Prachee Avasthi, PhD, an associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, has been named president of the ASAPbio (Accelerating Science and Publication in biology) organization—a scientist-driven nonprofit promoting transparency and innovation in life sciences communication.
“I’m honored to take on this role to help promote more open and rapid scientific communication,” says Avasthi, who joined Geisel in August and has been a member of the ASAPbio board since 2018. “ASAPbio has been hugely influential to me by inspiring broad sharing and dialogue for my own work. I hope to be able to give something back by accelerating positive change within the scientific community and among funders and other stakeholders.”
Avasthi heads an innovative research program at Geisel focused on defining cellular mechanisms of ciliary biogenesis. As a recognized leader in science advocacy, she holds several service-related positions with key scientific organizations. These include serving on the board of directors of eLife, the steering committee of Rescuing Biomedical Research, and the early career advisory board of theJournal of Cell Biology. Avasthi is also founder of New PI Slack, an online community of junior faculty from around the globe.
She has earned multiple awards for her work, including the 2020 Women in Cell Biology Junior Award for Excellence in Research from the American Society for Cell Biology.
Avasthi completed her post-doctoral fellowship in biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California San Francisco in 2015, her PhD in neuroscience at the University of Utah in 2009, and her Bachelor of Science in molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2000.
