Newest Members of the Promega Genetic Identity Team
Benoît received a Biotechnology and Biochemistry engineering degree in Lyon, France, and then worked for the forensic lab there for 7 months as an intern. After his internship, he moved to Safran, where he worked as an R&D engineer, focusing on rapid DNA and developing a new rapid DNA instrument in partnership with a US start-up company. As the project evolved, Safran developed a partnership with IntegenX, and Benoît was asked to evaluate their rapid DNA instrument and validate its performance. After the technical evaluation, he became involved in sales and marketing of the instrument.
Benoît has a variety of cultural interests, including music and comic books. He also enjoys sports, especially football, which he plays on the pitch and also watches on television with his friends.
Alexander Pochekovskiy
Alexander studied biology at Altai State University in Siberia, investigating plant cell culture in vitro. After graduating in 2004, he began work in the Ministry of Interior of the Altai region, where he worked for the police patrol service for approximately one year. In 2006, he became a forensic expert for the police lab. In 2009, the lab acquired an Applied Biosystems® 3130 Genetic Analyzer, among other equipment for DNA-based identification, and were the first to use capillary electrophoresis for forensics in Russia. Later in 2009, Alexander moved to Moscow and began a new job at the Russian Forensic Medical Center, where he met Pf. Pavel Ivanov and worked with him to resolve many interesting cases. The most famous case was the identification of victims of a Polish airplane crash, including the Polish president. For this work, he received an award from Ministry of Health. In 2010 Alexander was recruited by a Russian company to work as a product specialist and promote QIAGEN products for human identification applications.
Alexander has many different hobbies, but his favorite activity is travelling. He also enjoys taking pictures while travelling. He hopes one day to organize a photo exhibition of his work. Alexander is also interested in boating and is participating in yacht courses.
Lisa Ortuno
Lisa graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2002 with a Ph.D. in biology with an emphasis on genetics and evolution. Her work as a graduate student entailed capturing American alligators and generating their DNA STR profiles for population genetic studies of diversity and mating systems dynamics. Her graduate work used Applied Biosystems capillary electrophoresis platforms and software, and she was hired immediately by as an Applied Biosystems Field Applications Specialist. For almost ten years her responsibilities included providing training and technical support for capillary electrophoresis instruments and software to academic, government, clinical and forensics labs around the US. Prior to joining Promega, Lisa worked for a brief time at Illumina, providing technical support and troubleshooting for next-generation sequencing systems.
Lisa currently lives in Wake Forest, North Carolina, with her 8 year-old daughter, Zoe, with whom she enjoys hunting for fossils, fishing, kayaking, camping and catching bugs and other creatures. Lisa is also an active member of the Baha’i Faith and enjoys writing about and engaging in discussions with others on the topic of science and religion.
