Ekemini A.U. Riley, PhD

Dr. Ekemini A. U. Riley is the Founder and CEO of the Coalition for Aligning Science (CAS), an organization she founded in 2020 to design and implement large-scale research programs across multiple disease areas. A molecular biologist by training, she is energized by devising creative ways to tackle scientific challenges and facilitating productive collaboration. She has designed and facilitated several multi-sector think tank sessions to inform the strategic deployment of philanthropic capital, crafted research programs, and seeded multi-funder collaboration. As CEO, Dr. Riley serves as the Portfolio Manager, setting overall strategy across all CAS initiatives, which are focused on accelerating discovery and therapeutic development in biomedicine.

Additionally, Dr. Riley serves as Managing Director of Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) and Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiatives. Previously, Dr. Riley led the launch of WastewaterSCAN – a national effort to spread a leading approach for monitoring pathogens through municipal wastewater systems to inform public health responses locally and nationally.

Before starting CAS, Dr. Riley was a Director at the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy. She helped to shape and co-direct the center’s medical research practice, executing directly on workstreams in oncology, circulatory, and neurodegenerative conditions.

She earned her BA in Natural Sciences from Johns Hopkins University and her PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.