Yale Innovation Summit 2022

A graduate of both Yale College and the Yale School of Management, Geballe has served as chief operating officer for the state of Connecticut since February 2020, reporting directly to the governor, and as commissioner of the Department of Administrative Services since January 2019. Geballe has overseen 25 executive branch agencies and 30,000 employees that provide the services of state government.

Prior to his time with the state, Geballe spent 17 years in the technology sector, most recently at Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he was vice president and general manager of the digital science division. He joined Thermo Fisher through its acquisition of Branford-based Core Informatics, LLC in 2017, where Geballe was chief executive officer from 2013, working on cloud-based lab informatics solutions. Previously, Geballe served in a variety of international executive roles during an 11-year tenure with IBM.

In Geballe’s new role, he said, he wants to help Yale build on that momentum.

“I’ve lived the full experience in the tech industry, from small, high-growth startups to large, multinational organizations,” Geballe said. “I’ve learned how much value entrepreneurship and innovation create across that spectrum. At Yale, I’m eager to help faculty and students do the same — to translate their ideas, research, and discoveries into maximum impact in the world.”

Justin Elicker is the 51st elected Mayor of New Haven and is working hard with the team in City Hall so that every New Haven resident has the opportunity to thrive, no matter which neighborhood they’re from.   Justin is a Connecticut native. He attended public school, graduated with a BA from Middlebury College in Vermont, and earned a Master’s in Environmental Management from the Yale School of Environment and an MBA from the Yale School of Management.  

Prior to being elected Mayor, Justin served as a New Haven Alder and the Executive Director of the New Haven Land Trust, where he established groundbreaking programs for New Haven youth. He also worked in the U.S. Foreign Service, has been an elementary and high school teacher, and served for three years as an adjunct professor of education policy at Southern Connecticut State University. He spends as much time as he can with his wife Natalie, their two daughters Molly and April.     

Dawn Hocevar is the President & CEO of BioCT, dedicated to the growth of Connecticut’s bioscience industry. In this role, Dawn focuses on building collaboration with industry, academia and the government. Working closely with key stakeholders across the state, Dawn was a contributing author in the development of the state’s ten-year strategic plan to guide investment in bioscience industry.

Currently, Dawn serves on the Connecticut Economic Advisory committee encouraging the state to include bioscience as an anchor industry with tremendous economic potential. She also serves on the Southern Connecticut State BioPath Advisory Board and is collaborating with the Governors Workforce Development plans for job recovery post COVID. Recently, Dawn joined the Cellular and Molecular Biology Graduate Program Advisory Board at the University of New Haven.

Dawn is a board member at BioSurplus, an equipment asset management company. In her prior role with the company as Vice President of Business Development, Dawn seeded the company’s expansion into San Francisco and Boston, working closely with Bio Affiliates in San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Boston, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.

In 2017, Dawn was elected as President and Board Chair of Women in Bio (WIB). During her six years with this organization, she held various roles including fundraising and national program chair. She also helped establish the organization’s Boardroom Ready program.

Dawn regularly testifies before state legislative committees; has moderated and contributed to many industry panel discussions. Dawn was honored by the New Haven BIZ Power 50 Class of 2020 and the Power 25 Class of 2021.

Dawn holds a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from San Jose State University.

Michael Keden is a Managing Director and Banker in the Greenwich, Connecticut, office of J.P. Morgan Private Bank. He works closely with high-net-worth business owners and entrepreneurs, serving as their primary private banker and a resource they can rely upon for the many elements of their financial lives.

A 30-year veteran of wealth management, Michael began his wealth management career at Bankers Trust within a month of the 1987 market crash, an experience that inspired his zeal for solving difficult problems. He has worked as an adjunct professor in trust and estate planning at the American Banking Association’s National Graduate Trust School, and has authored thought leadership pieces on portfolio management and client service. In 1992, Michael co-founded an RIA specializing in portfolio construction, training and consulting. He joined J.P. Morgan in 1998, drawn to the depth and breadth of the firm’s offerings that he can tap for the benefit of clients.

Michael received his B.A. from Brown University and an M.B.A. from NYU’s Stern School of Business. He maintains FINRA Series 7, 9, 10, 24 and 66 licenses. Michael serves as a mentor for The Fellowship Initiative at J.P. Morgan and as a board member for Junior Achievement of Greater Fairfield County, Connecticut. 

A native of the Bronx, Michael now resides in Easton, Connecticut, where he enjoys cooking for his wife and three children. He is an avid athlete who enjoys sports and outdoor activities.

