Dr. Martinez-Finley is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Michael Aschner at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in the Division of Pediatric Toxicology. For the past year, she has studied methylmercury neurotoxicity and neurodegeneration. Her work has always been “neurotoxic” in nature. Prior to joining VUMC, she completed her Ph.D. at the University of New Mexico in Biomedical Sciences with concentrations in Neurosciences and Toxicology. Her dissertation research project focused on the neurodevelopmental effects of perinatal exposure to arsenic. While at the University of New Mexico, she was a recipient of a Pfizer Predoctoral Fellowship and an F31NRSA from NIEHS.

Dr. Martinez-Finley began her involvement with SOT as an undergraduate, attending the undergraduate portion of the meeting in 2005. She has attended the Annual Meeting every year since, with the exception of the year her son was born. Every year she serves as a peer mentor for the Committee on Diversity Initiatives Undergraduate Minority Program. Her service to the Society has also included the Spanish translation of a slide set about toxicology for the SOT Web site. From 2007–2009, she was the graduate student representative for the Mountain West Society of Toxicology. As a graduate student she also held several institutional leadership roles including serving as the President of the Biomedical Sciences Student Society, Vice-Chair for the Graduate Research and Development Grant and as a representative to the Graduate and Professional Student Association. Dr. Martinez-Finley has spent the past year representing postdoc interests at Vanderbilt both as a departmental representative and as the Junior Co-chair to the Vanderbilt Postdoctoral Advisory Committee. As secretary of the SOT PDA, she will draw upon what she has learned from previous leadership roles to enhance the experiences of SOT postdocs.

Dr. Marie C. Fortin received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Laval University and her M.S. in Neurosciences and Ph.D. in Public Health/Environmental Toxicology & Risk Analysis from the Universite de Montreal in Canada. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Environmental and Occupational Health Science Institute in NJ (EOHSI is a joint Institute of Rutgers University and UMDNJ) where she conducts translational research under the mentorship of Drs. J. R. Richardson and N. Fiedler. Her work aims to integrate in vitro pesticide metabolism data with biological monitoring and risk assessment.

Marie has been a member of the Society of Toxicology since 2006. In 2009–2010 she was a member of the SOT Worldwide Web Task Force and in 2010–2011 she served on the Postdoctoral Assembly Board as Treasurer. During her term, Marie worked on the edition of SOT PDA publication, the Post-Y; prepared a career and development session and worked on the organization of the Silent Auction for the SOT 2011 meeting; developed a career webinar for SOT students and postdocs and revised the online membership survey. She is also a member of the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA) and through college and graduate school, she has been involved with several student associations where she served as VP Communications (2 years) and Secretary (1 year), she acted as Student Rep on the Ph.D. Assembly and on the School of Public Health Student Council (1 year) and was Social Chair (1 year). In addition, she gave her time to other organizations/charities such as the Canadian Red Cross, the Canadian Cancer Society, and United Way.

Marie in her second term as Treasurer of the PDA will bring continuity with her experience and knowledge of the functioning of the Society to the Board as well as her dynamism. As Treasurer, she will oversee the proper management of the funds and be responsible for next year’s elections. In addition to fulfilling the Treasurer’s responsibilities; she looks forward to working with the other Board members and the PDA on issues such as networking and career development for postdoctoral scholars. She also wishes to keep on improving the communication with the membership as well as the networking events.

Larissa M. Williams received her B.A. from Smith College in Biological Sciences, with a minor in Marine Sciences, in 2005. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in Environmental Toxicology from the Department of Environmental and Molecular Toxicology at North Carolina State University in the fall of 2010 under the direction of Dr. Margie Oleksiak (now at University of Miami). Dr. Williams is now a postdoctoral investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in the Biology Department working with Dr. Mark Hahn. 

Dr. Williams’ research is broadly focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in the response to toxicant exposure in aquatic vertebrates and the role of genetic variation in adaptation to toxicant exposure. For her Ph.D., she identified genomic signatures of selection in natural populations of fish that have adapted to chronic pollution exposure. As a postdoc, she is investigating the effects of toxicants on the aryl hydrocarbon receptor pathway (AHR) during development and is also hoping to elucidate developmental crosstalk mechanisms between AHR and oxidative stress pathways.

She has been a member of SOT for one year, and presented a poster at the annual SOT conference in Salt Lake City in 2009. In addition to SOT, Larissa is an active member of ACS, Sigma Xi, and the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution. As a graduate student, Larissa was treasurer of the Graduate Student Association in her department. She also participated in many local and national career development courses and workshops throughout her time as a graduate student. Now as a postdoc, Larissa serves as president of the Woods Hole Postdoctoral Association.

As councilor within the SOT Postdoctoral Assembly she will be extremely organized in order to serve as a point of communication for the postdoctoral membership to the Postdoctoral Assembly Board. In addition to these basic responsibilities, she hopes to assist other postdocs in making the most out of this crucial time in their career by helping to run career development activities and by increasing communication between postdocs in the SOT community.