55th Organic Process Research and Development Conference

Margaret received her B.Sc. and M.Sc degrees from University College

Dublin, Ireland. She received her Ph.D. degree in Synthetic Organic

Chemistry from Harvard University with Professor David A. Evans. In 1993

Margaret joined the Chemical Process R&D group at Eli Lilly and Company and in 2003 went to Amgen Inc, in Thousand Oaks, CA where she is currently Vice President of Drug Substance Technologies within Process Development and Amgen Massachusetts Site Head.

Since joining Amgen in 2003 Margaret has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility including Executive Director of the Pivotal Drug Substance Technologies, Vice President of Drug Product Technologies, and Vice President of the Manufacturing and Clinical Supply Chain organization. She has supported the advancement of the Amgen portfolio from clinical through to commercial development and been instrumental in the integration of innovative technologies into the manufacturing network. Margaret has invested a significant effort in evolving a green and sustainable culture in the workplace and these efforts have been recognized by Amgen being a recipient of the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award.

Margaret has a strong external scientific presence with ~100 publications in peer review journals. She is a Fellow of the American Chemical Society and an elected member of the National Academy of Engineering. She is a past chair of the Board of Directors of the International Consortium for Innovation and Quality in the Pharmaceutical Industry and a founding member of the Enabling Technologies Consortium. Margaret is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Organic Process R&D, she has been an associate editor for Organic Letters and is a member of the editorial boards for Science of Synthesis, Organic Syntheses, Synthesis and SynLett, and Tetrahedron and Tet Lett.  In partnership with Thiéme and the Science of Synthesis she sponsors the Dr. Margaret Faul Award for Women in the Chemical Sciences.

Jason Hein is a Professor at the University of British Columbia and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway. He completed his Ph.D. with Phil Hultin at the University of Manitoba in 2005, moving to become an NSERC PDF fellowship with Barry Sharpless and then senior research associate with Donna Blackmond at Scripps Research. In 2011 he started his independent research program at the University of California, Merced, joining the University of British Columbia in 2015, where he was promoted to Professor in 2024. His internationally recognized work in automated kinetic reaction analysis has advanced reaction discovery and optimization, yielding key mechanistic insights into catalytic processes. His work has been recognized though the ACS Young Investigators Prize (2015), NSERC Discovery Accelerator (2021), the Killam Teaching Fellowship (2025) and the R. U. Lemieux Award (2025).

Jason has been very active outside of his academic role. In 2020 he founded Telescope Innovations, a chemical technology company aiming to translate academic research into practical solutions. In 2021, he helped to found the journal Digital Discoveries, an innovative new journal with the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2025 he was recruited as the only academic Associate Editor for Organic Process Research and Development, the premier journal or industrial process chemistry with the American Chemical Society. Lastly, he is a founding member of the Acceleration Consortium based at the University of Toronto, driving advancements in self-driving laboratories and digital chemistry.

Dr. Johannes Burkhard is a Senior Principal Scientist in the Synthetic Molecule Process Chemistry group at Genentech, Inc. (South San Francisco, CA). He earned his PhD from ETH Zürich under the supervision of Prof. Erick M. Carreira, where he pioneered the synthesis of four-membered heterocycles, including azaspirocycles, and investigated their application in drug discovery in a collaboration with Roche. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University in Prof. Du Bois’s laboratory, he launched his industrial career at Dottikon Exclusive Synthesis (Switzerland), developing commercial-ready routes and manufacturing processes for several customer assets. Returning to California, Johannes joined Genentech in 2020. Since then, he has significantly contributed to the company’s pipeline as the process chemistry lead for multiple early-stage clinical assets, overseeing internal/external development and manufacturing at scales up to >100 kg.

• Michael Burns is a Principal Scientist at Lhasa Limited and the Lead Scientist for Mirabilis, where he spearheads the development of predictive tools to assess the purging potential of impurities in drug substance syntheses. His work involves close collaboration with leading industry experts to advance both the Mirabilis platform and the broader scientific understanding of impurity purge strategies.
• Michael plays a pivotal role in addressing the pharmaceutical industry’s ongoing challenges with nitrosamines. He has contributed to numerous collaborative projects and publications involving industry leaders, academic institutions and regulatory bodies, aiming to deepen understanding and develop effective, science-based solutions to nitrosamine-related drug quality concerns.
• In addition to his work at Lhasa, Michael serves as a scientific consultant for Consult Lhasa, leveraging his expertise to support ICH M7 control strategy development and nitrosamine risk assessments.
• Michael began his scientific career at the University of York, earning a Master’s degree in Chemistry followed by a PhD in Organic Chemistry under the supervision of Professor Ian Fairlamb. After completing his doctoral studies, he transitioned into industry, gaining broad experience before joining Lhasa Limited in 2015.