David Lehman serves as the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD), the state agency that oversees a wide range of programs promoting business growth, brownfield redevelopment, the arts, historic preservation and tourism.

David also serves as the Governor’s Senior Economic Advisor. He is hard at work at creating an innovative public-private partnership between DECD and AdvanceCT (formerly CERC) that will provide a new economic development delivery model for our state.  

David’s business development priorities include helping build our urban centers into engines of growth, furthering the state’s innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystems, and strengthening the state’s workforce pipelines.

Prior to joining DECD, David worked in the financial services industry. Most recently he was Global Head of Real Estate Finance for the Investment Banking Division of Goldman Sachs, where he worked for 15 years.

Christine Cohen is the state Senator representing the needs and wishes of the approximately 100,000 residents in the 12th District towns of Branford, Durham, Guilford, Killingworth, Madison, and North Branford. 

Senator Cohen is the Senate Chair of the Environment Committee, Vice-Chair of the Commerce Committee, and she sits as a voting member on both the Planning & Development and Children’s committees.

Senator Cohen created and co-chairs the Coastal Caucus, a bipartisan group of lawmakers who focus on the issues affecting coastal towns, cities and waterways. She also uses the private-sector business experience she gained working for years at Fortune 100 companies like Stanley Black & Decker and Georgia Pacific to co-chair the legislature’s Bioscience Caucus, which seeks to strengthen and promote Connecticut’s robust life sciences and biotech industries.

In addition to serving in Connecticut’s General Assembly, Senator Cohen and her husband Rob also run a small business, “Cohen’s Bagel Company,” which has been growing and thriving for 17 years on the Boston Post Road in Madison.

Senator Cohen has served on various boards and commissions in her hometown of Guilford, most recently as Chair of Operations on the Guilford Board of Education. She resides in Guilford with her husband, three children, and their rescue dog Abby.

Cyndi Green has been managing director at Connecticut Innovations since joining in early 2020. In 2019, Cyndi retired from Pfizer in NYC, where she was head of Business Development Search and Evaluation for anti-infectives and vaccines. Her technical leadership at Pfizer led to the formation of Pfizer/GSK spinout ViiV Healthcare, as well as the acquisitions of an anti-infective franchise from AstraZeneca and vaccine portfolios from Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to Pfizer, she held various scientific and business positions at CuraGen, and her expertise spans the spectrum of drug development in preclinical to marketed assets, technologies, diagnostics and research platforms.

Cyndi is on the board of directors of CaroGen, Thetis and BioCT and led investments in Dugri, Oova and Aztek. In addition to support of the CI portfolio, Cyndi mentors and provides consultant expertise for a variety of organizations, including ABCT, eLabNYC, Springboard Enterprises and Endless Frontier Labs.

Cyndi has a doctorate in molecular biology from SUNY Buffalo, did her postdoctoral work at Yale University, and received an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Carter Winstanley has over 30 years of real estate experience in the life science and technology sectors. Carter was involved in the redevelopment of the 518,000 square foot former Southern New England Telephone Building at 300 George Street and a 600,000 square foot renovation of several buildings in the Science Park neighborhood. Following the completion of this redevelopment, Carter permitted, designed and constructed the 513,000 square foot LEED Platinum Life Science Building at 100 College in New Haven and most recently finalized the permit and design of a new 500,000 square foot life science facility to be constructed at 101 College Street.

Mr. Winstanley has worked with several universities across the northeast to create lab incubator programs similar to the one he helped create in New Haven.

Liz Power recently rejoined Pfizer as Site Affairs Lead in Connecticut, where she and her team lead internal and external communications, community relations and public affairs for the company’s sites in Groton and New Haven.  Prior to joining Pfizer in January, Liz was the Director of Communications and Public Affairs for General Dynamics Electric Boat, the nation’s only shipbuilder dedicated to the design, construction, and maintenance of nuclear submarines for the US Navy.  She has held senior external communications roles for Achillion Pharmaceuticals in New Haven and Novartis in Cambridge, MA.  Liz joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1997 at Pfizer where she held a range of communications roles, including spokesperson for the R&D organization during a period of rapid expansion.  

