Wednesday, March 16, 2011

2011 Women to Watch: Nina Dudnick

By Lynette F. Cornell

Nina Dudnik
CEO
Seeding Labs, Boston

Nina Dudnik leads Seeding Labs in overseeing the transfer of surplus biomedical laboratory equipment from the United States to developing countries. She is also a fellow with PopTech Social Innovation and TED. She is running a company that she says “there is no roadmap for,” and she found that even her mentors came from very different backgrounds, compared with what Seeding Labs is doing.

Education: Bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Brown University; Ph.D. in molecular biology from Harvard University

Early interest in science: “I can’t exactly remember not being interested in science. The first time that I definitely remember was when I was taking a class on the weekends in second grade, doing all these experiments at home, like planting radish seeds and putting them in each corner — north, east, south and west — and then one under a lamp in the basement in the dark and charting how fast each one of them grew.”

Saving the world through science: In junior high, she learned about genetic engineering as part of a class assignment to write a report on a current event and rushed out to the library to read the one book it had on genetic engineering. “For school assignments, it kept popping back up again and I really got excited about this idea of the humanitarian aspects of this. I remember I was writing these very idealistic, grandiose essays for school about how this was going to help feed the world. I was completely fired up on both fronts, and it never went away. That’s what carried me through college and since, really.”

Starting a business: “I have a phenomenal peer group of other people starting social enterprises and running them, and that helps a lot because any of us has already done or experienced some small part of what the others are going through at any given time. Starting an organization like Seeding Labs, there’s not a real field. We’re building it as we go. I feel like we are always changing the tires while we’re driving down the highway in a semi.”

Must-have technology: “Skype, hands down. It makes our work a lot easier. I can carry on meetings with people there (in Africa) and vice versa. I love it.”

When not working: “What I don’t do enough, but really love to do, is dance. I really love to dance. Ballroom, West African, drum-based, I’ve done it all. That’s my ideal. That or endlessly watching episodes of the West Wing. I am obsessed with that show.”
 

Pat Larrabee, Seeding Labs board member for two years

What drives her: “Nina is absolutely committed to the mission of Seeding Labs and developing a worldwide scientific community. Nina lives and breathes a ‘science and research are for everyone’ approach to how she views the world and how she feels she can make an impact.”