Josh is a Senior Director of Process Chemistry at Gilead Sciences. He received his B.A. in Chemistry from Haverford College, followed by his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry under the guidance of Professor Rick Danheiser at MIT. Subsequently, Josh completed postdoctoral research with Professor Bill Roush at Scripps Florida.

Josh began his industrial career with Pfizer Process Chemistry in Groton, CT before relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area to join Gilead Sciences in 2014. Since then, Josh has taken on roles of increasing responsibility for the development of robust chemical processes for the synthesis and manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients. Currently, Josh serves as the Chemistry Team Lead for an inflammation program and the CMC Team Lead for an HIV program, where he continues to drive innovation and cross-functional collaboration in support of Gilead’s therapeutic pipeline.

Aaron received his B.Sc. degree from Mercer University in 2014 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University in 2020 under the supervision of Professor Scott Miller. At Yale University, Aaron worked on the development of peptide-based organocatalysts for asymmetric transformations, including Baeyer-Villiger oxidations and development of asymmetric P(III) methods for stereodivergent oligonucleotide synthesis. Following his graduate studies, Aaron joined the Synthetic Molecules CMC group at AbbVie, Inc. in North Chicago, IL, where he is currently a Principal Research Scientist in the Process Chemistry group supporting programs from pre-clinical through clinical development.

Yosuke Hosoya serves as a Group Head in the API process development department at Chugai Pharmaceutical. He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Waseda University under the supervision of Professor Masahisa Nakada, focusing on cascade reactions for quaternary carbon construction using palladium catalysts. In 2008, he began his career as a process chemist at Chugai Pharmaceutical and has led process development from early to late stages for various small-molecule compounds including marketed products, CDMO management, and portfolio management. Since 2025, he has been leading and managing a newly established group responsible for the early development of both small and mid-sized molecule APIs and has been particularly dedicated to accelerating early-stage process development.

Dr. Jon Hughes graduated with his BSc in Chemistry from the University of Regina in 2012. He then went on to complete his PhD studies at McGill University under the supervision of Professor Dr. James L. Gleason where he developed an asymmetric total synthesis of (–)-virosaine A and a novel method for the direct preparation of 1,3-disubstituted bicyclo[1.1.1]pentanamines. In 2018, Jon joined the Department of Process Research & Development at Merck & Co., Inc. in Rahway, NJ, where he is currently an Associate Principal Scientist in the Process Chemistry group. Throughout his time at Merck, he has supported numerous programs that span from pre-clinical to late-stage clinical development.

Aaron Johnson is the Manager of Cheminformatics & Data Science at Lonza in Bend, where Aaron leads machine learning and AI programs within the Advanced Synthesis R&D unit. Aaron’s work focuses on applying cutting-edge computational approaches to accelerate chemical innovation, streamline data-driven decision-making, and enable predictive modeling for complex synthesis workflows.

Before joining Lonza, Aaron worked at CAS, developing automated solutions for scientific data extraction, chemical structure recognition, and large-scale content curation using machine learning and cheminformatics. Prior to that, Aaron contributed to advanced research initiatives at the Idaho National Laboratory.

Aaron holds dual BSc degrees in Chemistry and Computer Science and earned a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from Washington State University.

Helena grew up in Germany and studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg before moving to Munich for her PhD in organometallic chemistry under Prof. Paul Knochel. She completed her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Santa Barbara (USA), with Prof. Bruce Lipshutz.

With industrial experience from Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, and Carbogen Amcis across early phase through to commercial chemical development of active pharmaceutical ingredients, she joined AstraZeneca R&D in Gothenburg (Sweden) in 2019.