Rob is the founder and a managing partner of Elm Street Ventures. He serves on the boards of P2 Science (where he is Chairman) and Allyx Therapeutics. Previously, Rob was a board member of AxioMx, Occam Sciences, SeeClickFix, ShareGrove, and Retail Optimization Inc., and served as an observer on the boards of Affomix, Arvinas, BioRelix, Device42, Halda Therapeutics, and Metagenomix. Before founding ESV in 2006, Rob ran an infrastructure business and helped found several start-ups. Earlier in his career, he was a venture capitalist with Rothschild Inc. and Investor AB.

He began his professional career as an electrical engineer, mainly working in software and signal processing. Mr. Bettigole has a BS in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and an MPPM from the Yale School of Management, where he is currently a Lecturer, but has also been an Executive Fellow and Entrepreneur-in-residence there. Rob served on the Operating Board of the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute from its inception in 2007 and is on the Investment Committee of the College Street Innovation Fund, which Elm Street Ventures also manages.

Rob is an Entrepreneur-in-residence at the Yale Office of Cooperative Research. He is on the boards of BioCT and the New Haven innovation Collaborative. Rob is a Licensed Professional Engineer and holds several U.S. and foreign patents.

Peter Denious leads the AdvanceCT team as its President and CEO.  He came to AdvanceCT in August 2019 as an accomplished private equity and venture capital professional who helped realize commercial and economic opportunity by connecting ideas, people and capital.

For the previous 17 years, Peter worked for FLAG Capital Management and its successor, Aberdeen Standard Investments, based in Stamford, CT.  Peter was a member of the senior leadership team responsible for growing the FLAG private equity platform to over $6.5B in AUM from approximately $1B when he joined in 2001.  During his tenure, Peter oversaw the venture capital fund investment program and became deeply involved with FLAG’s push into international markets, particularly Europe and Asia.  He was a member of both the Investment and Management Committees and was ultimately responsible for a $2B investment portfolio. Before FLAG, he worked for J.H. Whitney & Co. a direct private investment firm based in Stamford, CT.  He started his private equity career following business school at BancBoston Capital based in Boston, MA. Prior to graduate school, Peter worked for Prudential Securities and Chemical Bank in investment and commercial banking.

Peter is a graduate of Trinity College and received his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he is a board member of the Center for Private Equity and Venture Capital. Peter is an Ex-Officio member of the Governor’s Workforce Council. He is also a member of Social Venture Partners Connecticut, a not for profit focused on closing the opportunity gap in Connecticut by supporting innovative organizations and initiatives in education and workforce development. 

Sharon Barr is the Senior Vice President, Head of Research and Product Development at Alexion AstraZeneca Rare Disease. She is responsible for drug discovery, process development and clinical supply as well as bioanalytical and biomarkers, translational research, rare disease diagnostics and bioinformatics supporting the rare disease pipeline from target discovery through post-marketing. With more than 18 years industry experience she has previously led translational research, precision medicine and global development teams at small and large companies focused on oncology and rare disease. Sharon received her PhD in molecular biology from New York University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship focused on mechanisms of DNA Damage and Repair at Stanford University. Sharon is the site leader for the New Haven site, and she serves on the boards of the Alexion Charitable Foundation, the Alexion Political Action Committee and the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce, as well as the CT Governor’s Workforce Council.

Prior to Sema4, Andrew most recently served as Executive Vice President and Chief Data Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System, including the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he was responsible for supporting patient care, education, research, and innovation through purposeful and appropriate use of the health system’s data assets. Before assuming the CDO role at Mount Sinai, he worked with Founding Director Eric Schadt, now Sema4’s President and Chief Research & Development Officer, as Co-Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology and Vice Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences, in which he also served as Interim Chair.

Dr. Jonathan Rothberg is known for inventing and commercializing next-generation DNA sequencing, for which he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation – the nation’s highest honor for technological achievement – by President Obama. 

Dr. Rothberg is the founder and chairman of the 4Catalyzer incubator, which has raised over $2 Billion across its seven-life science and medical device companies. Jonathan’s mission is to build technologies that save lives of people he loves and maximize societal impact.

He founded 454 Life Sciences, bringing to market the first new method for sequencing genomes since Sanger and Gilbert won the Nobel Prize in 1980. Dr. Rothberg sequenced the first individual human genome (James Watson’s Genome, Nature), and with Svante Paabo initiated the Neanderthal Genome Project. Under his leadership, 454 undertook the first deep sequencing of a cancer, helped understand the mystery behind the disappearance of the honey bee, uncovered a new virus killing transplant patients, and elucidated the extent of human variation—work recognized by Science magazine as the breakthrough of the year for 2007. The New England Journal described Dr. Rothberg’s innovation as "The New Age of Molecular Diagnostics", Science magazine called it one of the top 10 breakthroughs for 2008. Dr. Rothberg went on to invent semiconductor chip-based sequencing, and sequenced Gordon Moore (Moore’s law, Nature), ushering in the age of the $1,000 Genome. 

