Second invited speaker confirmed for our conference! Dr. Irina Filonova!

Dr. Irina Filonova is an academic developer at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Okinawa, Japan. She helps STEM researchers from over 40 countries to find academic and non-academic jobs across the globe.  Her day-to-day job is never boring as she gets to work with an incredibly diverse international population and face peculiar challenges of cross-cultural communication. Dr. Filonova enjoys moving to new places and experience difference cultures not as a tourist but as a resident. Thus, Japan is the 3^rd country Dr. Filonova has lived and worked and, by far, not the last one.

In addition to her curious cultural experiences, Dr. Filonova has a non-conventional professional background for a scientist. Born in Russia, she studied literature and linguistic until she moved to the US in search for her true self. While the search wasn’t quite fruitful, it brought her to FL where she decided to pick up her education and completed B.S. in Biology and Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences (Neuroscience) form the Medical School, University of South Florida. After 3-year postdoc at UT Southwestern, Dallas, TX, she found herself on a subtropical island of Okinawa where she is still exploring multiple professional identities and passionately supporting women in STEM. https://www.linkedin.com/in/irinafilonova/