Dr. Marina Watanabe

Marina Watanabe was the Creativity and Entrepreneurship Senior Fellow at LPCE where she helped design and implement the student startup incubators, Launch Fund Competition, Project Support Program (PSP), and course curriculum. Prior to joining LPCE, Marina was an Education Innovation Fellow with the Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching where she mentored and distributed funding to Harvard and MIT startup teams working to improve the field of education. Marina is passionate about educational equity, and has worked to recruit underserved and underrepresented students into science and medicine through her previous roles as head curriculum developer and instructor for Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (CURE) program and mentoring director for Harvard Medical School's Health Professions Recruitment & Exposure Program (HPREP). She earned her PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences at Harvard University where her graduate research at Brigham and Women’s Hospital focused on the discovery of novel combination therapies in the treatment of HER2+ breast cancer. When not on campus, Marina can be found choreographing comical dance routines, trying out whimsical exercise classes, and working toward her next storytelling event.

Interests:
- STEM outreach
- Access to science and technology
- Science communication
- Educational equity
- Access to healthcare
- Health literacy