The Board of Directors of the
Massachusetts Life Sciences Center

Schedule of Board Meetings

 

Officers
Chair, Secretary Daniel O'Connell
Vice Chair, Dr. Jack Wilson
Secretary, Assistant Secretary Jay Gonzalez

 

Daniel O’Connell
Secretary of the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development

Secretary O'Connell heads up EOHED which aligns the state’s housing and economic development agencies. He is an attorney and a former real estate developer with extensive management experience. He has worked in federal, quasi-public, and private institutions in Boston and Washington, DC.

In December, 2005, he joined Meredith & Grew as an Executive Vice President, Partner and senior member of the firm’s Development and Advisory Services Group.

From 1998 to 2005, as a Principal in the Development Services Group at Spaulding & Slye Colliers, O'Connell provided strategic counsel and execution capabilities to governmental, institutional and corporate clients. O'Connell was in charge of several large-scale permitting and development projects, including: Fan Pier, Boston, Massachusetts; North Point, Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, Massachusetts; and, the Puerto Rico Convention Center District Authority, San Juan, Puerto Rico. He also served as the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Industrial Finance Agency (now MassDevelopment), the Massachusetts quasi-public development finance agency, and as the Director of Planning and Development for the Massachusetts Port Authority.

For eleven years, O'Connell was a lead real estate attorney with the Boston and Washington, DC law firm of Gadsby & Hannah, including serving as Managing Partner of the firm. He also was the first Chief of Staff for Congressman Edward J. Markey, D.–Mass.

Since 2003, O'Connell has been a guest speaker on “The Permitting and Public Approval Process” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Real Estate Development.

He served in 2006 as a Commissioner of the Massachusetts Legislative Commission on Metropolitan Beaches. O'Connell is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia Bars.

Jack Wilson, PhD
President, University of Massachusetts

Jack Wilson is the 25th President of the University of Massachusetts system, serving since September 2, 2003.

Prior to becoming President, he served as the Vice President for Academic Affairs of The University of Massachusetts system and CEO of UMassOnline. Formerly, Wilson was the J. Erik Jonsson '22 Distinguished Professor of Physics, Engineering Science, Information Technology, and Management at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he had also served as a Dean and interim Provost. Prior to that he served as the head of a scientific society (AAPT) in Washington, DC and as a Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland.

Wilson has authored over 55 scholarly articles, wrote or edited five books, and given over 200 invited lectures. He has enjoyed over $23 million in funding for his research and scholarly activities. Wilson is nationally and internationally known for his leadership in the reform of higher education programs. He has also been a successful entrepreneur, as he founded a software company and took it through several rounds of venture capital and two mergers into a public company on the NASDAQ exchange.

As the founding CEO of UMassOnline, he helped to build UMassOnline into one of the largest externally directed online programs in the United States. Wilson was also the founder, CEO, and Chairman of the LearnLinc Corporation, founded in 1993.

His strong interest in the links between higher education and economic development led to becoming the co-founder of the Paul Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship, the creator of a national workshop series for technology enhanced entrepreneurship education for university faculty, a national advisory committee member for the Kauffman Entrepreneurship Fellowship Program, and a member of the Massachusetts Legislature's Science, and Technology Caucus. He served on the core internal steering group with MassInsight, the Mass High Technology Council, and other organizations in the development of a Science and Technology Roadmap for Massachusetts. He has served as a consultant to many computing and communications firms including IBM, AT&T, Lucent, Hewlett Packard, and Boeing Flight Safety International.

Marc D. Beer
President and Chief Executive Officer, ViaCell, Inc.

Marc D. Beer joined ViaCell in April 2000 as the founding President and Chief Executive Officer, bringing over 17 years of experience in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Prior to ViaCell, he held marketing and business development roles at Genzyme Corporation, most recently serving as Vice President of Global Marketing. In this role, he was responsible for global marketing and business development activities within Genzyme’s therapeutics division. Before Genzyme he was Vice President, Sales at Biostar, Inc. and held a variety of sales and marketing roles in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic devices divisions of Abbott Laboratories. He also serves on the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Emerging Companies Section Governing Body. Mr. Beer holds a B.S. from Miami University.

Jay Gonzalez
Undersecretary of Administration and Finance

Jay Gonzalez currently serves as the Undersecretary of Administration and Finance. In this capacity he is responsible for developing and overseeing the state's capital finance program and serves as the Secretary's designee on the boards of a number of public authorities and agencies.

Prior to joining the Patrick Administration, Gonzalez was a partner at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge LLP where he served as counsel to hundreds of cities, towns, school districts and other governmental entities throughout New England in connection with the financing and development of major capital projects and other governmental programs. He has assisted governmental entities with a wide array of public projects, including the construction of schools and other municipal buildings, water and sewer projects, economic development projects, land conservation, transportation projects and other municipal infrastructure improvements. Gonzalez also served as general counsel to a number of municipal and other governmental and quasi-governmental entities, primarily on finance-related matters.

Micheline M. Mathews-Roth, MD
Harvard Medical School, Professor of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Physician

Dr. Mathews-Roth serves as Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and is Associate Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She performs basic science and clinical research in photobiology.

Her clinical studies focus on developing photo-protective treatments for the orphan disease, erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), and other human photosenstivity diseases. She is studying beta-carotene and the amino acid cysteine as photoprotective agents in EPP. She is also developing gene therapy methods for EPP.

Dr. Mathews-Roth has organized the Erythropoietic Protopophyria Research and Education Fund (EPPREF) as a support group for EPP patients and their families. She also acts as a consultant on the treatment of EPP, and is on the scientific advisory board of the American Porphyria Foundation. She is available to advise patients and their physicians about the light-sensitive porphyrias, and the medical uses of beta-carotene and other carotenoid pigments.

Her basic science studies concern: 1) the molecular biology of EPP, including gene therapy studies; 2) carotenoid molecule (as opposed to vitamin A) photoprotective and other functions in the bacteria which contain carotenoids, as well as mammilian cells supplemented with them; and 3) the genetics of pigment formation in the non-photosynthetic carotenoid-containing bacteria.