Nucleate Rhode Island — Winter Women's Dinner 2026
Nucleate Rhode Island is hosting a Women's Dinner at CAV, sponsored by Lyda Hill Philanthropies, to connect women trainees with women leaders in the biotech industry. This Women’s Dinner is part of Nucleate's global initiative to support women in leadership positions. The initiative aims to bring together women trainees in leadership roles with current women leaders in the life sciences, fostering mentorship, networking, and empowerment.
We are looking for motivated trainees, students and young professionals to join us. Dinner expenses are covered by Nucleate.
About the speakers: Our two women leaders attending the dinner are Danya Lavin, PhD, and Michelle Wu.
Dr. Danya Lavin is the Executive Director of Ocean State Labs, a brand new, state-of-the-art incubator space powered by Portal Innovations. She has over 10 years of experience in R&D leadership in biotech, developing workflows to produce and test translational therapies.
Michelle Wu is a leader and unifier within the Providence biotech ecosystem, serving as a board member of RiBio for over 4 years. She is the Executive Director of Nova Ignite, an incubator supporting female founders in the women's health medical device space as they move towards commercialization.
About the Host:
Nucleate is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech leaders. With chapters spanning 41 geographic regions and participation from over 280 academic institutions, Nucleate sparks new intellectual communities and embeds emerging talent within a global biotech community. Through open-access educational programming, Nucleate helps democratize biotech innovation — removing barriers and helping founders concentrate on building transformational technologies. Visit www.nucleate.org for more information, and visit https://nucleate.org/privacy-policy/ to read our privacy policy.
We want to thank our HQ supporters for championing our open-access mission and empowering the next generation of biotech entrepreneurs!
Platinum: Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, MilliporeSigma
Philanthropic Support: Lyda Hill Philanthropies
Preferred Partners: Pillar VC, Amino Collective, Excedr, Mercury, Brex, Fedsprout, Browne Consulting
In-Kind Support: AcademicLabs, Lens.org, SynBioBeta