By Elodie Kadjo

Dr. Suguna Pappu, Clinical Associate Professor, Carle Illinois College of Medicine

Suguna Pappu is a clinical associate professor at Carle Illinois College of Medicine. She obtained bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and economics from Miami University in Ohio, a PhD in operations research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a medical doctorate from Yale School of Medicine.

Dr. Pappu’s path to her current position is far from traditional. While working on her bachelor’s degree, Suguna intended to be an economist. Although her academic and professional track suggests otherwise, Suguna humbly declares that she is not a naturally gifted mathematician, the one who can develop theorems and axioms. So, instead of pursuing a PhD in mathematics, she wanted to apply her knowledge of mathematics to social sciences and solve real-life problems. Because Miami University did not have an engineering school then, Suguna obtained a minor in operations research. A discipline that involves the analysis of probabilistic systems and industrial engineering applied to optimization techniques, whose algorithms are used in many engineering fields.

After completing her bachelor’s degree, Suguna decided to further her knowledge by pursuing a PhD. “I applied to four programs in economics and four in operation research because I liked both,” she explains. Suguna finally settled for a PhD program in the operation research program at MIT. Upon completing her PhD, she started a postdoctoral position at Yale to be close to her husband. There, she worked on computer vision and switched to medical imaging analysis in a different lab. In the medical imaging lab, Suguna’s role was to translate technical issues encountered by clinicians into an engineering problem and design tools that could solve those problems. “The doctors would come to us with certain problems, but there were very few engineers who would become physicians and could understand both sides of the problem,” she elaborates. “While working on this role, I thought it might be fun to be the clinician instead of the engineer,” she adds, describing her journey’s progression.

Thus, Suguna went to medical school. Recalling her journey, she tells how she first started her work in general surgery and was fascinated by vascular surgery. A turn of fate brought her family to New Mexico, so Dr. Pappu opted for a rotation in neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico. The engineer in Suguna saw neurosurgery as a good fit for the application and development of technology. After finishing her residency at the University of New Mexico and holding a faculty position there for five years, Suguna eventually moved to Chicago in 2018, where she took a position at Loyola University.

Dr. Pappu next found the opportunity she had been looking for: the possibility of training other engineers who want to practice medicine. In her previous role, she worked on bringing engineers to the intensive care unit (ICU) and presenting them with problems physicians face. Because Carle College of Medicine was already doing so many amazing things to bridge the communication gap between engineers and physicians, Suguna found it more beneficial to be the clinical meet point for engineers. In addition, the hospital had an opening for a neurosurgeon, so Dr. Pappu joined the clinical space and, over the last year, became involved with the medical school.

In her current position as director of student research, Suguna is working with some labs on projects by providing feedback on initiatives she has initiated from scratch. With other groups, she attends lab meetings and gives feedback. “It’s a critical position because the engineers want clinical inputs, but the clinicians are pretty busy, and it’s hard to engage them,” she states.

Suguna is also chair of the curriculum oversight committee at Carle Illinois College of Medicine, ensuring that students are trained to be physicians while incorporating many engineering perspectives in every part of the curriculum. The “idea course” integrated into the curriculum is an excellent way to reach that objective. In addition to the preclinical and clinical training provided in traditional medical school, the students in small groups make a weekly hospital round with an engineer to identify problems and develop possible solutions that could be included in their capstone project.

As a neurosurgeon, Dr. Pappu enjoys communicating with her patients. She can clearly explain the nature of their pain, the basics of what the surgery entails, and her expectations for recovery. On the other hand, Suguna loves teaching, a trait inherited from her father, a retired professor, and from her mother, a former teacher. One project she is currently working on with a group of female mechanical engineers and surgeon women involves adapting current surgical instruments to women. “I am a woman surgeon, and I work with tools designed by men for men. Some of those instruments require a lot of grip strength, and the small hands of women make it challenging to use those instruments,” she explains. Interestingly, the solution she is developing will also benefit men with bigger hands, who face their own difficulties using some instruments.

