The BES Advisory Board comprises diverse industrial and clinical leaders, who provide advice on the department’s academic, research, outreach and other programs.
The advisory board meets once a year with students, faculty, and administrators to provide input and feedback for the department to achieve its vision of developing biomedical solutions to enhance or regain human health and enabling excellence in education, research, and service.
Director of Global Business Development at Medical Device Pros, LLC
B.S., Chemical Engineering with minor in Bioengineering
MBA, International Business
Biography: Ms. Gardill has over 25 years’ experience encompassing engineering and management from the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. She possesses deep expertise in specifying, starting up, and improving equipment at FDA-regulated companies, including equipment for producing nitinol stents, and for processing Class I lotions and gels. Through her project management roles, Ms. Gardill also has broad, concept to commercialization experience across several categories: pain management & ADHD transdermal drug products, chemical and physical sunscreens, softgels and liquid nutritionals, wound care gels, powders, and molded products.
Ms. Gardill has led multimillion-dollar global equipment launches, involving 20+ person teams in the U.S., China, Brazil and Germany. She managed a department of Green Belt- and Black Belt-certified Engineers as they supported and improved manufacturing processes for nitinol stents, stent-loading, guiding catheters, and guidewires. In that capacity, Ms. Gardill directed FMEA, Design of Experiments, Test Method Validations, IQ, OQ, PQ, Validations, etc. She trained engineers for FDA audit readiness. Ms. Gardill started her career at Abbott Laboratories, where she developed and documented cleaning procedures for Add-Vantage I.V. bags, and was the process engineer for the first equipment installation for Ensure nutritionals.
Ms. Gardill has recently received 2 U.S. Utility patents for her own inventions. She has been granted 2 U.S. trademarks. She also has 2 continuation patent applications filed with the USPTO.
In 2014, together with Dr. Dwight Back, Ms. Gardill co-founded Medical Device Pros, LLC. Medical Device Pros, LLC is an engineering consulting firm for the medical device industry. Ms. Gardill currently manages the business development for this company, and also handles its consulting projects that require her engineering expertise.
B.S. Chemical Engineering
M.S. Chemical Engineering
Biography: Kellee has 14 years of professional engineering experience with 11 years of it being in the biomedical/pharmaceutical industry. She has worked with pharmaceutical products, medical devices and combination products. She has been involved in almost every stage of a product's lifecycle from R&D and proof-of-concept prototype to qualification/commissioning/validation to manufactured product and continuous process verification. Kellee has been responsible for process/design improvements, design/technology transfers, product/equipment reliability, risk mitigation and establishing critical process parameters and controls while complying with EPA regulations, FDA regulations (cGMP), OSHA requirements, IEC guidance and ISO standards.
Managing Partner of C2C Development
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, Valparaiso University
M.S. Engineering Management, University of Florida
Biography: Matt has spent the past 30 years developing medical devices and has over 100 issued US patents. He has worked for Medtronic, Boston Scientific, and several successful startup companies. Matt earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Valparaiso University and an M.S. in Engineering Management from the University of Florida. He is a registered Professional Engineer currently licensed in both California and Florida. Matt founded C2C Development in 2008. C2C is a Melbourne, Florida based medical device development and contract manufacturing firm both FDA registered and ISO 13485 certified.
Infectious disease specialist in Cocoa Beach, Florida
Treasurer, Change Healthcare
Trustee, AMCP (Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy) Foundation
M.D., University of Alabama School of Medicine (UAB)
M.S. Healthcare Informatics. University of Central Florida
Biography: Dr. Kahlon has a background in health information systems, electronic health records (EHR), health data exchange, mHealth and telemedicine. His primary career interest is in applying modern information and communication technologies to transform the delivery of healthcare.
Dr. Kahlon currently serves as Value-Based Payments Evangelist at Change Healthcare. Prior to that, Dr. Kahlon served in various roles at Oracle and McKesson, with a focus on delivering technological innovation to support individualized care at the intersection of population health and precision medicine. In addition, Dr. Kahlon has spent time in community practice as an adult infectious diseases specialist in Florida. Dr. Kahlon is currently on staff at the Orlando VA Medical Center and is affiliated with the University of Central Florida College of Medicine as Assistant Professor of Medicine
Among other professional affiliations, Dr. Kahlon presently serves on the Board of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Central & North Florida Chapter.
Associate Director of Biology, Arvinas
Ph.D., Biochemistry, Dartmouth College
B.S., Nutritional Sciences, Cornell University
Biography: Dr. Chris Hickey has over 20 years of experience in research, previously in academia and currently working in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Hickey is an expert in protein biochemistry, cellular protein homeostasis, and the therapeutic strategy called targeted protein degradation—the use of pharmaceuticals to destroy proteins that drive diseases. He has held positions of increasing responsibility aimed at developing treatments for cancers, inflammatory disorders, and neurological diseases. Dr. Hickey manages a group of several scientists as well as external vendors in directing pre-clinical drug development.
Dr. Hickey has trained many scientists and students, including several interns, both in industry and academia. During his time in academia, Dr. Hickey taught courses in biochemistry, cell biology, anatomy and physiology, and nutrition.
Dr. Hickey has published over 15 research articles in journals such as Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, PNAS, EMBO Journal, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Journal of Biological Chemistry, and Genetics. He also published a highly cited review on the SUMO pathway in Nature Reviews Molecular and Cellular Biology and co-edited a book on Targeted Protein Degradation that was published in Methods in Molecular Biology in 2021. Dr. Hickey has been a peer reviewer for several journals throughout his career.
Professor and Chair, Biomedical Sciences at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
Ph.D. Microbiology, University of Texas at Austin
B.S. Biology (Molecular option), University of Texas at Austin
Biography: Dr. Bramblett is Professor and founding Chair of Biomedical Sciences at Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Las Cruces New Mexico, where she teaches microbiology during the two pre-clinical years. As a founding faculty member at Burrell, she helped establish the curricular framework, faculty governance, and admissions process before matriculation of the first class at Burrell in 2016.
Dr. Bramblett came to Burrell from Texas Tech Paul L. Foster School of Medicine (PLFSOM) in El Paso, where she served as one of the founding faculty in the Department of Medical Education. She honed her skills as an educator serving as an assistant professor at the University of Saint Thomas (UST) in Houston, Texas and developed a strong interest in curriculum design. Dr. Bramblett received her postdoctoral training in the Department of Cell Biology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where she studied pancreatic and neurological development. While at Baylor, she cloned and characterized the transcriptional regulator Bhlhb4 and discovered its role in the developing mouse retina and the anterior pretectal nucleus (AtPN) of the mouse brain. Dr. Bramblett earned her PhD in microbiology at the University of Texas in Austin, where she studied the transcriptional regulation and replication cycle of the retrovirus Mouse Mammary Tumor virus (MMTV).
Dr. Bramblett has published over 19 articles in journals such as Journal of Virology, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Genomics, Neuron, Journal of Physiology, Ophthalmology & Visual Science, Frontiers in Oncology, Proceedings of National Academy of Science (PNAS) and published book chapter on pancreatic islet development in Advances in Pharmacology.
Dr. Bramblett’s current research at Burrell involves the development of point of care (POC) molecular detection methods for viral and bacterial pathogens. These methods include a loop mediated isothermal amplification assay (LAMP) and a platform termed specific high-sensitivity enzymatic reporter unlocking (SHERLOCK) that is based on CRISPR-CAS13a activity.
Dr. Bramblett’s experience at undergraduate and medical institutes of higher learning that value diversity has fostered her commitment to improving healthcare by workforce diversification though research, service, and teaching in the biomedical sciences.