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Dr. Kishan Chandra is a Senior Scientist at USP, specializing in documentary standard development for therapeutic peptides, proteins, and complex biologics. He brings strong expertise in mass spectrometry, capillary electrophoresis, and analytical characterization of monoclonal antibodies and peptides. With prior industry experience in bispecific mAbs and peptide therapeutics, Kishan combines regulatory insight with hands-on analytical depth. He holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology, with a focus on molecular biology and biomolecular characterization.

Dr. Edmond Biba is a Principal Scientist in the General Chapters–Science Division at the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), where he leads the development and maintenance of USP–NF General Chapters. His work includes advancing chapters on analytical methodologies, nitrosamine impurities, and image analysis, while ensuring their scientific and regulatory relevance in collaboration with USP expert committees.

He holds a Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from American University (Washington, DC) and degrees in Chemical Engineering/Chemistry from the University of Tirana, Albania. Dr. Biba is a member of Sigma Xi, ACS, and AAPS, and represents USP in ICH working groups (Q3C and M7) and PQRI’s Product Quality Technical Committee.

Derek Lohmann is a GPC/SEC Product Specialist at Agilent Technologies, with more than 10 years of experience in polymer characterization. He holds a Ph.D. in polymer analysis, with a focus on SEC/GPC and asymmetric flow field-flow fractionation (aFFF) coupled to light scattering for the characterization of large, water-soluble polymers.

He has a longstanding interest in structure–property relationships and in translating polymer physics into practical, robust, and reliable analytical workflows. Derek brings a combination of deep technical expertise and application-driven insight from over a decade of work in the field, including previous roles as Product Specialist for GPC and Business Development Manager at PSS, and now in his current role as Product Specialist for GPC/SEC at Agilent

Maddie Roeckel is an Application Scientist at Agilent Technologies, where she focuses on developing and optimizing analytical and preparative workflows across LC, LC-MS, and SFC platforms. She has extensive experience in method development and purification spanning small molecules, natural products, peptides, and industrial materials, with a strong emphasis on solving complex separation challenges and enabling scale-up from R&D to process levels. Maddie holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College, where she conducted total synthesis research in the Malachowski Lab.

Kenda received her Ph.D. from The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio in the field of Pharmacology with a focus on the signal transduction pathway for the Serotonin 1A (5-HT1A) receptor. Kenda’s post-doctoral work occurred at the University of Houston School of Pharmacy where she studied the effects of inverse agonists and antagonists on Beta receptors in both respiratory and cardiovascular models. Kenda then joined Encysive Pharmaceuticals where she was the lead for the high throughput screening team as well as project manager for target drugs. Following this, Kenda joined PerkinElmer as a high throughput screening Field Application Scientist. For more than fourteen years now, Kenda has been a part of the Automation Team at Agilent and is currently in the role of Automation Workflow Specialist where she is helping researchers find the right solution for their automation needs and working to enable more fully applicated workflows.

Russell Burge is a dedicated leader with a proven track record of success in the development and commercialization of automation, instrumentation, and software products for life science and industrial applications. Currently, he serve as a Product Manager at Agilent Technologies, where he have been working full-time since March 2023. Based in Santa Clara, California, he manages LC/SQ and LC/TOF Mass Spectrometer products. His skills encompass New Product Ideas, Product Requirement Definition, Forecasting, Marketing Strategy, Data Analysis, Sales Performance, Biotechnology, Business Strategy, Market Intelligence, Positioning (Marketing), Product Development, Product Life Cycle, Product Lifecycle Management, Product Marketing, Product Management, Agile Methodologies, Product Strategy, Market Analysis, Market Requirements Documents, Market Assessments, and Competitive Analysis.

Thomas is an LC-MS Application Scientist specializing in protein, peptide, and oligo applications using TOF, QTOF, IM-QTOF, and RapidFire working at the Agilent Lexington, MA site. Thomas joined Agilent after he graduated from Texas A&M University in Fall of 2022 where he specialized in mass spectrometry instrument design, ion mobility-mass spectrometry, and application development centered around native mass spectrometry of intact protein complexes.

April completed here degree in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry & Bioinformatics while completing two fellowships at the NIH.  She has been working in chromatography for over ten years, the last seven of which have been in biopharma specific roles.  She is a subject matter expert in Biocolumns and Biocosumables, having held roles in key accounts management, product development and marketing roles.  April currently works as a Biopharma Technical Specialist in the Eastern US, drawing on her years of product experience to bring value to biopharma labs in the region while helping them make the best choices for the most robust methods.

Brian Whiteley is an Application Scientist in the HPLC group at Agilent. Prior to joining Agilent, he spent over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry with various companies within their discovery chemistry groups. His research has focused on the synthesis, purification, and analysis of compounds generated in library format by LC and LC/MS.

