Bioanalysis Rising Star Award 2025: the judges

We are thrilled to announce the judging panel for the Bioanalysis Rising Star Award (formerly the New Investigator Award). Each judge is a leading expert in the bioanalytical community and we are delighted they are sharing their knowledge and expertise to help make this year’s award extra special!

Back to the 2025 Bioanalysis Rising Star Award

Neil Spooner
Director and Founder of Spooner Bioanalytical Solutions (Hertford, UK)

Neil is the Founder of Spooner Bioanalytical Solutions, helping companies to integrate biological fluid microsampling and patient centric sampling as well as analysis into workflows. He also works with organizations to develop technologies and introduce them to the market. Neil also assists organizations with their understanding of emerging trends in the pharmaceutical industry and bioanalysis. Neil is a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire (Hertfordshire, UK), Editor in Chief of Bioanalysis Journal, Founder of the Patient Centric Sampling Interest Group and Co-Chair of the Reid Bioanalytical Forum. He has published over 70 peer reviewed manuscripts and delivered over 50 podium presentations.

Melanie Anderson
Principal Scientist at Merck Research Laboratories (NJ, USA)

Melanie Anderson is a Principal Scientist at Merck Research Laboratories and runs a small group in the Clinical Regulated Bioanalysis space. Melanie has over 15 years of experience in both Pharma and CRO settings conducting LC–MS/MS analysis for quantitation of small molecules and peptides. Melanie has participated in FDA inspections and contributed to regulatory filings. Additionally, Melanie has experience in non-compartmental pharmacokinetic analysis of atypical compounds.

She received her BA in Chemistry from Hastings College (NE, USA) in 2002, and an MS in Chemistry from Lehigh University (PA, USA) in 2007. Melanie’s scientific interests include analysis of unique matrices, unstable compounds, challenges in chromatographic separations, and at-home microsampling approaches for regulated clinical trials. Recently, Melanie has evaluated and helped implement microsampling devices in animal and human regulated studies.

Seema Kumar
Senior Director of DMPK & Bioanalysis at Pioneering Medicines (MA, USA)

Seema Kumar is a Senior Director at Pioneering Medicines, the internal R&D unit of Flagship Pioneering. In her role, Dr Kumar leads the DMPK and Bioanalytical function, providing drug-disposition support across various therapeutic modalities from discovery through clinical development.

Previously, Dr Kumar was a Director at EMD Serono Inc. (Darmstadt, Germany), a division of Merck KGaA, where she led the Clinical Bioanalytical Sciences group, supporting DMPK, Bioanalysis and Immunogenicity for preclinical and clinical stage NBE and ADC programs. Prior to that, she led the regulated Bioanalytical group at Pfizer (NY, USA). Earlier in her career, Dr Kumar held leadership positions at XBiotech USA, Inc. (TX, USA), including Director of Quality Control and Director of a CLIA-certified Clinical Bioanalytical Lab.

Dr Kumar holds a PhD from Johns Hopkins University (MD, USA) and has authored numerous peer-reviewed publications. She has also contributed as a book editor and chapter author. Dr Kumar frequently presents at national and international scientific conferences and is actively involved in industry consortia such as AAPS and The Boston Society. Additionally, she serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cincinnati (OH, USA).

Tomislav Caval
Senior Scientist at Regeneron (NY, USA)
2024 BRSA winner

Tomislav Caval is an Analytical Chemist at Regeneron focusing on the characterization of biologics with an emphasis on mapping and understanding mucin type O-glycosylation. He obtained his PhD in Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry at Utrecht University (Netherlands) in 2019, under the supervision of Professor Albert Heck. During his PhD, he focused on developing new analytical approaches for mass spectrometric analysis of intact glycoproteins. In parallel, he developed methods for large-scale mapping of intact glycopeptides from cell lines, enabling insight into the landscape of mannose-6-phosphate-modified glycoproteins. He further honed his skills in the field of O-glycosylation by joining the lab of Professor Henrik Clausen, followed by a short postdoc at Stanford University (CA, USA) in the lab of Nobel laureate Professor Carolyn Bertozzi. Prior to joining Regeneron, he focused on studying the functional roles of glycosylation in human health and disease at InterVenn Biosciences (CA, USA) with the aim of developing improved liquid biopsies for early cancer detection.