Additionally, she developed an analytic framework that enables the efficient use of metabolomics data from approximately 20,000 samples and provides mentorship to those interested in incorporating metabolomics into their research. In 2023, Dr. Zeleznik received the Early Career Rising Star Award from the Metabolomics Association of North America (MANA) and she was recently nominated for the 2024 Mentorship Award from the Womxn in Metabolomics, a MANA Interest Group.

Statement of Purpose:

I am committed to the growth and advancement of the metabolomics community. If elected, I will bring my experience from four national and international early career and award committees, and my dedication to cancer research and mentorship to the Metabolomics Society’s Board of Directors. As a member of the board, I will focus on two initiatives: development of a cancer metabolomics network and organization of a peer-mentoring program. I propose to establish a cancer metabolomics network by identifying the stakeholders and facilitating interactions and communication among cancer researchers from the whole spectrum of metabolomics research, such as but not limited to biochemists, basic scientists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians and clinicians. I am particularly interested in identifying challenges and designing solutions for large international collaborations, which will increase diversity in the metabolomics data as well as among the society’s members, represent the most efficient way to conduct groundbreaking research but are also the most difficult to successfully fund. I also want to propose the creation of a peer-mentoring program focused on career development. I think it is crucial to the long-term success of our members to provide a platform dedicated to connecting to and learning from our peers. I strongly believe that through interdisciplinary and diverse collaborations across academia, industry and governmental agencies, geographical regions and metabolomics technologies, biological systems and models, study design and analytical approaches, my two initiatives will promote the growth, use and understanding of metabolomics in the life sciences.