Reza Firoozabadi

Position: Program Officer

The Program Officer identifies individuals who could be fantastic speakers for the subsequent season. The officer contacts the prospects and book the speakers who are interested. Typically a minimum of 10 speakers need to be aligned for each season and they are booked one year in advance. This makes it possible to market the whole season in addition to the individual speakers.

Since the topics and the caliber of the speakers are the two most important factors that bring the audience, the speaker series need to include individuals with a high credibility or a story that is of strong interest by the public. The topics need to be on the edge of what is happening in the biotech, bio agro and biomedical industries and relevant to the interest of the many.

We have the script of an email that has been tuned and refined over the years that make people solicited accept to be the speaker. The Program Officer drafts a quick overview of the topic and key points that the speaker intents to cover. The program officer communicates with the Speaker Liaison Officer who contacts the speakers shortly after they have been booked by the program officer and works with the speaker to refine the talk title and description. As soon as the text is approved by the speaker, the Webmaster posts the talk. The Speaker Officer keeps the speaker “warm” between the time he/she has been booked and the time of the presentation.

Background:

Reza Firoozabadi is Research Scientist at Philips Healthcare, Advanced Algorithm Research Center, performing algorithm R&D for medical devices while interacting and collaborating with clinical, industrial and academic centers. Holding a PhD degree, Reza has been doing research for many years, published several journal papers, authored and presented various papers and abstracts in scientific conferences, and holds US & International patents. He has solid background and industrial experience in biomedical engineering, applied inverse problems, microwaves & RF, software engineering, and digital and analog electronic design. He is also passionate to learn and apply Project Management and Leadership skills and Lean Six-Sigma principles, and holds certificates in these areas from UC Irvine. Reza is an IEEE EMBS member.