Felicia Walton Pagliuca PhD

Dr. Felicia Pagliuca, PhD., currently serves as Vice President of Cell Biology Research and Development and is scientific co-founder of Semma. She leads internal cell-based research and development and plays a key role in supporting Semma's preclinical, regulatory, and manufacturing strategies for its cell therapy products. Felicia also works closely with Semma’s senior leadership on corporate development activities, including key collaborations and partnerships. Previously, Felicia was a postdoctoral fellow in Professor Doug Melton’s laboratory at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Felicia was part of the team in the Melton lab that discovered how to generate stem cell derived beta cells and published a seminal paper in Cell in 2014. She is an expert in stem cell biology and diabetes and one of the inventors of Semma Therapeutics’ key technologies. Felicia received a B.S. from Duke University and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University where she was a Marshall Scholar. She is currently on leave from Harvard Business School where she was a Kaplan Fellow.