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Issue-003 · · Samantha Klasfeld, Ph.D. , Sakina Saif, M.S. , Dana Moochnick  · 10 min read

BWIB lunch meetup.

🌸 Fresh Commits: The BWIB Spring Edition

2026 has entered the chat and she is not the one to take things slow. New executive board? Check. Events? Check. New programs, advocacy survey findings, and fresh BWIB developments? Check, check, and check. Buckle up and settle in.

Here’s what’s inside this month:

🌟 Member Spotlight: Sharvari Narendra, M.S.

She moved across the world. Questioned her path. Struggled through coding. And stayed anyway!

Next week, our very own blogger Dana Moochnick sits down with fellow Boston Women in Bioinformatics Podcast Co-Chair Sharvari Narendra for a conversation that is as honest as it is inspiring. From landing in snowy Boston and feeling “immediately enthralled by the opportunities that the air in Boston held,” to wondering if she had made the right choice pursuing bioinformatics, Sharvari shares the moments that shaped her growth, including the internship that helped her “re-ignite” her passion for the field. The interview goes in to show how growth in science really looks like. Not polished. Not linear. Real.

Sharvari reflects on finding her voice, building agency in science, navigating the rise of AI which she describes as “so scary and so incredible all at once,” and why it is our responsibility to make science more accessible. This interview is vulnerable. It is empowering. And it drops next week.

🎉 Welcoming Our 2026 Executive Board

We’re thrilled to introduce BWIB’s 2026 executive board! This year brings fresh leadership and renewed energy to our mission of building community for women in bioinformatics.

Officers:

Committee Co-Chairs:

📣 Committee Updates: New Structures, New Voices

We’ve made some exciting changes to our committee structure to better serve our growing community.

Communications Committee

Our Website and Communications teams have joined forces into one unified Communications Committee, bringing together a powerhouse group with clearly defined roles:

RoleMembers
InterviewersDana Moochnick, Isha Parikh, Sharvari Narendra
HistorianEmily Kibbler
WebsiteSamantha Klasfeld, Vishwa Talati, Yaseswini Neelamraju
Social MediaSamantha Klasfeld, Sakina Saif, Yaseswini Neelamraju
NewsletterSakina Saif, Samantha Klasfeld, Masoome Rezaei
Communications AnalyticsShreya Rajasekar

It truly takes a village!

Podcast Committee

Say hello to our brand new Podcast Committee, already hard at work on Season 2 of Coffee with CompBio! The team includes Amulya Shastry (editing & management) and Dina Issakova (cover art & social media). Read on for a sneak peek at what’s coming this season.

Nominating & Governance Committee

We’ve formalized a Nominating & Governance Committee to ensure BWIB continues to operate with transparency and accountability. Members include Katie Hughes, Katie D’Aco, and Petra Palenikova, working behind the scenes on board elections, membership structure, and bylaws compliance.

Finance Committee

New this year, the Finance Committee oversees the financial health of BWIB — from budgeting and cash flow to financial filings and evaluating the feasibility of new programs and events. Members include Lorena Pantano and Francine Camacho. Curious about where the money goes? Read on.

🎙️ Coffee with CompBio: Season 2

Coffee with CompBio is BWIB’s podcast. In our previous season, Alex and Lorena dug into bioinformatics topics from best practices in R and navigating bad data to project management and scientific collaboration. This year, our new hosts — Saba Nafees, Sharvari Narendra, Amulya Shastry, and Dina Issakova — continue the quest to bring you both the technical and human side of bioinformatics, especially in the AI era. Look out for upcoming episodes on Claude Code, coding for neurodivergent scientists, perspectives of a job recruiter, and more!

💸 Finance Snapshot

BWIB funds its operations through ticketed events, corporate sponsorships, and individual donations. These funds support event food and beverages, small gift cards to boost participation, website maintenance, branded merchandise to increase visibility, and routine expenses such as postage and printing materials. Continued donor support allows us to expand our programming and reach more members of our community. Your contribution directly helps sustain and grow BWIB’s impact. Consider donating here or reach out to communications@boston-wib.org. if your company would like to become a sponsor for future events.

🤝 Career Mentorship Program Update

We’re excited to share that the inaugural Boston Women in Bioinformatics (BWIB) Career Sponsorship Program officially launched in January! The program received a strong response from the BWIB community, with 38 participants expressing interest, including 28 mentees and 10 senior mentors from academia and industry. Following a thoughtful matching process, 10 mentor–mentee pairs were formed.

