Anita Szajek

Anita Szajek, Ph.D., became a scientific review officer (SRO) for SRB in 2023.

Prior to joining NICHD, Dr. Szajek served 7 years as an SRO at the NIH Center for Scientific Review (CSR). She conducted many special emphasis panel peer reviews and served on SRO training and retention committees as well as CSR ENQUIRE, a panel that examined whether changes in study section focus or scope were needed to help identify high-impact science, with special consideration for emerging science.

Before joining NIH, Dr. Szajek was a principal scientific liaison for United States Pharmacopeia, working closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and World Health Organization to develop public standards for heparins, blood products, proteins, and synthetic peptides. She worked as a senior scientist for Human Genome Sciences, focusing on purification process development activities, scale-up, and analytical assay development from preclinical to Phase III. As a scientist for Emergent BioSolutions, she worked on developing diagnostics, vaccines, and pharmaceuticals for chronic bacterial infections and infectious diseases.

Dr. Szajek received her Ph.D. in bioinorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She did postdoctoral work on matrix metalloproteinases at Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals and the National Cancer Institute.