Suguna met many mentors throughout her career, none as influential as her mother. Though her mother passed away before Suguna finished her residency, she envisioned that Suguna would be a doctor.  An immigrant woman from India, Suguna’s mom ensured that her daughter could do the things she did not have the opportunity to do. With a laugh, Suguna recounts, “My mother advised me to take assembly language programming because someone told her it was important.” Fondly, Suguna adds, “She is a fierce and honest woman who has very high standards for herself and the people around her. Her influence is still visible in my life.”

Although her journey might have involved many challenges, Suguna only mentions the challenges inherent to being a woman, having children, and working.  She states, “Every time you work outside the home, whether at Walmart or as a neurosurgeon at the hospital, you always feel like you haven’t brought everything to whatever you are doing.” Suguna also credits her husband and her extended family for the support they provided throughout her career. The trust and sincere communication she developed with her family provided balance at every step and is the foundation on which she raised her two intelligent and accomplished daughters.

Suguna sees everything as a work in progress. “In my work, I always see things that bring humility back to you, whether it is an unexpectedly infected wound after an operation or an unhappy patient.” She encourages other women to be open to new things when faced with adversities because there are “lateral moves” that can lead to better outcomes. The essential things she advises are to have fun, be curious, and be humble.

By Gail W. Pieper

Rinku Gupta, Principal Specialist, Research Software Engineer

As long as she can remember, Rinku Gupta has been fascinated by advanced computing. She earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering from Mumbai University in India and then came to the United States where she received a master’s degree in computer information science at the Ohio State University. Her professional career got off to a fine start with a position first as a software programmer and analyst at Green Apple, Inc. and then as a product group development engineer at Dell, Inc., where she worked with the high-performance computing (HPC) team with a focus on evaluating new and emerging HPC technologies and building standard and custom large-scale supercomputing clusters.

In 2007 Rinku joined Argonne National Laboratory’s (ANL) Mathematics and Computer Science Division as a senior software developer She says working at ANL has been a transformative journey full of exciting cutting-edge scientific research focusing on the top supercomputers of the world, ranging from improving infrastructure for fault-tolerant systems, to working on supercomputing programming models, from improving sustainability in scientific projects to managing AI for Science projects. What has driven Rinku over the past 15 years is the freedom to collaborate with fellow innovators, both within the laboratory and across prestigious universities and research institutions, while still nurturing her independence to tackle projects that ignite her curiosity.

Combining research with leadership

One of Rinku’s first responsibilities at Argonne was as technical lead of the CIFTS (Coordinated Infrastructure for Fault-Tolerant Systems) project. The role meant that Rinku was the one looked to for day-to-day guidance on the progress and direction of the project. It was a kind of “baptism by fire,” and Rinku quickly proved her mettle, directing a group of eminent scientists from seven institutions nationwide. Moreover, she served as the primary software developer, designing and creating critical components creating the fault tolerance backplane that formed the core of the CIFTS software.

Advocating for science

Rinku’s work as a software engineer frequently led to cross-cutting research, whether improving techniques for power management on supercomputers or improving application performance through enhancing HPC software stacks or raising awareness of the importance of sustainable software and best practices in research. She enjoyed the work – and the accompanying promotions. But she began to feel that her title as a software engineer didn’t fully capture the breadth of her contributions. That was until she discovered the term “Research Software Engineer” (RSE), which perfectly encapsulated her work. Yes, she acknowledges, RSEs do write software code; but more than that, they support scientific research, working closely with the scientists from various domains to understand their complex, open-ended problems and design innovative solutions to address them.

Rinku has worked hard to promote recognition of RSEs. In the past five years she has presented tutorials, co-authored guides, and written articles designed to help colleagues and stakeholders alike understand this relatively new career path (the term was first used in 2010). She laughs when someone says she has become an ardent advocate and spokesperson for RSEs.

But she stops laughing to acknowledge that some scientists and managers still fail to grasp the value that RSEs bring to the table. They often overlook the fact that RSEs’ challenges and expertise are uniquely suited to the research environment and are more appropriate than traditional software developers for addressing the complex needs of scientific research. As Rinku emphatically states, “Good software is good science,” and domain scientists often “lack the expertise or software development background to create software that is accurate, accessible, and reproducible and meets the high standards of scientific research. This is where RSEs can make a critical difference.”