Each pair will meet regularly for career-focused conversations centered on leadership development, strategic growth, and professional advancement. The program reflects BWIB’s commitment to supporting women as they advance into leadership roles in bioinformatics and fostering a strong, supportive professional network within the community.

We look forward to sharing updates and highlights from the program throughout the year as these mentorship relationships grow and create meaningful career impact.

📆 Upcoming Events

NF-Core Hackathon

nf-core logo
  • Mar 11-13, 2026
  • Cambridge Side Mall, Cambridge, MA
  • Register

Nextflow fans, this one’s for you! BWIB is helping to host a Boston site for the global nf-core Hackathon at CambridgeSide Mall, March 11–13. Collaborate on Nextflow pipelines, contribute to open-source projects, and connect with the nf-core community in person (or online). All skill levels welcome, though some Nextflow experience is expected. Registration is open now. You will need to sign up in two places, so check out our event page for details.

​​Byte and Bite: Bioinformatics Lunch Meetup

Boston Women in Bioinformatics Byte and Bite
  • Mar 16, 2025, 12:00 PM
  • Shy Bird - Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA
  • Register

Shake off the last of winter and grab lunch with your fellow bioinformaticians at Shy Bird in Kendall Square! Whether you’re deep in pipelines or just bioinformatics-curious, join us for a relaxed afternoon of good food, great company, and springtime vibes.

Single Cell Basics: A 2-Day Hands-On scRNA-seq Workshop

Boston Women in Bioinformatics and Sprout Informatics Logos

Have you read scRNA-seq papers but never run the analysis yourself? This beginner-friendly 2-day Zoom workshop, hosted by BWIB and sponsored by Sprout Informatics, will take you from a raw 10x Genomics dataset through QC, clustering, marker gene identification, and cell type assignment — all in your own dedicated cloud environment. Registration is $5, with all proceeds supporting BWIB.

🌄 Events Recap

New Year, New Connections

The energy at our kick-off event on January 15th was everything we could have hoped for to jump-start 2026. So many first-timers and younger faces joining longtime community members made it one of our most lively socials yet. We loved hearing your ideas for the year ahead, and every suggestion dropped in the box has been read; we’re already working on bringing them to life. Thank you to everyone who came out. You reminded us exactly why we do this.”

Galentines Day Byte & Bite

Group photo, ski lift backdrop
Boston Women in Bioinformatics Galentine's Day Lunch

Eight BWIB members gathered at CanalSide Food & Drink at CambridgeSide Mall to celebrate Galentine’s Day over lunch. It was a relaxed afternoon, and let’s just say the conversation was as good as the food. Members got to know each other better and it was a small but mighty turnout!

📊 Help Us Tell the Full Story — Advocacy Survey

The gender gap in leadership isn’t just a feeling — it shows up in the data. Our ongoing advocacy survey has already captured responses from 194 participants, and the early findings are striking: while women make up the vast majority of respondents, 21% of male respondents report being in a leadership position compared to only 14% of female respondents. In the future, we plan to explore these questions with a well-balanced dataset to understand the bias related to gender gap, pay, and years of experience or education needed. We plan to share the aggregated results publicly and potentially publish findings to benefit the broader community. 

We’re asking you to do two things:

  1. Fill out the survey if you haven’t already
  2. Share it with more people in your network — colleagues, collaborators, partners, friends

Every 100 new responses, we raffle a $25 gift card — so there’s never been a better time to participate.

Take the Survey

Together, we can build the evidence base our community deserves.

🔥 Hot off the Blog

Our bloggers have been busy! Here’s what’s been published recently:

Beyond Behavior: How Machine Learning Decodes Consciousness and Forecasts Seizures · Deep Dive by Dana Moochnick
Reflections on a seminar that explored how AI and brain network analysis are transforming our understanding of consciousness and what that means for epilepsy care.

ctDNA as an Oncology Endpoint · Quick Take by Celine Han, Ph.D.
Takeaways from the Friends of Cancer Research symposium on modernizing oncology endpoints that delivered a clear-eyed look at where ctDNA stands as a clinical biomarker and what still needs to happen for it to get there.

Biobank Intro Series: Getting Started · Tutorial Series by Samantha J. Klasfeld, Ph.D.
The first installment of a weekly tutorial series demystifying UK Biobank and All of Us. If biobank analysis has ever felt overwhelming, this series is for you.

Want to see your name here? We’re always looking for new voices. You don’t need citations, a polished draft, or even a complete idea — just something you’ve been thinking about. Reach out to the us at the communications committee to get started.

🏛️ Executive Board

Executive Board Team

Social Media

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