Ekemini A.U. Riley, PhD

Dr. Ekemini A. U. Riley is the Founder and President 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 President of CAS, Dr. Riley sets overall strategy across major philanthropic portfolios focused on accelerating discovery and therapeutic development in biomedicine.

She serves as Managing Director of Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP), the flagship initiative under the Coalition’s management, which she spearheaded from conception to launch. Dr. Riley is a member of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council (2020-2024). This body informs institute program planning, concept clearance for NINDS initiatives, policies affecting extramural research programs, and funding decisions of the institute. She 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.

Previously, 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 PhD in Molecular Medicine from the University of Maryland School of Medicine.