Sandeep Kondaveeti joined Agilent in 2017 worked in multiple roles and currently serves as an HPLC Product Specialist. He holds a graduate degree in Chemistry from Temple University and brings prior biopharmaceutical experience in biologics CMC development, process analytics, and formulation studies. He specializes in LC/MS method development, troubleshooting, and technology transfer for small molecules and biopharmaceuticals.

Ralph Palmeri is a Product Specialist at Agilent Technologies, supporting protein analysis solutions for customers across the United States. With over a decade of capillary electrophoresis (CE) experience, he brings deep technical expertise in protein characterization and analytical workflows. Ralph works closely with biopharma and CDMO organizations to implement innovative technologies like the ProteoAnalyzer system to improve efficiency and data quality.

Melissa Sato brings over 15 years of biopharma experience specializing in analytical sciences, including mass spectrometry and chromatography for mAbs, BiTEs, fusion proteins, and oligonucleotides. She brings over 10 years of experience in Multi-Attribute Method expanding across development to GMP from her roles at Amgen and Thermo Fisher Scientific.  At Amgen, she was an integral part of implementing MAM in GMP and co-authored a patent on sequential enzymatic digestion for MS analysis. Now at Agilent, Melissa leads the MAM for OpenLab CDS product and oversees BioConfirm and ExDViewer, driving innovation in biopharma mass spectrometry applications.

Bill received his B.S. degree from University of Delaware.  He completed his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University, where part of his research included analysis of derivatized amino acids.  He worked at Himont/Montell Polyolefins/Basell in Wilmington Delaware and Elkton Maryland as a Research Scientist where he provided analytical support in HPLC, Polymer Fractionation, Size Exclusion Chromatography, and Regulatory Extractable Analysis in the development of new polymers and additives.  He joined Agilent Technologies in 2001 where he currently works as an Application Scientist. His work has included Automated Method Development, Applications Development using Poroshell 120 columns for Food and Pharmaceutical Analysis and Analysis of Fermentation processes using off line and on-line methods.   He is a member of the American Chemical Society and the Delaware Valley Chromatography Forum. He was a past member of the USP Council of Experts, Chemical Medicines 6, 2015-2020.

Dr. Julie Zhang is a Principal Scientist and Team Lead at the U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP), where she leads initiatives supporting scientific standards and industry collaboration. With nearly a decade at USP and prior experience in analytical services and R&D roles within the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Zhang brings deep expertise in analytical chemistry and method development. She began her career in analytical research at Pharmaceutics International, Inc. and later advanced to a management role at Frontage Laboratories before joining USP. Dr. Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and is recognized for her ability to translate complex analytical challenges into practical, standards-driven solutions for the biopharmaceutical community.

Dr. Jace W. Jones is an Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Education in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, University of Maryland. He is also the Associate Director of the Mass Spectrometry Center at the University of Maryland, School of Pharmacy. Dr. Jones received his B.S. degree from Whitworth University. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington under the mentorship of Dr. Frank Tureček. Following his PhD, he held a post-doc position in the laboratory of Dr. David R. Goodlett (University of Washington School of Pharmacy). He then spent several years in industry investigating the role of environmental contaminants on land resources and human health. Following his transition back to academics, he progressed from research scientist to research faculty under the mentorship of Dr. Maureen A. Kane (University of Maryland School of Pharmacy). In 2018, he started his independent laboratory as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. He was promoted to Associate Professor in the Summer of 2024. His research program seeks to understand the synergistic relationship between chemistry and biology, and how this profound interaction influences human health. Specifically, his lab is focused on developing mass spectrometry-based analytical platforms to investigate how structure impacts function for lipids and more recently oligonucleotides. He has been awarded the ASMS Research Award, the New Investigator Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy, and instructor of the year from the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy.

Dr. Akhilesh Kumar Kuril has 14 years of industrial experience in the analytical development of drug substances and drug products (injectables, ophthalmic, and OSD) for small molecules and large molecules. He has successfully managed drug products from development to commercial scale, navigating the project life cycle and securing regulatory approvals. He is well acquainted with different chromatographic techniques coupled with different detectors, i.e., UV, RI, ELSD, FLR, CAD, MALS, and MS) and other characterization techniques such as circular dichroism, fluorescence spectrometry, Tandem MS, DLS, SV‐AUC and CE, XRPD and DSC. He is certified Black Belt in Lean and Six Sigma. Dr. Akhilesh has made significant contributions to academia and research. He has authored 18 peer-reviewed publications in the field of analytical science and has peer-reviewed research and review articles for the journals of Springer Nature, Elsevier, Wiley, Frontiers, etc. in the field. Currently, he is working in analytical department at Flamma USA, PA.