Dr. Rothberg was born in 1963 in New Haven, Connecticut. He earned a B.S. in chemical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D. in biology from Yale University. He is the first person to be named a World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneer four separate times, is an Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year, received The Wall Street Journal's First Gold Medal for Innovation, Nature Methods First Method of the Year Award, The Irvington Institute's Corporate Leadership Award in Science, the Connecticut Medal of Technology, the DGKL Biochemical Analysis Prize, and an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. Jonathan is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, was a trustee of Carnegie Mellon University, and is an Adjunct Professor of Genetics at the Yale School of Medicine.

Eric W. Linsley is Managing General Partner of BioInnovation Capital. Eric oversees fund activities, runs the North Carolina lab, and focuses on opportunities in therapeutics, laboratory tools, diagnostics, and devices. He has a long history of early stage life sciences investment success, most recently at Pappas Ventures in Durham, NC. Prior to joining Pappas Ventures in 2000, Eric served as Chief Financial Officer of TriPath Imaging, Inc. (Nasdaq: TPTH), a medical device company in the Ampersand Ventures portfolio, which was acquired in 2006 by Becton Dickinson. Eric played a key role in facilitating the three-way merger between AutoCyte, NeoPath and Neuromedical Systems to form TriPath in 1999. Prior to the formation of TriPath, he was CFO of AutoCyte, one of the TriPath predecessors, which completed a successful public stock offering in 1997.

At Pappas Ventures, Eric served on the Board of Panacos Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: PANC) and played a key role in its successful reverse merger with a publicly-traded company. He was directly responsible for investments in Peninsula Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2005), and Cerexa (acquired by Forest Laboratories in 2007). Other representative investments included Balance Therapeutics, Envisia, FlowCardia (sold to BARD), LipoScience (Nasdaq: LPDX), Liquidia (Nasdaq: LQDA), Milestone Pharmaceuticals, Nuvasive (Nasdaq: NUVA) and Ultragenyx (Nasdaq: RARE). Eric’s team at Pappas Ventures also invested in Achillion (Nasdaq: ACHN), Chimerix, (Nasdaq: CMRX), Lumena (sold to Shire), Plexxikon (sold to Daiichi Sankyo), Rotation Medical (sold to Smith & Nephew), Tesaro (Nasdaq: TSRO), and TyRx (sold to Medtronic).

Dr. Nora Khaldi is a pure mathematician, scientists, and entrepreneur. Nora holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Evolution, comparative genomics and Bioinformatics from Trinity College Ireland. She has been inducted into the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders in 2019. Nora is a highly published author and has developed many open source-software used by institutions globally such as the one she developed at the Craig Venter Institute of genomics; in her early career she was one of the very first scientists to show horizontal gene transfer between multi-cellular species. She is a multi-TEDx speaker; an award winner; and holds over 30 patents. Nora also sits on the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Governing Board, this multi-billion European fund and agency aims to increase and foster European innovation and their global impact. most recently, she has joined the list of renowned CEOs, including Warren Buffet and Elon Musk, who have had their business strategies, leadership and decision-making highlighted in a case study by Harvard Business School.  

Nora is an innovator at heart, her ambition is to disrupt the status quo in the areas of life-science and nutrition. Nora is the founder and CEO of Nuritas. In 2022 Nuritas will reach a massive milestone, being the first company to have proven an AI system in bioactive discovery in life-science. Under Nora’s leadership, Nuritas has become the first life-science company ever to bring an AI-discovered functional ingredient to the human clinical phase. Since starting the company in 2014/15, Nora has grown Nuritas into a global organization with a total of $75 million USD in funding, and hubs across Europe and the US.  

A trailblazer in the biotechnology industry, Nuritas is on a quest to discover and unlock the wisdom of nature and to empower consumers to live healthier lives naturally. Nora has built a world-class, international and interdisciplinary team comprising molecular biologists, evolutionists, machine learning experts, computer scientists, biochemists, and mathematicians. Under her leadership, Nuritas has amassed the world’s largest peptide library with over 5.2 million peptides discovered. To that end, Nuritas has 68 patents filed and 28 patents issued. Today, Nuritas collaborates with global blue-chip companies like BASF, Nestle, Mars, Sumitomo Corporation, Pharmavite and more, to develop innovative solutions with tangible health benefits. Nuritas is considered a leading disruptive force in discovery, with awards from Forbes and Johnson & Johnson for its unparalleled AI platform.    

