Worcester Business Journal

4 Worcester Business Journal | March 7, 2022 | wbjournal.com Canal District upgrade "I'm excited for Pickett Plaza to open this spring. This is an additional entrance to the park on Green Street flowing effortlessly into the Canal District, inviting visitors of the park to partake in all the district has to offer." C E N T R A L M AS S I N B R I E F V E R BAT I M Eying retirement "It is time for someone to replace me." Steve Rotman, president and CEO of Worcester manufacturer Vystar Corp. and parent company of 66-year- old family business Rotmans Furniture, about his efforts to lay the groundwork for his retirement Diversity in medicine "People of color, or people who are underrepresented in medicine, encounter several systemic and historical barriers in pursuit of their aspirations." Edith Mensah Otabil, clinical research coordinator at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, which has launched The Pipeline for Underrepresented Students in Medicine to get more students from underrepresented backgrounds into the healthcare field Amy Lynn Chase, second vice president of the Canal District Alliance and owner of four businesses in Worcester's Canal District, on new infrastructure improvements timed with the start of the Worcester Red Sox second season Healthcare executive to become first female Holy Cross board chair PHOTO/COURTESY OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS BY SAM BONACCI Special to WBJ T he board of trustees for the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester unanimously elected Dr. Helen Boucher as its new chair, the school announced Feb. 16. When she begins her term in July, she will be the first fe- male board chair in the college's history. e 1986 Holy Cross graduate is an infectious diseases physician and healthcare administrator, according to a release from the college. She serves as dean ad interim for Tus University School of Medicine in Boston and is a professor of medicine at the school. She is chief academic officer for Wellforce Health System in Burlington. "Upon her selection as interim dean and chief academic officer at Tus, her colleagues praised her 'ability to connect with people on a personal level and mobilize teams to tackle and over - come the most daunting of challenges.' We are delighted that Holy Cross will now benefit from Helen's extraordinary leadership skills and passion for the college and its Jesuit mission," Holy Cross President Vincent Rougeau said in a press release. Boucher's experience includes chairing National Institutes of Health Antibacterial Resistance Leadership Group Innovations Working Group. In 2015, she was appointed a voting member of the Presidential Advisory Council on Combating Antibiotic-Re - sistant Bacteria and elected treasurer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. She has been a member of the Holy Cross board since 2014 and has served as vice chair since 2021. She is a long- time volunteer at the college and has been the featured speaker at the Col- lege's Women in Science event. Interim WPI president e Worcester Polytechnic Institute Board of Trustees has appointed Win- ston Oluwole Soboyejo, the college's provost and senior vice president, as interim president to serve while the college searches for its 17th president. Soboyejo will begin his role when President Laurie Leshin departs in May. Leshin announced in January she would leave WPI to be the director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Soboyejo has been at WPI since 2016 when he began as dean of the school of engineering. He was appointed interim provost in 2018, and became WPI's permanent provost a year later. In this role, he has played an instru- mental role in launching e Global School, which provides global research and educational partnerships and op- portunities. Soboyejo grew up in western Nigeria and has held faculty positions at e Ohio State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Princeton University in New Jersey. WBJ Staff Writer Katherine Hamilton contributed to this story. Dr. Helen Boucher W

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