Four employees of Pfizer and one of Sonalysts are among the 50 people whose mentoring of others, leadership and innovation have gotten them named as finalists for the 15th Annual Women of Innovation awards, a program of the Connecticut Technology Council.

There were 190 nominations this year. A winner in each of 11 categories will be announced at a gala at the Aqua Turf Club in Plantsville on March 27. The keynote speaker for the event is Annie Lamont, health care venture capitalist and first lady of Connecticut.

Three of the 10 finalists in the large business innovation and leadership category — for those with more than 500 employees — are from Pfizer: Amy Antipas, Sally Gut Ruggeri and Kathleen Zandi.

Antipas, a Mystic resident who is in her 25th year working at Pfizer, is a research fellow who works to streamline drug development and does both innovation and supervisory coaching for her colleagues.

"The best part of when I come to work is when we have the ability to engage with patients who have taken our medication, and they tell us about how their lives have changed," she said.

Ruggeri has worked on 60 potential drug candidates over the past 30 years, including developing technology for the rheumatoid arthritis drug Xeljanz. Working in chemical research and development, she noted that most of her work "has been on things that never saw the light of day from a commercial perspective," but they've offered "many wonderful and interesting challenges" from a scientific perspective.

Zandi leads the teams that supply clinical trials with drugs, and in her 25 years at Pfizer, she has been particularly proud to work on Talzenna and Vizimpro, two cancer drugs that got U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval last year. As a mentor, she helps technically minded people get out of the lab to describe what they do.

Outside of Pfizer, Zandi is a Board of Education member in the Haddam-Killingworth school district and a Girl Scout troop leader.

Marie-Claire Peakman, who leads the primary pharmacology group at Pfizer, is a finalist in the community innovation and leadership category. Her work involves identifying active compounds to treat the diseases the company is focused on, and she works with colleagues in New York to educate elected officials on Pfizer's work. Peakman also is on the board of directors for the United Way of Southeastern Connecticut.

LeeAnn Maryeski, an analyst who works at Sonalysts, is a finalist for the medium business innovation and leadership category, a new category this year for people at companies with 101 to 499 employees. Leading the innovation initiative, the Quaker Hill resident helps the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy and commercial customers solve problems.

"I really enjoy the ability to take a complex problem, that not one individual knows how to solve, and get together the right people and help them facilitate an answer," Maryeski said. "It's a little uncomfortable, because you never quite know what's going to happen, but people always kind of rise to the occasion."

The other categories for innovation and leadership are entrepreneurial, small business, research, youth, secondary academic, postsecondary academic and collegian. Along with the medium business category, the Inspiring STEM Equitability Award is new this year.

The youth winner will get a $3,000 scholarship, and new this year, the winners for the secondary academic, postsecondary academic, research and community awards each will get $1,000 to pay forward to someone.

Taylor van Antwerp, manager of talent and workforce programs for the Connecticut Technology Council, said as an example that a professor might use the money to send a Ph.D. candidate to a conference for which there is otherwise no funds.

At next year's Women of Innovation ceremony, Antwerp hopes to show "how this money has contributed to the Connecticut STEM ecosystem," with the goal of expanding the $1,000 award to all categories.

"This whole event is really trying to grow the next generation of STEM leaders here in Connecticut, with a focus on the communities that are not seen in STEM, and trying to bring them up into the pipeline and give them exposure," Antwerp said.

e.moser@theday.com