Indra K. Nooyi served as CEO and chairman of PepsiCo from 2006 to 2019. Her prescient strategic thinking, insight into consumer behavior, and wisdom on managing a vast, global workforce make her one of the world’s most sought-after advisors to entrepreneurs, executives, and governments. She is also revered as a role model for women and immigrants, and celebrated for her empowering messages on inclusivity. At PepsiCo, she was the chief architect of Performance with Purpose, the company’s mission to deliver sustained growth by making more nutritious products, limiting the company’s environmental footprint, and empowering its associates and people in the communities it serves.

She has been awarded the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honor, the U.S. State Department’s award for Outstanding American by Choice, and 15 honorary degrees. In 2021, Indra became an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and joined the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery of Art. She was also inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame and National Women’s Hall of Fame. She is also the author of the book, My Life in Full: Work, Family and Our Future, a highly-anticipated memoir that offers insight and a call-to-action from one of the world’s most-admired business leaders on how our society can blend work and family — and advance women — in the 21st century. She is married to Raj Nooyi and has two daughters, Preetha and Tara.

Dormer Stephen is co-chair of Shipman & Goodwin's Business and Finance Practice Group. He focuses his practice on advising emerging growth companies and investors in the life sciences, technology, financial services and manufacturing industries. Working closely with founders, CEOs, boards of directors and investors, Dormer counsels clients in a broad range of matters, from formation and spinoff transactions, to financings, governance, mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures, strategic collaborations, and technology acquisition and licensing matters.

In the life sciences sector alone, Dormer has worked with hundreds of biotechnology companies whose research activities, products and services include biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics, drug delivery, genomics, healthcare informatics, medical devices, nanotechnology, pharmaceuticals, therapeutics and vaccines. A number of these businesses are spinoffs from research initiatives at Yale University, where he has also served for several years as a panel moderator at the annual Yale Innovation Summit.

Carine Boustany is the US Development Site head and global head of Development Sciences at Boehringer Ingelheim. Previously, Carine led the department of Cardiometabolic Diseases Research in the US where she was responsible for leading a team of scientists focused on delivering innovative therapies to improve the lives of patients suffering from cardiometabolic diseases, with a particular focus on NASH and CKD. Under her leadership, the team built a portfolio of first in class molecules, several of which are currently in clinical testing.

Prior to joining Boehringer Ingelheim in 2011, Carine was a researcher at Pfizer where she led project teams in diabetes and diabetic nephropathy, including the biology of ertugliflozin, Steglatro®. Carine was also an Assistant Professor at the Lebanese International University and at the Holy Spirit University, in Lebanon, prior to joining Pfizer. Consistent with her experience spanning preclinical to clinical research, Carine’s education includes a PharmD degree from Saint- Joseph University (Beirut, Lebanon), followed by a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky), and a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Kentucky.

Carine also serves as a board member of BIO and the IQ consortium.

Allyson Rinderle joined KKR in 2017 and is a member of the Health Care industry team. She serves on the board of directors of PetVet Care Centers and is a board observer of Paige. She was previously on the board of directors of Envision Healthcare and was a board observer of Impel NeuroPharma. She is also involved in the firm’s investment in Treeline Biosciences. Prior to joining KKR, Ms. Rinderle was a vice president at Longitude Capital, a health care venture growth firm. Previously, she was an analyst at Aisling Capital, a life science investment firm based in New York. Ms. Rinderle started her career as an analyst in J.P. Morgan’s Health Care Investment Banking practice where she was involved in a number of mergers, acquisitions, and financing transactions.

Ms. Rinderle holds an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she was an Arjay Miller Scholar and received a Certificate in Public Management and Social Innovation. She received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering with distinction from Yale University, graduating magna cum laude, Tau Beta Pi, and Phi Beta Kappa.

As a venture investor and a member of the Greater Boston community, Marian works on many fronts to positively impact human health. Through her role with Johnson & Johnson Innovation –JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), Johnson & Johnson’s strategic venture arm, Marian leads investments in East Coast biotechs and startups seeking to solve critical healthcare needs.

Marian earned her A.B. in Biology from Harvard College and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Pennsylvania. She began her career at a lab bench at Centocor, and later transitioned into research leadership and business development after the Johnson & Johnson acquisition.

