Celebrating the 2021-2022 PINC & gSTAR graduates!!
On Wednesday May 25th, we reunited in person to celebrate the accomplishments of our PINC and gSTAR students. It has been a long and winding road for these graduates, but they kept pushing and earned their Computing Applications minor and Data Science and Machine Learning for Biotechnology certificate!!
The event took place at the Seven Hills Conference Center. We were very honored to host several instrumental members of the Genentech team, who we partnered with to develop the curriculum for our gSTAR certificate program. Of particular note was Marlena Jackson, Sr. Diversity & Inclusion Business Partner at Genentech. Marleana is one of the founding members of the gSTAR program and her contributions to the establishment and growth of the program cannot be understated. We also hosted a poster session where grads were able to showcase their research, and the whole event was capped off with an industry mixer! Students, grads, and alumni were all able to rub elbows with scientific and industry leaders from IBM, UCSF, Genentech, NVIDIA and more!!
Every graduation is special of course, it is a time to honor those who have worked hard, persevered and achieved their goals. This 2021-22 PINC graduation is also special for a few reasons (1) because we celebrated the inaugural cohort of gSTAR students, (2) our partners from Genentech were able to participate, and (3) it marked the first time since before the pandemic began that so many of us were able to attend in person!!
Several PINC/gSTAR students accepted internship positions at Genentech and others were accepted to PhD programs! We are so very proud of our students, all that they have achieved, and we are excited to see where they go next!
"Today, we are here to recognize and celebrate these students who began, endured, and successfully completed the PINC, GOLD, or gSTAR certificate programs. I want to begin by saying congratulations and well done. Bringing together the fields of computing and data science with biology and chemistry is a pathway towards the future, that is now. The growth of technology to analyze large data sets, create applications, and the ability to code has never been more important in a generation than it is now. To the dreamers and organizers of these programs, I am happy to say your dream has come true amongst these students today. "
Chris Davies, Ph.D.
Antibody Engineering Department
Genentech Early Research and Development (gRED)
Genentech, Inc.
"When I envisioned gSTAR many years ago, I did so with this exact day in mind and with the idea that such a program would have a tremendous impact on the lives of students pursuing STEM. Thank you for making this a reality...
And thank you to the amazing gStar collaborators at SF State and Genentech who worked tirelessly to make this a reality.
Students, as you begin the next chapter, embrace it with curiosity, courage, and confidence and with grace for yourself and others. You are indeed changing the space of SCIENCE"
Joy Branford
Head of Global Talent, Diversity, Equity and Belonging
Altos Labs
Data Science and Machine Learning for Biotechnology Certificate (gSTAR) Founding Member
"This reminds me of the saying, 'it takes a whole village to raise a child' We are very happy to be a part of that whole village to raise our valuable students!! And thank you so much to the whole team for all of your hard work."
Professor Ilmi Yoon
PINC/gSTAR
Department of Computer Science
San Francisco State University
"You have completed the work and are now armed with new and valuable knowledge. I am sure that you will apply it well to your future endeavors. But also, I hope that you also take with you from these programs, the spirits of kindness and compassion, remember the importance of self-care, and remember that “We miss 100% of the shots we don't take”, so go for your goals! We are in awe of you and are so proud to have been a small part of your academic and professional journeys."
Michael Savvides
Program Manager
Department of Computer Science
San Francisco State University
