01 Aug 2014

Harvard Business School Announces 2014 Kaplan Life Sciences Fellows

ShareBar

BOSTON—Three medical doctors, four engineers and three healthcare management professionals are the 2014 recipients of the Robert S. Kaplan Life Sciences Fellowship at Harvard Business School (HBS). All are entering first-year students in the School's MBA program.

Established in 2008 to encourage students with life sciences backgrounds and career interests to attend Harvard Business School, the Kaplan Fellowships enable HBS to award $20,000 each to ten incoming MBA students who meet these criteria. Credentials may include academic achievements, recognition from outside organizations, and professional accomplishments. Preferences are given to students who are planning careers in science-related businesses or organizations. Awards are for only the first year of the Harvard MBA Program and do not affect the recipient's eligibility for the School's need–based fellowships.

These awards were created through the generosity of Robert S. Kaplan, a member of the Harvard MBA Class of 1983 and former vice chairman of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., where he now serves as a senior director. He is currently the Martin Marshall Professor of Management Practice and Senior Associate Dean for External Relations at HBS. The Kaplan Fellowship Program reflects Harvard Business School's continuing commitment to trying to solve the array of problems facing the healthcare sector. In 2005, for example, HBS launched the Healthcare Initiative, a multidisciplinary program that brings together the extensive research, thought leadership, and interest in the business and management of healthcare that are now key parts of the School's agenda.

The 2014 Kaplan Fellows are:

  • Enkelejda Bashllari, who has spent the past several years as CEO of Kenzi Management Limited (headquartered in Singapore and New Zealand), where, among other things, she evaluated the scientific and market feasibility of life-science and other start-ups for potential investment. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry from Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania and holds a Ph.D. in cellular, molecular, and biomedical studies from Columbia University.
  • Matan Dabora,MD, a captain in the Israel Defense Forces who has created new approaches and solutions to battlefield combat casualty care. He graduated with bachelor of medical sciences and doctor of medicine degrees from Tel Aviv University.
  • Hillary Dukart, who has held a variety of engineering positions at Johnson & Johnson, where as a senior project engineer she led a team that designed a new medical device manufacturing facility. She received her bachelor’s of science in biomedical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
  • R.K. MacLean, who was a clinical engineer at Miramar Labs in California, where he held a variety of research and development roles and managed products from clinical trials to product launch. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Stanford University.
  • Brian Matesic, who worked previously for ZS Associates, a global sales and marketing consulting firm, where he developed an entry strategy for a major pharmaceutical company planning to do business in Brazil. He earned his bachelor’s degree in bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is also enrolled as an MD candidate at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
  • Peter Najjar, MD, who is currently a resident in general surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a fellow in patient safety and quality at Harvard Medical School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in neurobiology, physiology, and behavior from the University of California, Davis, and his MD from the University of Chicago.
  • Felicia Pagliuca, who comes to HBS from the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, where she initiated strategies to discover ways to generate functional insulin-producing beta cells from stem cells for the treatment of diabetes. A graduate of Duke University, where she majored in biology and chemistry, she earned a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar.
  • Aaron Spivak, who was previously a scientific investigator in the computational biology research and development unit at GlaxoSmithKline, where he implemented computational biology methods for drug discovery and development. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Davidson College and a Ph.D. in computational and systems biology from Washington University in St. Louis.
  • Ritika Tawani, who was most recently a project manager at Abbott India Limited in Mumbai, where she most recently drove the entire planning and target-setting process for 2014. During her employment there, she also redesigned a go-to-market strategy for one of Abbott’s oldest brands. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
  • Benjamin Zatlin, who has spent the last few years with Abbott Laboratories in California, most recently as a senior manufacturing engineer responsible for manufacturing process improvements and other cost saving projects across three medical device product lines. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California, where he received a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering.
Contacts

Cullen Schmitt
cschmitt+hbs.edu
617-495-6155

About Harvard Business School

Founded in 1908 as part of Harvard University, Harvard Business School is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston. Its faculty of more than 250 offers full-time programs leading to the MBA and PhD degrees, as well as more than 175 Executive Education programs, and Harvard Business School Online, the School’s digital learning platform. For more than a century, faculty have drawn on their research, their experience in working with organizations worldwide, and their passion for teaching, to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. The School and its curriculum attract the boldest thinkers and the most collaborative learners who will go on to shape the practice of business and entrepreneurship around the globe.