Rinku also serves as editor-in-chief of Better Scientific Software (BSSw), an international collaborative hub that has gained significant traction within the scientific computing community since 2017. With this effort, Rinku’s goal was to raise awareness among scientific computing professionals of the importance of adopting good software practices and to help developers of scientific software create better, sustainable software. Through BSSw, Rinku has played a vital role in promoting software sustainability, an area that has sadly not been a primary focus of scientific researchers, Rinku notes. However, she observes with optimism, this is changing, and BSSw is proud to be at the forefront of this shift.

The start of something big

Rinku finds her job as Principal Specialist, Research Software Engineer at Argonne fascinating and challenging: fascinating because she is using her technical and collaborative skills in new areas in the exascale era, and challenging because she is constantly seeking new ways to advance the increasingly important role of the RSE in the scientific software community.

As a steering committee member of the US-RSE Association since 2023, Rinku encourages individuals to explore the association’s services and the RSE career track, whether they are starting their software engineering journey or contemplating a mid-career change. Her advice is to ask questions, seek guidance from experienced professionals, or join the US-RSE community. Through her leadership and advocacy, Rinku has been driving culture change, empowering RSEs, and fostering a supportive ecosystem across national labs, the United States, and internationally, through various initiatives and leadership roles within the US-RSE. Rinku envisions a future where RSEs are recognized as essential and equal partners in the scientific research community.

by Elodie Kadjo

Dr. Carolyn Carta is a Principal scientist at CArtLab Solutions, a research and consulting company she founded in September 2023. As shown through her entrepreneurial endeavor, Carolyn takes initiative and is not afraid to create a path to fit her needs.

Growing up, Carolyn liked science and art, and decided to combine her two most obvious talents into a self-designed Bachelor’s degree in chemistry and art. This, however, was not an easy route. Talking about her academic journey, Carolyn says with a laugh, “Many people didn’t know how they would work with me because I put art and chemistry on my college applications”. Thus, she enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Within the first year, she realized that regardless of her love for art, studio art was not a good career fit. Indeed, she preferred the use of stable materials that would allow her artworks to last longer compared to her peers who were dumpster diving for supplies and thus less concerned about the conservation of their art.

Nevertheless, Carolyn did not abandon her passion and enrolled at Trinity College-Hartford Connecticut where she took a “Chemistry Science in Art” class with Dr. Henry DePhilips.  Carolyn’s interaction with Dr. DePhilips was instrumental in shaping her trajectory for the next 15 years. At Trinity College, Carolyn took the initiative to design her major to fit her aspirations and modeled her degree with the goal of getting into art conservation school. Her degree was titled “An Analysis of Art”. “It is a Combination of art history, studio art, and chemistry” Carolyn explains.  Dr. DePhilips went on to become Carolyn’s advisor and mentor during her undergraduate studies. Under his guidance, she was invited to do an independent study in Rome on art conservation. There, Carolyn leveraged her persistent attitude to gain insight into classified conservation practices at the Victor Emmanuale Monument, and was given the chance to present her research at a lecture series at the New Britain Museum of American Art in 2009.

After her undergraduate, Carolyn worked as an intern at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. In the art conservation lab, Carolyn learned the instrumentation and sample preparation necessary to analyze art objects, including how to take forensic sized or nondestructive sampling techniques and also make mock-ups to represent historically and chemically accurate art experiments. She discovered she was good at organic chemistry and enjoyed the scientific aspect of art conservation. “I realized that I was preparing for an art conservation role while an art conservation science job was more suited to my abilities. I was not sure about the route to take for the future, so I went for a Master’s degree at a terminal MS program to gain additional lab experience,” she explained.

Carolyn completed a Master’s in Chemistry at the College of William and Mary in Virginia, where she juggled both her NSF applied research into xanthene-based dye sensors for detecting heavy metals for in-situ water measurements, while using the same dye to embed into thin polymer films to study photooxidation. Following her master’s degree, Carolyn’s hunger for scientific testing knowledge pushed her to pursue a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). “Even though I loved chemistry, I felt like I would benefit from understanding all the properties of heterogeneous materials used to make art,” she explained. Given her lack of engineering background, this was an ambitious task. Nethertheless, Carolyn passed the oral qualifying exam the first time. “Only the top 10% of graduating doctoral class was able to accomplish this” she remarked with a proud smile. 

