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Paolo Mangahas, Ph.D.
Director
Education & Training

Paolo Mangahas, Ph.D., is a director in the Division of Education and Training and is responsible for the overall coordination of research education and training activities at MD Anderson, developing and analyzing key performance indicators of research education, and growing multifaceted support for research trainees. Paolo earned his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology and pursued postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine. He was a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Science to Business Fellow at the University of Alberta where he earned his MBA. Paolo has extensive experience in large-scale research project management, grant development and administration, and departmental operations at academic medical centers. In his current role, he serves on the leadership team in Education and Training, steers overall program planning, and builds systems and platforms that enable implementation of these programs throughout the institution. Paolo has been at MD Anderson since 2017 and assumed his current role in November 2019.

Keri Schadler, Ph.D.
Special Assistant

Keri Schadler, Ph.D., is a special assistant to the Chief Education and Training Officer. In this role, Keri serves as the leadership dyad, along with Paolo Mangahas, Ph.D., of the?Research Education and Training department, as well as one of the co-directors of the Cancer Research Training & Education Coordination (CRTEC) component of MD Anderson¡¯s Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG).

Keri is an associate professor in the department of Pediatrics. Her lab investigates the impact of exercise on the tumor microenvironment and the utilization of exercise as a therapeutic adjuvant during cancer treatment. As part of Research Education & Training, Keri is involved in coordinating existing research education and training programs, addressing identified gaps, and evaluating outcomes of research education and training programs at MD Anderson. She serves as one of the leads for integrating CRTEC efforts in CCSG research programs and components. Keri also supports institutional efforts for research student and trainee recruitment and retention, including serving as the director of the Odyssey Fellowship Program.

Lotis Batan
Program Coordinator
Operations & Grant Support

As program coordinator, Lotis Batan assists with multiple aspects of department operations. She joined MD Anderson in 2019 and has extensive experience with administrative and business processes at MD Anderson, including event scheduling, purchasing, managing financials and human resources-related tasks. Lotis has a deep interest in education and has assisted postdocs with various administrative tasks and managed logistics for in-person and virtual MD Anderson UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences classes. She comes from an education background and served as an elementary school science teacher for 16 years. Lotis assumed her current role in January 2023.

Heather Brien
Program Director
Operations & Grant Support

Heather Brien is the program manager for the institution¡¯s Training Grants & Fellowships Office. She has 20+ years of experience in the non-profit and state sectors and 15+ years of managing federal and private sponsored awards. She has served as lead grant administrator for numerous sponsored programs, including T32 training grants, career development (K) awards, fellowship (F) awards, research (R) grants, and center (P) grants. Prior to joining MD Anderson in September 2021, Heather was at Â鶹ӳ»­ Medical Branch at Galveston and administered projects in the Departments of Surgery, Orthopedic Surgery, Anesthesiology, Ophthalmology and the Clinical Cancer Center. She handled all aspects of pre- and post-award grant management, in addition to managing the department¡¯s grants database as well as a small clinical trial portfolio. As program director of the training grants office, Heather focuses on streamlining processes related to grant preparation and helping students, postdocs, faculty and administrators understand the entire process from application to award management and closeout of education and training awards.

Safia Essien, Ph.D.
Administrative Postdoctoral Fellow

Safia Essien, Ph.D., is an administrative postdoctoral fellow in MD Anderson¡¯s Research Education and Training department. A cell biologist by training with a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences, she supports programming for postdoctoral trainees, leads outcomes tracking initiatives and develops projects to improve how departmental data is organized and evaluated. Her work focuses on increasing awareness of institutional resources that contribute to trainee success and advancing program evaluation to better support the postdoctoral community.

Lindsay Evans
Program Coordinator

Lindsay Evans is a Program Coordinator in the Research Education and Training department. She coordinates the Odyssey Fellowship Program and the Comprehensive Approaches for Reducing and Eliminating (CARE) Cancer Disparities Seminar Series in collaboration with the department of Health Disparities Research. Lindsay has a background in human sciences and previously worked at another comprehensive cancer center before joining MD Anderson in 2024.

Briana Mohan
Program Director
Recruitment & Special Programs

Briana Mohan joined MD Anderson in January 2023 as a program manager in the Division of Education and Training. She relocated to Houston from New Orleans, where she most recently created institution-wide career support for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars at Tulane University. In addition, she has been an elected officer and leader of the Graduate Career Consortium. Previously, Briana worked in a variety of academic advising, program management, and instructional roles, including at Â鶹ӳ»­ at Austin and Tulane University. She has a particular commitment to people who have been historically excluded from educational and professional opportunities and enjoys helping to bring about needed change in these areas. Originally from Austin, Texas, she earned a BA in English, with a concentration in Black Studies, from Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania and an MA in English from the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Ryan Udan, Ph.D.
Program Director
Office for Postdoctoral Fellows

Ryan Udan, Ph.D., joined MD Anderson as the program director for the Office for Postdoctoral Fellows in November 2021. He was previously a Ph.D. student working at MD Anderson where he discovered hippo in a genetic screen and demonstrated its role in regulating proliferation arrest and apoptosis. Ryan continued his training as a postdoctoral fellow at Baylor College of Medicine supported by a fellowship from the American Heart Association. He then became a K12 REACH IRACDA fellow and gained teaching experience at Prairie View A&M University. After his postdoc, Ryan moved Missouri State University, where he taught undergraduate and master's students in the department of Biology. He ran an NIH-funded lab that focused on cardiovascular development and was promoted to associateprofessor with tenure. Ryan returned to MD Anderson to support the education and training of postdoctoral fellows by providing resources, opportunities, educational programming, and career and academic advising to its trainees.