Our Team
Acumen brings a host of talented individuals to serve our clients. Our network includes over
50 contributors to handle projects of any size and scope.
Senior Management
Justin McLaughlin
Chief Executive Officer and Founder
With leadership in medical writing and product development, Justin oversees Acumen’s services and software development.
Virginia Kelly
Chief Medical Officer and Founder
A board-certified hematologist/oncologist, Virginia provides strategic medical and clinical development support.
Michael Claffey
Chief Operating Officer
Having led medical writing teams for over a decade, Michael heads Acumen’s medical writing services.
Fernando Venegas
Head of Operations & Quality
Fernando has worked in biotech for 25 years and leads Acumen’s program management and quality control services.
Medical Writers
Bruce Pierce
Director of Product Development
With over 20 years’ experience in software development, Bruce leads Acumen’s product development.
Tessy Sebastian
Associate Director of Clinical Writing
With over a decade of experience as a medical writer, Tessy oversees Acumen's clinical writing services.
Justin McLaughlin
Chief Executive Officer and Founder
With leadership in medical writing and product development, Justin oversees Acumen’s services and software development.
Tessy Sebastian
Associate Director of Clinical Writing
With over a decade of experience as a medical writer, Tessy oversees Acumen's clinical writing services.
Tim Henion
Senior Director of Medical Writing
A seasoned research scientist and nonclinical writer, Tim oversees Acumen’s nonclinical writing.
Michael Claffey
Chief Operating Officer
Having led medical writing teams for over a decade, Michael heads Acumen’s medical writing services.
Ava Taylor
Lead Medical Writer
Ava has been a medical writer for 15 years, with extensive experience in managing writing teams and overseeing processes. Ava also performs lead medical writing for all clinical document types.
Kelly Danyow
Senior Director of Editorial Services
With more than 12 years of experience editing and writing technical documents, Kelly oversees Acumen’s editorial services and document QC.
Elizabeth Shea
Director of Publications
Elizabeth has extensive experience writing clinical and disease-burden publications as well as regulatory documents. Her collaborative approach is informed by 10+ years of leading publication planning teams in medical affairs departments.
Mahin Arastu
Lead Medical Writer
As a neuroscience researcher with over 14 years of experience in industry, Mahin has authored a wide range of documents from publications to nonclinical regulatory submissions.
Colleen Mullen
Narrative Director / Managing Medical Writer
With 25+years as a scientist and medical writer, Colleen has expertise in all phases of clinical writing, and leads Acumen’s narrative writing teams.
Jamie Spagnuolo
Lead Editor
With 5 years’ experience editing medical content, Jamie supports both Acumen's editing and medical writing services.
Tim Henion
Senior Director of Medical Writing
A seasoned research scientist and nonclinical writer, Tim oversees Acumen’s nonclinical writing.
Kelly Danyow
Senior Director of Editorial Services
With more than 12 years of experience editing and writing technical documents, Kelly oversees Acumen’s editorial services and document QC.
Dora Blake-McLaughlin
Finance Manager
Dora leads Acumen’s finance and human resources.
Laney Casella
Medical Writer
Laney has 10 years of biomedical engineering research experience and contributes to Acumen’s clinical and non-clinical writing projects.
Elin Agoston
Managing Medical Writer
With a background as a research cancer biologist, Elin authors a wide range of nonclinical documents, both for regulatory and publications.
Courtneay Parsons
Lead Medical Writer
In her nearly 20 years of experience as a medical writer, editor, and team leader, Courtneay has worked across multiple clinical document types and therapeutic areas.
Jennifer Hensel
Lead Medical Writer
With a background in immunology and cancer research, Jennifer has over 10 years of writing regulatory and clinical documents, with a focus on oncology.
Dayna Deuter
Lead Medical Writer
With 18 years of medical writing experience, Dayna has deep experience writing regulatory documents, with a focus on oncology, rare disease, and gene therapy submissions.
Nate Connors
Lead Medical Writer
Nate is a veteran medical affairs professional specializing in medical affairs publication planning and content development.
Aaron Slyman
Senior Medical Writer
Joining Acumen after completing his PharmD, Aaron contributes to the development of various clinical documents including submission filings.
Mary Donoghue
Senior Medical Writer
Mary is a clinical writer with an extensive scientific background and experience across multiple regulatory document types, including patient narratives.
Jen Bracy
Senior Medical Writer
Leveraging her background in molecular immunology and over 15 years of analytical experience, Jennifer authors both clinical and nonclinical regulatory documents and publications.
Lindsay Larkin
Senior Medical Writer
With over 10 years editing biomedical content, Lindsay supports both Acumen's clinical writing and editing.
Ida Lister
Senior Medical Writer
Ida is an experienced biochemist and applied microbiologist with a drug discovery background, supporting non-clinical and regulatory document writing.
Kris Nelson
Narrative Medical Writer
Kris has over 20 years of pharma/biotech experience specializing in drug safety and narrative writing, having authored over 30,000 narratives.
Lori Potraffke
Lead Editor
Lori has worked in the pharmaceutical industry for nearly 15 years, specializing in copy editing, data quality control review, formatting, template creation, and style guides.
Alice Lim
Senior Medical Writer
Alice is a medical writer with a cancer cell biology background who supports nonclinical publications and regulatory submissions.
Beth Miller
Senior Medical Writer
Beth has been a medical writer for 17 years, with experience in multiple therapeutic areas and regulatory document types, including patient safety narratives.
