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2024-2025 Board of Directors
Claudia Prahst
President
Claudia is a freelance medical writer specializing in medical education for healthcare professionals. She is originally from Germany and holds a PhD from the University of Freiburg. She performed research on blood vessel development as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University and was an instructor in the Department of Pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Claudia joined AMWA in 2012, when she decided to start a career in medical writing. She spent several years working as a Medical Writer for EBSCO/DynaMed and Foundation Medicine before she decided to start her own freelance medical writing business.
Caroline McLachlan
President-Elect
Caroline McLachlan is a freelance medical writer specializing in continuing medical education and scientific publications for medical and scientific audiences. She holds an MPhil in Medical Science from the University of Cambridge and went on to earn a PhD in Neurobiology from Boston University, where she studied the interplay of gene expression and behavior. After spending over 6 years writing scientific manuscripts, designing posters for international conferences, delivering oral presentations, and composing federal grants in a research setting, she decided to make the leap and pursue medical writing. Caroline joined AMWA in 2024 and supported the New England Chapter as an outreach volunteer. She is looking forward to continuing to serve New England AMWA, while helping her clients craft high-impact, fact-based documents that lead to exceptional patient care.
Ellie Lin
Immediate Past President
Ellie is a freelance medical editor specializing in copyediting manuscripts and medical communications in AMA style. Her clients include IQVIA, MIMS, MJH Life Sciences, Relevate Health, PhiMed Communications, and Skills Alliance. Before joining AMWA in 2016, Ellie worked in STEM education and bioremediation research. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and an MS in environmental science, with a research focus on soil microbiology, from the University of California Riverside. She holds the AMWA Essential Skills Certificate as well as Board of Editors in Life Sciences certification. Ellie has served as local networking coordinator, programming committee member, volunteer coordinator, and secretary of the New England Chapter.
Asha Castilho
Secretary
Asha Castilho is a freelance medical writer specializing in scientific articles and continuing medical education. She is currently working on promoting abstract snippets, a shortened version of trending abstracts on PubMed. Asha has a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of Notre Dame where she studied immunology of human cells infected with Leishmania. She completed her postdoctoral work at Yale University by developing vaccines against leishmaniasis and validated the immunological mechanism supporting the effectiveness of a small molecule inhibitor for delaying the progress of intestinal and lung cancer. She has attended many regional and national scientific meetings to present posters and talks for communicating her research findings. These are published in peer-reviewed journals. She lives in New Haven.
Jeanette Towles
Treasurer
Jeanette Towles is President and owner of Synterex, Inc., a woman-owned, disability-owned clinical and regulatory consulting firm specializing in agile-based project management methodology, automation, and AI-driven technologies. Prior to that, she held in-house consulting and FTE medical writing and clinical science positions at both small- and large-size companies, including managing a group of programmers and vendors working on automated documents, with cumulative industry experience of over 15 years. She lives in the Boston area with her husband, 2 children, and 2 dogs.
Peter Stein
Treasurer-Elect
Peter is a freelance medical writer and clinical spine specialist, with a research background in human movement science and rehabilitation. He particularly enjoys creating informational materials for clinical professionals, content marketing copy for businesses and general audiences, and plain-language adaptation and summary documents.
Before his science career, he was a classically trained musician, and still enjoys playing with friends and in church activities. He believes the arts will play an important role in medicine and health care; and also that experience in the arts is excellent preparation for becoming a scientist.