Management

Cynthia Helphingstine Ph.D.
President and Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Cynthia Helphingstine is President and Chief Operating Officer of the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities. She is an entrepreneurial executive, specializing in life sciences start-ups. Dr. Helphingstine has a record of successfully bringing together diverse stakeholders to create companies and launch initiatives that impact healthcare research.

Her experience ranges from product development and clinical research positions at Baxter Healthcare to Chief Executive Officer of Tienda Sciences, a start-up commercializing technology for detection and quantitation of very low levels of biomolecules. Most recently, she served as Translational Scientific Officer at BioCrossroads, where she worked to accelerate the advancement of research discoveries at Indiana University from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Dr. Helphingstine has a Ph.D. in Immunology and a B.A. in Microbiology from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and an M.B.A. from the Lake Forest Graduate School of Management in Lake Forest, Illinois. She is on the Advisory Committee of the Indiana University Seed Fund and on the Boards of SpheroSense Technologies and Behavior Corporation.

Brooke McMillen M.A.
Program Manager
Brooke McMillen is the program manager of the Fairbanks Institute for Healthy Communities. She is responsible for coordinating regulatory reporting requirements and facilitating activities associated with the day-to-day operation of the Indiana Health Study. She joined the Fairbanks Institute in 2007 after working as the Communication and Programs Coordinator for the National Panhellenic Conference.

While doing her coursework at Indiana University-Purdue University, where she earned an M.A. of Philosophy in Bioethics, she participated in clinical studies, clinical research, and ethics-related activities at the IU Center for Bioethics. A member of the Healthcare Businesswoman’s Association, McMillen has a B.S. in Biology from Butler University.

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