Christine has over 15 years in the life-science industry including business development, corporate strategy and venture investing. She is currently Managing Director at Vertex Ventures HC (VVHC).  Prior to VVHC, she was a Partner at MRL Ventures Fund from 2017-2021 where she was on the board of Alector, Inc. [NASDAQ:ALEC], Entrada Therapeutics [NASDAQ:TRDA], Tallac Therapeutics and Therini Bio. She was also an observer on the boards of Adagio [NASDAQ:ADGI], LifeMine Therapeutics, PAQ Therapeutics and Translate Bio [NASDAQ:TBIO].

Prior to MRL Ventures Fund, she was Principal at the Novartis Venture Fund from 2013-2017 where she was on the board of Altimmune [NASDAQ:ALT] and an observer on the boards of a number of companies including ROX Medical, lnnocrin Pharmaceuticals, Viamet Pharmaceuticals and Quartet Medicine. Prior to Novartis Venture Fund, she was Chief Business Officer at Vitae Pharmaceuticals from 2010-2013. She also held positions in business development and marketing at small and mid-size biopharmaceutical companies. Christine received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Dartmouth Medical School and was post-doctoral fellow in developmental neurobiology at the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Daniel J. Boffa is a Professor and Chief of Thoracic Surgery at Yale University, and
is the clinical Director of the Thoracic Oncology Program at Smilow Cancer Hospital.
He grew up in central Ohio, trained in New York City and Cleveland, and has been at
Yale since 2007. He completed his MBA from the Heller School of Social Policy and
Management in 2021. His clinical practice focuses on the surgical management of
thoracic malignancies. His research interests include optimizing the safety and
effectiveness of cancer treatments, the potential of hospital networks to impact care
delivery, and the impact of health policy initiatives on patient care. He is heavily
involved with the Commission on Cancer and is the current chair of the Quality
Integration Committee.

A Yale University Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) since 2018, Kristin King is currently Vice President, Corporate Development & Strategy at Defibtech, a Nihon Kohden company based in Guilford.  With over 20 years’ experience across a variety of commercial and technical functions as well as responsibilities for strategic business development, Kristin has worked on healthcare solutions within both startup ventures as well as within multinational companies.   She is an active angel investor with Boston Harbor Angels and serves on the Executive Board of Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network.

Brenton leads AlleyCorp’s healthcare investments and incubations. Prior to AlleyCorp, Brenton was an executive at Flatiron Health. He worked previously at J.P. Morgan and Blue Cross & Blue Shield. He is a practicing physician, board certified in Internal Medicine.  Brenton completed his residency at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, earning his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA in Healthcare Management from the Wharton School.

Ajay joined Osage University Partners in 2021. At OUP, he focuses on technology investments across software, computing and hardware. Before joining OUP, Ajay was the chief of staff and product manager at Kubisys, an enterprise software startup that raised over $15M. While there, he led fundraising and business development efforts while launching mission-critical products. As a graduate student at MIT, Ajay researched the intersection of engineering, business and design. He built an algorithm to predict the likelihood of a student dropping out due to mental illness. Ajay holds an M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Engineering & Management (Integrated Design & Management Fellow) and a B.Sc. from Babson College.

Matt is responsible for sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities, structuring new investments and monitoring portfolio companies. In particular, he has led several of Connecticut Innovations’ deals in the digital health sector, including Diameter Health, Inbox Health, ReferWell, TrialJectory, Populi and PatientWisdom (acquired by NRC Health).  Matt’s extensive experience includes five years at Cross Sector Consulting, where he provided strategic consulting services including planning, financial analyses, competitive analyses and implementation strategies for a variety of clients, including health care, education, community development finance and workforce organizations. Previously, he worked at the Urban Institute, where he developed predictive models to analyze the effects of health policy legislation.

Venture investor and company builder with proven track record in healthcare and technology. Co-founded LRVHealth in 2000. Led firm's investments in Diameter Health, Extreme Reach, First Light Diagnostics, Optasite (acquired by SBA), Protedyne (acquired by LabCorp), Socially Determined, and Verata. Previously a partner at Kestrel Ventures (Boston-based early stage venture firm), founding CEO of Mass Ventures (UMass-affiliated seed fund), and co-founder/CEO of Science Park Associates (venture development company affiliated with Yale University, Yale Medical School, and Yale New Haven Hospital). B.A. from Dartmouth College and M.B.A. from Yale University.