Patrick Barry
Lead Medical Writer
Having worked in medical and scientific communications for 10+ years, Patrick has extensive experience of clinical content development across several therapeutic areas, with a focus in hematology/oncology and rare diseases.
Phil Hamilton
Managing Medical Writer
As a lead medical writer for Acumen, Phil is able to bring his 20+ years of experience to clinical document preparation.
Dikshya Bastakoty
Senior Medical Writer
With a background in molecular biology and over 10 years leading and managing research projects, Dikshya contributes to a wide range of clinical and nonclinical documents.
Paula Gauthier
Lead Medical Writer
Paula has led, written, and edited clinical, regulatory, and pharmacovigilance documents for more than 20 years with a strong focus on oncology.
Sarah Ryan
Medical Writer
With a background as a research scientist, Sarah supports clinical and nonclinical documents.
Medical Editors
Mia DeFino
Senior Medical Writer
Mia is a medical writer and project manager with a background in pharmacology and translational science who supports clinical publications and regulatory submissions.
Pat Nastase
Lead Medical Writer
Pat has 25 years of experience as a regulatory medical writer and has written a wide variety of clinical documents and contributed to many submissions.
Paul Guttry
Senior Medical Writer
Paul is a medical writer with a focus on clinical manuscripts and publications, leveraging his extensive prior experience in academic publishing.
Caroline David
Senior Medical Writer
Caroline is an experienced research scientist who contributes to nonclinical and clinical writing and project management.
Kim Green
Clinical Trials Disclosure
Kim has 15 years of experience writing and reviewing clinical documents and managing global teams and has substantial expertise in clinical trial transparency and disclosure.
Mary Claffey
Lead Editor
With over 20 years in academic publishing, medical writing, and technical communications, Mary provides in-depth quality reviews and editing.
Louise Adam
Lead Editor
Louise is a scientific/medical editor with 20 years of experience, with a background in clinical genetics. She is a BELS Diplomate and CIEP advanced professional member.
Virginia Kelly
Chief Medical Officer and Founder
A board-certified hematologist/oncologist, Virginia provides strategic medical and clinical development support.
Medical
Regulatory Affairs
Connor Wood
Medical Editor
Connor holds a PhD from Boston University and brings his 10+ years of experience in research and editing to Acumen's editorial and QC team.
Susana Curley
Editor
As a neurobiologist, Susana has spent 15 years working in Academia and in the Pharmaceutical industry, and brings this experience to Acumen as a member of its narrative writing and scientific document editing teams.
Rebecca Paintin
Project Coordinator
Rebecca contributes to Acumen’s software development; she also supports Acumen’s narrative writing team as an editor and writer.
Fernando Venegas
Head of Operations & Quality
Fernando has worked in biotech for 25 years and leads Acumen’s program management and quality control services.
Elizabeth Knight
Medical Editor
Elizabeth uses her experience as a chemist, project manager, and science editor as a member of Acumen's editorial and QC services team.
Carolyn Whiston
Senior Editor
With over 25 years of experience in medical editing and document quality review across multiple therapeutic areas and phases of development, Carolyn supports Acumen's editorial and QC team.
John Welle
Senior Graphic Designer
John has spent 20 years as a technical writer and graphic designer, leading Acumen’s graphical services for posters and publications.
Gabby Mangino
Associate Director of Business Development
With a background in medical writing, editing, and product management, Gabby collaborates with the software and services teams to facilitate marketing initiatives and efficiencies in business development to Acumen.
Cindy Spier
Medical Lead
Cindy is a board-certified physician trained in emergency medicine with 25 years of experience. She supports medical review of patient narratives.
Mandy Munsch
Project Manager
Mandy leverages her background in biomedical engineering research to support project management and clinical writing at Acumen.
Gabby Mangino
Associate Director of Business Development
With a background in medical writing, editing, and product management, Gabby collaborates with the software and services teams to facilitate marketing initiates and efficiencies in business development to Acumen.
Deb Wallace
Human Resource Manager
Deb has over 25 years of experience managing academic research enterprises and supporting learning organizations’ capability development.
Hilary Weismiller
Medical Writer and Editor
Hilary leverages her background as a research scientist and project manager to support Acumen's writing and QC teams.
Katie Kane
Regulatory Affairs Consultant
Katie is a Regulatory Affairs consultant with over 25 years of experience across devices, biologics, and drugs and a range of indications.
Program Management
Graphic Design
Clinical Trials Disclosure
Internal Support
Elizabeth Shea
Director of Publications
Elizabeth has extensive experience writing clinical and disease-burden publications as well as regulatory documents. Her collaborative approach is informed by 10+ years of leading publication planning teams in medical affairs departments.
Darlene Vickers
CMC Regulatory Affairs Consultant/Writer
Darlene is a regulatory affairs and CMC writer with a background in CMC regulatory strategy; alongside Module 3 authoring, she performs risk mitigation and strategic CMC plans for biopharmaceutical companies.
Jacquie Cronin
Lead Medical Writer
Jacquie is a lead medical writer with over 18 years of experience writing clinical regulatory documents and publications.
Petra Langerak
Lead Medical Writer
With a background in immunology, molecular biology, and drug discovery, Petra contributes to a wide range of clinical documents.
Sarah Keates
Medical Writer
Sarah is a medical writer with experience in both basic science and clinical research. She supports clinical and nonclinical documents and publications.
Laura Pringle
Editor
Laura is a medical writer with a background in Health Sciences who supports Acumen’s writing and QC teams with regulatory and clinical document submissions.