Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs)
Yale Ventures Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EIRs) have deep operational experience and have gone through the process of turning new technologies to new businesses. These experts act as an early “sounding board” for Yale innovators contemplating a new startup. In a logical, stepwise fashion, EIRs help frame both the risks and the benefits of starting a new company, asking relevant questions about everything from the science, to the business, to the market and helping faculty chart a successful path forward. Each EIR has decades of practical private-sector experience in building their own companies and valuable connections with industry and investor communities.
200+
Yale Ventures EIRs
5,000+
EIR Mentor Hours Provided for Yale Faculty
140+
Venture Lab Workshops Supported
See all Therapeutics & Life Sciences EIRs
Jeff Chodakewitz is a physician and R&D leader with three decades of experience, including as Chief Medical Officer and EVP of Global Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, senior development leadership roles across the Merck portfolio, and senior advisory work with Blackstone Life Sciences.
In Yale Venture Lab workshops, he brings a clinician’s and drug developer’s eye to early-stage therapeutics. He pushes teams to start with strong biology: what the active molecule is, why the target matters in disease, and what evidence would make the program credible. He also helps founders think through practical development questions early, from clinical validation and indication selection to CMC choices that can shape the path to translation.
Anjali Kumar is a biopharmaceutical business development executive with more than 25 years of experience across Johnson & Johnson, Shire, Wyeth, Pharmacia & Upjohn, and biotechs including Cellarity and Flexion Therapeutics. She has led more than 50 integrated opportunity assessments and more than 100 initial diligences across M&A, licensing, options, and research collaborations.
In YVL workshops, she pushes teams to articulate the real value to discovery and development stakeholders, avoid overpromising, and define credible experiments and assays that demonstrate differentiation and time and cost savings.
Colin Foster is a life sciences CEO and board leader with 30+ years of experience building, financing, and turning around companies across therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices. He has held senior leadership roles at Bayer, served as CEO of Bioblast Pharma, and is currently Chairperson and CEO of Cytosolix, Chairperson of Saatient Therapeutics, and a board member of NBO Pharma.
In YVL workshops, he pushes teams to act like a biotech by building a clear business case, sharpening IP and indication portfolio strategy, and choosing the right path to execution based on funding realities and the cost to generate a credible data package.
See all Medical Devices & Digital Health EIRs
Roaida Johnson is a regulatory affairs leader with 20+ years of medical device experience and is the Owner and Principal Regulatory Consultant at Lambint, LLC. She advises companies on practical FDA pathway strategy across software and diagnostics, including how to position clinical decision support tools, select an appropriate route such as 510(k) or De Novo when needed, and plan evidence requirements.
In YVL workshops, she helps teams de risk regulatory execution by clarifying what triggers FDA oversight, setting realistic data and validation expectations across sites and demographics, and protecting sensitive datasets through mechanisms such as master files when disclosure is required.
Joe Honcz is a healthcare executive and market access strategist with 25+ years of experience across managed care, biopharma, and healthcare policy, including roles at Pfizer, CVS, and Walgreens, and he now advises emerging companies at Petauri Health. He also contributed to major U.S. coverage expansions, including the launch of Medicare Part D and implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
In YVL workshops, he pushes teams to translate capabilities into reimbursable value by defining the unit of product, building a clear product map, tying pricing to volume and outcomes, and choosing a funding strategy that fits the business model.
John Hendershot is Vice President of Global Marketing for Medtronic’s Advanced Surgical Instruments business, where he leads portfolio strategy, the innovation pipeline, and commercialization approaches for surgical technologies. In YVL workshops, he pushes teams to treat the technology as a commercial product by mapping the competitive landscape, sharpening the value proposition and business model, and planning early for regulatory and reimbursement.
See all Engineering, Materials, & Applied Science EIRs
Melissa Fensterstock is a life sciences operator and investor and currently a Principal at Material Impact Fund. She previously served as CEO of Lansdowne Labs, a venture co founded with Dr. Robert Langer, where she translated an academic concept into a commercial child safety technology through grant funding, venture financing, policy work, and a global strategic partnership.
In YVL workshops, she pushes teams to sharpen narrative and category positioning, lead with commercial traction, and align the business model with investor expectations by staying close to the customer and avoiding capital intensive equipment sales when finished product economics are stronger.
John Derrick is the CEO and founder of Authentrics.ai, an AI infrastructure company focused on explainability, control, and resilience for neural networks through checkpoint native, weight level tooling for production AI pipelines. He is a multi time CEO and operator with nine exits across CEO and interim or advisory roles, and he is an inventor with 20 patents from prior work including IBM and Intel.
In YVL workshops, he helps teams translate technical capability into deployable products by stress testing where value accrues in real world settings, clarifying scalable deployment and integration paths such as containerized software and cloud pipelines, and pushing early market sizing, differentiation, pricing tests, and customer discovery so a single product can grow into a platform.
Mark Jackson is a quantum physicist and Senior Quantum Evangelist at Quantinuum, where he advises executives and technical teams on practical applications of quantum computing. He previously spent a decade in superstring theory and cosmology research, co authoring nearly 40 publications, and he is active in science communication and advising through roles including Adjunct Faculty at Singularity University and Director at Astronomers Without Borders.
In YVL workshops, he helps teams clarify where quantum approaches offer real advantages, communicate the idea clearly to non specialists, and define practical milestones that connect a concept to a defensible proof of concept.
See all Software, AI & Technology EIRs
Donald Fischer is an entrepreneur and investor focused on backing technical founders, and he is the co founder and CEO of Tidelift. He previously served as a venture partner at General Catalyst, worked on the investment team at Greylock Partners, and held leadership roles at Red Hat.
At Yale Venture Labs, he brings deep expertise in open source software, developer tools, and enterprise SaaS, with practical guidance on building and scaling products for technical users and selling into enterprises.
Namratha “Nammy” Vedire is a technology and innovation leader and currently Vice President of Enterprise Alliances at Metaimpact, where she partners with senior executives to advance employee wellness, health, and racial equity initiatives. She previously led platform and operations at Engage, a corporate venture fund backed by 14 Fortune 500 companies and Georgia Tech, and held roles at Georgia Tech’s Center for Deliberate Innovation and the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute supporting early stage venture creation.
In YVL workshops, she helps teams go from zero to one by identifying the right internal champion at target partners and aligning the story, milestones, and commercialization path with what that buyer can actually drive.
John Wesley is an entrepreneurial executive and investor with 25+ years of experience across healthcare and life sciences investing, startup operations, and strategic advisory. He leads HCLS investing at NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture arm, as a founding team member focused on techbio and digital health powered by AI and accelerated compute, as well as investments in digital manufacturing and climate.
At Yale Venture Labs, he provides CEO and founding team mentorship, and helps teams think clearly about where AI and compute create real product advantage and defensible differentiation.