Dr. Jason Buchanan is a Venture Partner at Kind Capital and a member of Kind Capital’s SWOT Team. He has over 15 years of experience in the health care industry as a Clinical Informatics Officer and physician. During that time, he has cultivated an ever-growing passion for using data and technology to improve health outcomes. Jason has the distinction of being board certified in two medical specialties (Family Medicine and Clinical Informatics) and brings to Kind Capital expertise in the healthcare, healthtech, and medtech sectors.  His past work has focused on data analytics, telemedicine, electronic health records, workflow optimization, and health information technology training and education. In addition to staying clinically active as a physician caring for underserved populations, he advises health care systems, consulting firms, investment houses, payers, and providers on matters dealing with digital health, population health, data analytics, and clinical informatics. ‍ Jason is a product of inner-city New York. He attended Yale University for his undergraduate studies and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychobiology (Intensive Research track). He was then recruited to Houston, Texas for medical school and obtained his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Family Medicine through the Houston Methodist Hospital System. Subsequently, he completed a master’s degree in Biomedical Informatics, with a specialization in Clinical Informatics, from The University of Texas at Houston Health Science Center School of Biomedical Informatics. He has remained in Houston, at Baylor College of Medicine, as an assistant professor of Family and Community Medicine where he has provided outstanding direct patient care to thousands of patients and has won numerous recognitions and awards for his service and quality of care. Currently, Jason is also pursuing an MBA with a specialization in Health, Innovation, and Technology at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. ‍ Professional memberships include the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). He delights in being a husband and adores being a father. Jason is an avid runner and enjoys weight training, fishing, and taking time to appreciate the things often overlooked in life.

Spring Hollis is the CEO and founder of Star Strong Capital, an investment firm focused on debt opportunities for early-stage companies. Prior to founding Star Strong Capital, Spring was a portfolio manager at Park Cities Asset Management, a credit fund investing in small business and consumer finance debt opportunities. Spring previously worked as a managing director at Deutsche Bank in the Global Principal Finance and the Structured Transactions groups, focused on complex debt financings from the propriety trading desk.

Spring serves on the Board of Directors for the BOMA Project, an international non-profit focused on the economic empowerment of women in sub-Saharan Africa. Ms. Hollis has a J.D. from New York University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin -Madison.

Dr. Maxwell Scott Laurans is Vice President of Surgical Services and Clinical Chief of Perioperative Services at Yale New Haven Hospital, and Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Yale School of Medicine. 

Dr. Laurans' area of clinical interest is in the minimally invasive treatment of spinal disorders and spinal tumors, including stereotactic radiosurgical treatment of spinal tumors.

In his administrative role, he oversees the operational, financial and quality performance of surgical services for the hospital and the health system. He additionally chairs the Clinical Governance Committee for Yale New Haven Health System which oversees the formulary development for clinical and physician preference items and implants, managing approximately $500m in supply spend. He sits on several hospital committees, including the Committee for Healthcare Innovation (CHI).

Dr. Laurans’ primary research focus is identifying ways in which to drive improved quality and value in health care delivery and determining practical implementation methods at Yale New Haven Hospital. His research interests additionally include the efficient delivery of health care, appropriate use of information technology, clinical trials, outcomes studies, and evaluation of new technologies and innovations in the surgical disciplines.  Dr. Laurans is the faculty co-Director of the Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT) at Yale University.  He has advised numerous start-up companies and is a co-founder of Nomad Health, an automated two sided marketplace for the delivery of temporary healthcare staffing.

Dr. Laurans was born and raised in Providence, RI and obtained his bachelor's degree in Economics at Yale University. He continued his education at the Yale School of Medicine where he received his Doctor of Medicine.  After medical school, Dr. Laurans completed his residency in Neurological Surgery at Yale. Dr. Laurans also holds a Master’s of Business Administration from the Harvard Business School.

Mrs. Stump is Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Yale New Haven Health System and Yale School of Medicine. Mrs. Stump graduated from the Univ. of Connecticut School of Pharmacy and The Ohio State University College of Pharmacy with a Master's degree in Pharmacy Administration. Mrs. Stump is an active lecturer, commentator, and speaker on healthcare IT and digital health. She is Adjunct Professor and a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of Health Professionals at Sacred Heart University.

