Leaders of Women in Pathology

Maria Pilar Alcaide, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Immunology at Tufts University School of Medicine (Boston, MA). Dr. Alcaide is a current member of the ASIP Council as a Councilor At-large. She received the ASIP Cotran Early Career Investigator Award in 2018. This award recognizes early career investigators with demonstrated excellence. Dr. Alcaide received her PhD in Molecular Biology from Universidad Autonoma of Madrid, Spain, where she studied the immunological aspects of Trypanosoma cruzi infection, the protozoan parasite that causes Chagas disease.

As a recipient of a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Alcaide trained in vascular biology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, where she studied the mechanisms regulating immune cell trafficking to sites of inflammation. After completion of her postdoctoral research training, Dr. Alcaide was appointed to Instructor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, where she successfully competed for a “Pathway to Independence NIH K99/R00 Award”. In September 2011, Dr. Alcaide joined the faculty at the Molecular Cardiology Research Institute at Tufts Medical Center, Boston, and started her independent research program as an Assistant Professor. In May of 2016, she joined the Department of Immunology at Tufts University as an Associate Professor.

Dr. Alcaide’s research focuses in understanding the role of T lymphocytes in heart inflammation and their impact in the progression of heart failure, with the ultimate goal of unveiling new pathways that can potentially be targeted in therapeutic useful ways. Her research has been continuously funded by grants from the American Heart Association (AHA), the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and other private foundations. In addition to research, Dr. Alcaide is committed to teaching and mentoring. She is the Director of the Inflammatory Chronic Diseases course at the Tufts Sackler School for Graduate Studies and actively participates in graduate education and mentoring. Most of her trainees have received awards from the AHA, the NIH, FASEB, and ASIP.

Dr. Alcaide serves in NIH study sections, including the Mentored Transition to Independence (MTI), which discusses scientific applications of the new upcoming independent research scientists. Dr. Alcaide is also a member of the AHA Early Career Committee, with the mission of promoting career development of young scientists, and a participant mentor of the ASIP Mentoring Program.

Dr. Parry graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 2007 with a BS in sport and exercise science, and then completed an MS (2009) and a PhD (2014) in sport and exercise science at the University of Northern Colorado (Greeley, CO). Upon completion of her PhD, Dr. Parry moved to the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the McAllister Heart Institute at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine (Chapel Hill, NC) to undertake postdoctoral research with Dr. Monte Willis (2014-2018). In 2018, Dr. Parry moved with Dr. Willis to the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and the Indiana Center for Musculoskeletal Health at the Indiana University School of Medicine (Indianapolis, IN). Less than a year later, Dr. Parry was appointed to her current position as Assistant Professor in the Department of Kinesiology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Greensboro, NC).

Dr. Parry’s research program is focused on the therapeutic and preventative benefits of exercise on disease states of the body involving cardiovascular pathophysiology, heart failure, and cancer cachexia. Dr. Parry’s research laboratory has been very productive, and the excellent research conducted by her laboratory has been recognized through numerous awards. Among her awards are several from the ASIP and others from her prior institutions. In 2015, Dr. Parry received the ASIP A.D. Sobel Scholar Award. In 2016, she received the ASIP GALL Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research and was named the ASIP Experimental Pathologist-in-Training Merit Awardee. In 2017, Dr. Parry received the ASIP Hans-Monga Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research. In 2018, she received a second ASIP A.D. Sobel Scholar Award. In 2020, Dr. Parry received the ASIP Young Scientist Leadership Award. In 2021, Dr. Parry received the ASIP George K. Michalopoulos Junior Faculty Scholar Award. In 2022, Dr. Parry received the ASIP Dani and Erik Zander Junior Faculty Scholar Award.

