Agents of Change Judging Panel

Meet the team judging the Agents of Change grant awards. The judging panel will evaluate proposals based on the criteria need for nomination:

• What the initiative intends to achieve and what it has achieved so far (if applicable)
• How the award money would help to support the initiative
• The data sources used to identify the need for the initiative, and the data sources that will be used to evaluate the initiative
• How the project will continue beyond the initial grant
• The potential impact of the initiative and why the grant of the award would be significant for the initiative.

Charlene Liu

(she/her/hers)
Co-Founder – Diversity & Inclusion Consulting (DNIC), Ladies Who Tech, Q-Events, ShanghaiPRIDE

Charlene Liu was born in Malaysia and has lived in the US, Singapore, and China.  She is an engineer, community leader, social change advocate, and diversity and inclusion expert.

She graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a BSc in Electrical Engineering and has 20+ years of working experience in different areas of the Semiconductor & Electronics industry, ranging from design, engineering, manufacturing, project management to sales and marketing.  She also has experience with events, corporate innovation, and management consulting at PwC and was the Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging APAC at Arcadis.

Charlene has 17 years of community leadership, commercial event management, and Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) advocacy experience.  In 2009, she co-founded ShanghaiPRIDE, an annual festival run entirely by volunteers that promotes LGBT+ inclusion, in 2014 Q-Events, an event management company, in 2016 Ladies Who Tech, a social impact community for women in STEM, and in 2019, D&I Consulting DNIC, a consultancy which helps corporates build a more inclusive culture.  Charlene is now embarking on a full-time journey managing these platforms.

In 2014, she and team ShanghaiPRIDE were awarded Shanghai Hero by Time Out Shanghai, and in 2018, Best Event Organizer in East China by Huodongxing.

Barbara Rothen

Prof. Dr. Barbara Rothen-Rutishauser has received her Ph.D. in 1996 in cell biology at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETHZ). She worked as postdoc and group leader at ETHZ and University of Bern, Switzerland. She is an expert in the field of cell-nanoparticle interactions, with a special focus on human 3D tissue models. Since 2011 she is the chair in BioNanomaterials at the Adolphe Merkle Institute (AMI), University of Fribourg, Switzerland, the position is shared equally with Prof. Alke Fink. Prof. Rothen-Rutishauser has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and is associate editor of “Particle and Fibre Toxicology”. She is the recipient for the 2019 Materials Today Agents of Change Award with Dr. S. Martin Caba and Prof. A. Fink from the University of Fribourg.

Youssef Travaly

                Youssef Travaly is Senior Fellow for Digital at Friends of Europe and the Africa Europe Foundation and the Executive Chairman of AllSightsAfrica. He is a Senior executive with 20+ years of experience working in the USA, in Europe and in Africa with universities, research institutions, private sector and regional organizations, national and international NGO’s, both at a strategic and operational level, in science, innovation, design of public policies incl. innovative products policies. He holds a PhD in Materials Science doubled with an MBA with a proven leadership and experience in bringing advanced technologies and innovation in an economically sustainable manner from laboratory to market. He has authored and co-authored 100+ journal and conference papers. He is the co-founder of the Scientific African Journal.

Lanell Williams

LaNell A. Williams is a PhD Candidate and NSF GRFP Fellow at Harvard University. She is also our Tutor Coordinator! Her research focuses on understanding the self assembly of RNA-Viruses, in particular, the Bacteriophage MS2. She graduated from Wesleyan University with her BA in physics, and she went on to receive her MA in physics from Fisk University before going to Harvard. LaNell has also been heavily involved in programming with the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP). Additionally, she serves on the American Physical Society Council of Representatives representing the Forum on Graduate Students & the Forum on Early Careers.  She's the founder of the Women+ of Color Project and hopes to encourage more BIWOC to pursue academic careers.

Marlene Silva 

Marlene is an astrophysicist turned Publisher in the Materials Today team at Elsevier. After graduating from the University of Porto in Portugal, she moved to the Netherlands where she completed her PhD in Particle Physics at the University of Groningen. She worked as a scientist in Radiotherapy at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam and served as a Project Officer for Applied Sciences for the Dutch Research Council (NWO). She then joined Elsevier as an Editor in fundamental physics and now a Publisher in the Materials Sciences group where she manages a portfolio of Metals & Engineering publications. She is also one of the IE&D ambassadors focusing on driving change within Elsevier and with the communities and scientists she works with.

Domiziana Francescon

Partnerships Director, The Elsevier Foundation

Domiziana Francescon serves as the Elsevier Foundation’s Partnerships Director and is a strong supporter of the company’s Corporate Responsibility program. She also works as Program Director for Elsevier’s externally focused partnerships, especially in sustainability and Inclusion & Diversity spaces. Additionally, Domiziana is the Co-Chair of the Communications team of Research4Life, a UN-publisher partnership to bridge access gaps for researchers and doctors in developing countries. Domiziana obtained a master’s degree in Book and Digital Media Studies at Leiden University in the Netherlands, with a specialization in Publishing Studies.

For more details regarding the Agents of Change Awards please click here.

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