While working toward her Ph.D, Carolyn also used her network and passion for art conservation to secure a 2 year job at the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), nearby to UCLA. At the GCI, Carolyn implemented a system for better testing and storage of art artifacts made of plastic composites. One of her major accomplishments was on a project with the Walt Disney Animation Library. “When I joined the team, samples were random, uncoordinated, and disorganized, so I worked directly with different stakeholders at Walt Disney Animation Research Library (ARL) to obtain valid sample sets, obtain enough samples to complete mechanical and chemical analysis, to create accelerated aging experiments to predict material lifetimes, and also measure environmental variations within storage of 10 vaults of animation cels.” she explains. Cels are transparent sheets of plastics on which painted drawings for traditional animation were filmed. Coordinating thermogravimetric measurements and mechanical properties of paints, Carolyn helped improve storage of more than 500,000 cels of the original Walt Disney animated characters, including her childhood favorites- the princesses.

Despite her tenure of 5 years working at the GCI and long term experience in art conservation science, the COVID pandemic began to create social and material supply chain issues that were hard for Carolyn to ignore. With her chemistry and material science knowledge, Carolyn accepted a position as a Research and Development Scientist at Younger Optics to contribute to medical device material and process development. There, she worked with an international team on translating the injection mode of eyeglasses into a 3D printing process. “Within my first few months learning about the lens industry and installing the first 3D printer for lens manufacturing in the US, I noticed a limitation in the mechanical and adhesive characterization of the new lens materials, and immediately initiated a collaborative study with a physicist colleague in Madrid to improve collaboration with industry experts at PPG industries (https://www.ppg.com/en-US), a US based paint and coatings supplier.” At the same time, driven by her desire to give back to the community, Carolyn worked as a STEM mentor for the company College Impact, part of AccepU.

Although Carolyn enjoyed the collaborative atmosphere at Younger Optics, she moved to Chicago to be closer to her family and accepted a position at a startup called LuxCreo as an Senior Applications and Integration Engineer to improve the 3D printing of photopolymers in dental and shoe sole products. Within her first 90 days at LuxCreo, Carolyn designed experiments that led to process improvement. When implemented, her designs will save clients 35% processing time for digital dentistry solutions, while also saving hundreds of dollars in hardware costs to the processing of dental implants. Further, she developed new packaging techniques thanks to her experience in plastic storage from her work at Walt Disney Animation Research Library to ensure longevity of parts. Stimulated by the entrepreneurial environment in her new position, but craving non-traditional manufacturing environments where equity was valued, Carolyn decided to open her own technical consulting company, CArtLab Solutions (https://cartlabsolutions.com/). Thanks to a Landis fellowship (https://www.mhubchicago.com/hardtech-development-fellowship), Carolyn’s company is based at the Chicago mHUB where she gets to collaborate with other scientists and learn about the business aspects of running a company.

“In my recent work starting my own company, I am proud of my focus on mission driven work to help serve my clients in an equitable way with a focus on sustainable materials and processes. It’s really important to me that I am creating a safe space and terms to do research and development for myself, but also for any women/BIPOC that I work with both now and in the future. I’m also proud to register my business as a women-owned small business for future contract opportunities with the federal government,” she adds. Currently, Carolyn is focused on sustainable technology solutions, carbon capture material development, medical device technology particularly women’s health in collaboration with companies like Iantrek, Curiva (TM), and The Immortal Water Company.

Her secret for effective work and life balance is to always keep in mind her three life pillars: profession, health, and community. “Make sure one important part of your life does not get out of control and take over your other priorities”, she advises with a laugh. “It is true that sometimes you would have to prioritize one aspect over the other ones but make sure it is just for a short time”. She practices this now by attending to her needs by doing yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. Carolyn also loves reading and recommends “A Renaissance of Our Own” by Rachel E. Cargle, an inspiring autobiography that encourages people to carve their own paths. Reflecting on her journey, Carolyn admits she should have been kinder to herself when things along her journey blossomed differently than originally sketched in her plans.

by Christina Nowicki, Ph.D.