Antonio Ramirez received his PhD in pharmacy from the University of Barcelona. As a graduate student, he worked on the total synthesis of indole alkaloids under the guidance of Prof. Joan Bosch. He then pursued postdoctoral research at Cornell University, where he investigated structure–reactivity relationships with Prof. David B. Collum. At Cornell, he conducted mechanistic studies of various organolithium-mediated reactions, including epoxide lithiations, orthometalations, enolizations, and benzyne formation. During his time there, he collaborated with pharmaceutical companies and developed a strong interest in designing robust processes grounded in first principles.

As a member of the Chemistry Technologies group within Chemical Process Development at Bristol Myers Squibb, Antonio is responsible for conducting mechanistic studies to build predictive models that help define design space and reduce risk in drug substance manufacturing. He has contributed to the development and optimization of commercial processes by applying a range of technologies, including kinetic modeling, real-time analytics, and computational chemistry.

Ryan Sullivan born and raised in Ontario, Canada.  He obtained his M.Sc. in Chemistry in 2015 from the University of Guelph under the supervision of Professor Marcel Schlaf. He completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of Ottawa in 2020 under the supervision of Professor Stephen Newman. Following this he joined the Chemical Process Research and Development group at Eurofins CDMO Alphora Inc., where he is currently a Principal Scientist developing scalable processes for production of a of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients.

Michael Tracey grew up in Minnesota and received his BS in chemistry from Denison University (Ohio). He returned to Minnesota to attend the University of Minnesota and under the direction of Professor Richard Hsung where he investigated the synthesis and reactivity of allenamides and ynamides. Michael then moved on to a post-doctoral position at Stanford University with Professor Barry Trost. Staying in California, Michael joined the Process Research and Development group at Theravance in South San Francisco. In 2008, he moved to the Chemical Development group at Cambrex Charles City (Iowa) where he is a Research Fellow, Science and Technology who has worked on 30+ projects that were transferred to production scale ranging from 0.5 kg to >1000 kg.

Dr Anna Chiara Vicini is a principal scientist and group leader at Pfizer, based in Groton, Connecticut, USA.

Anna Chiara received her Bachelor’s degree (Industrial Chemistry) and master’s degree (specialization in Organic Chemistry) from the University of Bologna, Italy. She obtained her PhD from the University of Oxford, UK, working in the group of Prof. Veronique Gouverneur. For her work on asymmetric fluorination, she received the Scientific Update Young Chemist award in 2019.

In 2021 Anna Chiara joined the Chemical Research & Development group of Pfizer in Sandwich, UK. Here she contributed to multiple portfolio projects, including leading a team in the development of the first continuous commercial process in Pfizer. Following a reorganization in 2024, Anna Chiara was transferred to the US site, where she is currently working on late-stage clinical assets.

Anna Chiara is also serving as a committee member for the Royal Society of Chemistry Fluorine interest group, and she is part of the Science of Synthesis Early Career Advisory board. She was part of the 2024 organizing committee of EWOC Europe.

Jada White received her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Boston University in 2019 where she participated in undergraduate research under Professor Aaron Beeler studying the [2+2] photocycloaddition of cinnamic acid derivatives in flow. During her time at Boston University, she was honored with the Francis Bacon Award for Writing Excellence in the Natural Sciences, Undergraduate Research Symposium Award, and American Institute of Chemists Award.

After graduation she joined Boehringer Ingelheim in Ridgefield, CT working in process research. Her contributions have been highlighted in 5 publications and as part of the winning team of the 2024 Peter J. Dunn Award for Green Chemistry & Engineering.

Dr. Qiang Yang is currently an Executive Director in Synthetic Molecule Design and Development (SMDD) at Eli Lilly and Company supporting Lilly’s pipeline projects. He earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry under the direction of Prof. David C. Baker at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, focusing on total synthesis of hyaluronic acid mimetics. He started his industrial career at AMRI (now Curia) leading route design, process development, and scale-up of APIs. Dr. Yang relocated to Indianapolis in 2012 joining Dow AgroSciences (now Corteva Agriscience) where he led process chemistry to support Corteva’s crop protection pipeline projects, and then moved to Eli Lilly and Company in 2021. Dr. Yang is an inventor for 54 issued U.S. patents and author for 44 peer-reviewed publications. He has been a member of the OPR&D Editorial Advisory Board since 2018.