Dr. Parry has dedicated time and effort to be an engaged member of the ASIP. She joined the Society on 2014 around the time that she moved to the UNC School of Medicine. Since that time, she has become a member of the Committee for Career Development (since 2018), an ASIP Ambassador (since 2019), a member of the Membership Committee (since 2021), and most recently she has joined the Committee for Equal Representation and Opportunity (since 2021). Dr. Parry makes excellent contributions to all of these committees, both in ideas and in energy to implement new initiatives. Dr. Parry has been active in developing sessions for the Annual Meeting, often moderating the sessions or participating as a speaker. Dr. Parry has been tapped on multiple occasions to give presentations on the value of the individual development plan (IDP) and her presentations are always well received. She has chaired or co-chaired numerous scientific sessions for the ASIP Annual Meeting. Dr. Parry has participated over multiple 2 summers as a laboratory host for undergraduate students working to gain research experience through the ASIP Summer Research Opportunity in Pathology Program (SROPP). Dr. Parry joined the leadership of the ASIP Women in Pathology in 2022.

Francisco J Carrillo-Salinas, PhD, is a Postdoctoral Scholar in the department of Immunology at Tufts University School of Medicine (Boston, MA). Dr. Carrillo-Salinas is a current member of the ASIP. He has been the recipient of the ASIP Experimental Pathologist-in-Training (EPIT) Award in 2019, ASIP GALL Trainee Scholar Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research in 2018 and 2020 and ASIP A.D. Sobel Trainee Scholar Award in 2020.

Dr. Carrillo-Salinas received his Master in Neuroscience and PhD in Neuroscience from Universidad Autonoma of Madrid, Spain, where he studied the therapeutic efficacy of cannabinoid derivatives in experimental models of multiple sclerosis, and the role of gut microbiota in a viral model of multiple sclerosis. Then, he joined the Alcaide lab at Tufts University to study the role of gut microbiota alterations in T cell activation and in the progression of heart failure.

During this time, Dr. Carrillo-Salinas was awarded with an American Heart Association Postdoctoral fellowship, which contributed to the development of his project. He has made one of his personal and professional objectives to be involved in mentoring activities and the incorporation of under-represented groups to STEM fields. He is a faithful supporter of women in STEM and participates in initiatives helping women bridge the STEM gender gap.

Women in Pathology Co-Leader Nakisha Rutledge recently defended her dissertation research (April 2022) and completed her PhD in the Driskill Graduate Program in Life Sciences of the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University (Chicago, IL). Dr. Rutledge’s dissertation is entitled Human CD99L2 Regulates a Unique Step in Transmigration Between Those Regulated by PECAM-1 and CD99, and is based upon research she performed working in the laboratory of Dr. William A. Muller (Janardan K. Reddy, MD Professor of Pathology). This work was partially supported by a National Research Service Award-F31 from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute).

Dr. Rutledge will begin her postdoctoral research training in September 2022 in the laboratory of Dr. Aaron Esser-Kahn at the University of Chicago, working in the area of vascular immunoengineering. Prior to entering graduate school at Northwestern University, Dr. Rutledge received a BS in Biochemistry from Spelman College (Atlanta, GA). Her undergraduate research focused on the identification of natural products as potential therapeutic targets for prostate cancer.

Dr. Rutledge has been a member of the ASIP since 2017 and has been very engaged since that time. She currently serves on the ASIP Committee for Career Development and as a Co-Leader of Women in Pathology. Dr. Rutledge is a regular attendee of the ASIP scientific meetings and has received a number of awards for her excellent research. She received ASIP Trainee Scholar Awards to attend the Experimental Biology meetings in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2022. In 2020, Dr. Rutledge received an A.D. Sobel Trainee Scholar Award, and a PISA2020 Gall Trainee Scholar Award for Excellence in Cardiovascular Research. Pepper J. Schedin, PhD Pepper J. Schedin, PhD Taylor Ticer, PhD Candidate Taylor Ticer, PhD Candidate Louisa Tichy, PhD Candidate Louisa Tichy, PhD Candidate Jennifer Truong, PhD Candidate Jennifer Truong, PhD Candidate Menglu Yang, MD, PhD Menglu Yang, MD,