As Deputy Chief Scientist, Dr. Donoviel oversees the diverse portfolio of science and technology research and development projects at NSBRI that address the challenges faced by humans in space. She leads the NSBRI Industry Forum and the SMARTCAP grant program that funds and mentors small startup companies. Dr. Donoviel is Director of the Laboratory for Biomedical Innovations where she evaluates new technologies and countermeasures that have the potential to transform medical care in space and on Earth.

A published scientist herself1, Dr. Donoviel interfaces with NASA at many levels ensuring programmatic alignment with the highest risks to human space flight while safeguarding scientific excellence. She is the recipient of several NASA Human Research Program awards and the NSBRI Outstanding Leadership Award, and serves on many advisory and review boards, and lectures about the space life sciences both nationally and internationally.

Dr. Donoviel is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, a member of the Center for Space Medicine, and an elected faculty senator at Baylor College of Medicine, lecturing and mentoring medical students in space biomedical research.

Before joining NSBRI, Dr. Donoviel was engaged in pharmaceutical drug discovery at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company based in The Woodlands, Texas. For eight years, she managed a metabolism research group that identified and validated targets for drug discovery by using in-vivo functional genomics technology, and developed small molecule compounds, antibody, and protein therapeutics against these validated targets.

Dr. Donoviel received her baccalaureate degree in biochemistry at University of California, San Diego, and doctorate also in Biochemistry at the University of Washington. She received a Human Frontiers International Fellowship to perform her postdoctoral research at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where she developed genetically engineered mouse models for Alzheimer’s Disease.