Talking to Dr. Diana Rose E. Ranoa, her passion for science and positive attitude is abundantly clear. And like a lot of scientists, she’s not afraid of tackling tough problems. Diana is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, working with the Anticancer from Pets to People (ACPP) theme leader Professor Paul J. Hergenrother, where her research focuses on a complex question – how can we harness the human immune system against cancer?

Originally from the Philippines, Diana started her career at the University of Philippines-Diliman, where she received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. Almost 20 years ago, in 2006, Diana moved to Illinois in pursuit of her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Here, under the guidance of Dr. Richard I. Tapping, her research focused on toll-like receptors, or TLRs, in immunity and infection. TLRs are critical mediators of inflammatory pathways and essential to the function of the immune system against infection.

However, after her Ph.D., Diana redirected her research towards both a personal and important cause, “A big driving force was my dad passed away due to lung cancer,” she explained, “So, I said that I’m going to dedicate my career towards developing new therapeutics against cancer [and] improving the current set of therapeutics against cancer.”

That’s how Diana ended up the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Ralph Weichselbaum in the Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology. With this new goal in mind, Diana pursued studies to understand how cancer cells react to ionizing radiation. Further, she wanted to learn more about how the immune system could be harnessed to wake up and fight against cancer, as cancers typically occur because the immune system no longer recognize them as a danger signal.

“But once they do, they’re very powerful at killing their target,” Diana asserted.

In part, this is the reason she returned to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she had developed connections to experts in immunology and small molecule development. Joining the lab in 2019, Diana built on the work of previous graduate students towards understanding the anti-tumor and immunostimulatory effects of a small molecule that was in phase one clinical trials at the time.

But a few months later, COVID changed everything.

“We needed something to get back.” Diana stated simply, “And for us to be able to get back we had to develop a rapid saliva test. To make a long story short, we developed the test, the campus was able to safely re-open, and I was able to go back to doing cancer research.” She’s being humble. They were given a month to develop a saliva-based test that is faster, cheaper, and scalable. On top of that, their newly developed test needed to go through FDA emergency use authorization.

“It was a gratifying feeling to be able to see students come back in the fall 2020 semester,” she later admitted in our interview when asked what her greatest accomplishment is. “We know that COVID is a serious matter, even though some people think it’s not serious. But for some families, it is. So having a record of no deaths on campus during that time when there were no vaccines available yet is something that I’m really proud of, and I’m probably going to tell younger generations.”

After this quick detour, Diana returned to cancer research, this time collaborating with Prof. David M. Kranz. Her most recent work tells the story of how chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CAR-Ts, may be used to treat advanced disseminated stages of ovarian cancer in mice. CAR-Ts are T-cells that have been engineered in the lab to specifically target cancer cells. Currently, all FDA-approved CAR-T therapies are directed toward blood cancers, like leukemia, and not solid tumors, such as ovarian cancer. Ultimately, Diana and her colleagues were able to extend the lives of mice to the equivalent age of a human in their 80’s or 90’s.

“Setting up these models in mice and showing that your treatment actually works against advanced stages of cancer, it’s a gratifying thing,” explained Diana, “It’s something that encourages me every day to get up and go to work, start work early. Because, you know, you’re creating something, you’re doing something towards the improvement of treatment. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but at least we’re moving forward.”

In the future, Diana hopes to continue working on this research by improving the therapeutic index of CAR-T cell therapy. For her, the next steps are obvious, “I work with a chemist, I work with an immunologist. So, combining CAR-Ts and small molecules may be the next step to making CAR-Ts better in terms of seeing their targets or fighting cancer.”

On a personal level, Diana’s next steps might be even more exciting. “At this point, I think I’m ready to transition to a new position,” she said, “At the end of my postdoc at Chicago, I wasn’t sure yet if I want to be a faculty or something like that. But it’s mainly because I’m afraid of going beyond my comfort zone, which I think is common for a lot of women.”

In response to this, I had to end our conversation by asking Diana what advice she would give to women in STEM trying to follow in a similar path. Without pausing, she doled out some sage wisdom. “As a woman in science, and a scientist in general, we’re going to have a countless number of rejections,” advised Diana, “Just be aware of whose voices you let into your head. Because that will affect your attitude towards your work, your experiments, and your career development.”