Scientists & Engineers

Dale Macy
Vice President of U.S. Operations

Dale is an engineering and production professional with over twenty years of experience in device, development, and machine design in the pharmaceutical and automated pharmacy industries. He is experienced with the complete process of new product creation, from concept, development, and design, through manufacture, installation, and qualification at the production site. He has brought a number of products to the marketplace and holds a patent for a multi-zoned infra-red/electronic tablet counting device used in the pharmaceutical packaging industry. Dale has a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a machine design focus from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.

Andrei Rakitin, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist II

Andrei received his BS in Electrical Engineering and his Ph.D. in Mathematics and Physics from MIPT and Institute of General Physics, USSR Academy of Sciences. Andrei worked as a senior scientist at the Institute for Semiconductors and headed a research laboratory at the Institute for New Physical and Applied Problems in Kiev, Ukraine. He also received a postdoctoral training at the University of Toronto, Canada and Brown University, Providence, RI. Andrei has extensive experience in biostatistics, stochastic processes, microfluidics, solid electrolytes, nanotechnology, and optoelectronics. He was a recipient of the JSPS Fellowship for Foreign Researchers, Japan and was an Adjunct Professor with the Graduate School of Physics at York University, Toronto, Ontario. Andrei was awarded two SBIR grants from the U.S. Department of Defense and has two patents pending on ultrasensitive DNA detection and pathogen detection.

Shelley Dougherty, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist

Shelley received her BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of New Hampshire in 2005 and her Ph.D. in Material Science and Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA in 2009. During graduate school, she was an intern with Genzyme's Drug & Biomaterials group for a year and worked on developing hydrogel formulations to prevent post-operative abdominal adhesions. Her dissertation focused on the fabrication of protein and polymer bio-nanomaterials using template-assisted fabrication methods.

Christina Higgin, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist

Christina began working with ECI as an undergraduate intern, while working towards her B.S. in Biochemistry from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. She completed her senior thesis for WPI on optimization of recombinant protein express vectors as an advisee of ECI's CEO, Dr. Mitchell Sanders. Christina spent two years as a research technician in the developmental neurobiology lab of Dr. Elizabeth Ryder at WPI, characterizing mutations that affect axonal guidance in C. elegans, before earning her doctorate in Biomedical Sciences from the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, in New York, NY. Under the mentorship of Dr. Steven Gross at Cornell, Christina studied the regulation of GTP cyclohydrolase I in the synthesis of tetrahydrobiopterin, an essential cofactor for neurotransmitter synthesis and nitric oxide signaling. Her training includes recombinant protein expression and purification techniques, experience with HPLC and mass spectrometry, and methods in enzyme kinetic analyses.

Courtney Mankus, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist

Courtney received her BA in Biochemistry with a concentration in Ethics and Public Policy from Clark University, Worcester, MA in 2004. While completing her undergraduate degree, she interned with ECI Biotech and worked on the development of colorimetric bacterial sensors. She then obtained her doctoral degree in Biochemistry in 2009 from Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, MA. Her graduate work focused on the expression and role of the P2X7 purinergic receptor in the corneal epithelium and corneal stroma. Courtney has extensive experience in confocal and fluorescent microscopy, cell culture, and both protein and molecular biochemical techniques.

Lindsay Poland
Scientist

Lindsay received her bachelor's degree in Biology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. There her work concentrated on cell death in drosophila as part of the Molecular and Cellular Biology Department. She then went on to receive her Master's degree in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Massachusetts School of Biomedical Sciences. Her master's work involved utilizing molecular and cellular approaches to explore the cell cycle in S. pombe. She has worked at ECI for the past five years and has been involved in many projects with the company.

Barbara Yeboah
Scientist

Barbara started working for ECI in 2002 and went on to get her BS in Biotechnology with a concentration in bio-processing from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA. She has worked extensively on assay development and assay optimization using fluorescent and colorimetric sensors. She has experience in bead conjugation for the detection of bacterial proteases in vivo and in vitro. She is currently obtaining her RN degree at Becker College, Worcester, MA.