Joseph Bisson is Vice President, Business Development for Yale New Haven Health; a 5-hospital system in Connecticut and Western Rhode Island with $6.5B in annual revenues and 2,681 licensed beds.  In his role Mr. Bisson oversees the development and implementation of growth strategies for the overall health system, and for each of the respective service delivery networks.  His specific areas of responsibility at YNHH include system business development and outreach, the YNHH Center for Healthcare Innovation, the YNHH Grants Resource Office and system regulatory strategy. 

Mr. Bisson serves on the Boards of Directors of PhysicianOne Urgent Care and Sky Health Medical Air Transport, and on the Executive Committee of the Connecticut Health Council.  Prior to his current position at Yale New Haven Health, Mr. Bisson served as Vice President, Strategy and Business Development for the Saint Raphael Healthcare System, and as Vice President, Business Development at Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford, Connecticut. 

Mr. Bisson holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Hartford, a Master’s Degree in Social Work from the University of Connecticut, a Bachelor’s Degree from Colby College, and is a Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives. 

When not working, Mr. Bisson volunteers his time at several local charities and coaches youth lacrosse.  He resides in Chester, Connecticut, with his wife Kathleen and their two children.

Dr. Olukemi Akande is a hospitalist attending and physician executive director for post-acute care services at Yale-New Haven Health, with over seven years of experience in healthcare management.

During her 14 year career at Yale-New Haven Health, Kemi led several quality improvement projects mainly focused on care transitions and clinical operations with good results. She understands the power of collaboration and working with multi-disciplinary teams to achieve system goals. She is passionate about improving transitions of care and the use of technology to support health at home.

When Kemi is not working, she is keeping her two young daughters entertained.

Keith B. Churchwell, MD, FACC, FAHA, FACP is the President of Yale New Haven Hospital and Executive Vice President of Yale New Haven Health System. He is also an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. He held the previous positions of Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer and Senior Vice President and Executive Director for Heart & Vascular Services, Transplantation Services and Clinical Service Coordinator for the Department of Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital. Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, he obtained his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine. He spent his formative training years at Emory University Medical School and Affiliated Hospitals, then spending 12 years in private cardiology practice before joining Vanderbilt Medical School as full-time academic faculty in 2006 (he became a member of the clinical faculty at Vanderbilt in 1999). At Vanderbilt, he was an Associate Professor of Medicine and Radiology and the Executive Director/Chief Medical Officer of the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute from 2009-14.   Dr. Churchwell is also on the National Board of the American Heart Association and is the Chair of the National Advocacy Committee for AHA through 2022. He sits on a number of local boards in the New Haven area including, the New Haven Symphony (Board President), Columbus House and The Community Foundation of Greater New Haven.

A Yale University Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) since 2018, Kristin King is currently Vice President, Corporate Development & Strategy at Defibtech, a Nihon Kohden company based in Guilford.  With over 20 years’ experience across a variety of commercial and technical functions as well as responsibilities for strategic business development, Kristin has worked on healthcare solutions within both startup ventures as well as within multinational companies.   She is an active angel investor with Boston Harbor Angels and serves on the Executive Board of Boston Entrepreneurs’ Network.

Brenton leads AlleyCorp’s healthcare investments and incubations. Prior to AlleyCorp, Brenton was an executive at Flatiron Health. He worked previously at J.P. Morgan and Blue Cross & Blue Shield. He is a practicing physician, board certified in Internal Medicine.  Brenton completed his residency at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania, earning his MD from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and an MBA in Healthcare Management from the Wharton School.

Jared is an investor on the fintech and consumer teams at Canaan, partnering with startups who strive to improve how we interact with and through technology. Previously, he was an investor at betaworks Ventures, where he was responsible for lead sourcing, diligence, and portfolio support. Jared graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in Statistics & Data Science as well as a B.A. in English.

Ajay joined Osage University Partners in 2021. At OUP, he focuses on technology investments across software, computing and hardware. Before joining OUP, Ajay was the chief of staff and product manager at Kubisys, an enterprise software startup that raised over $15M. While there, he led fundraising and business development efforts while launching mission-critical products. As a graduate student at MIT, Ajay researched the intersection of engineering, business and design. He built an algorithm to predict the likelihood of a student dropping out due to mental illness. Ajay holds an M.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Engineering & Management (Integrated Design & Management Fellow) and a B.Sc. from Babson College.

Matt is responsible for sourcing and evaluating investment opportunities, structuring new investments and monitoring portfolio companies. In particular, he has led several of Connecticut Innovations’ deals in the digital health sector, including Diameter Health, Inbox Health, ReferWell, TrialJectory, Populi and PatientWisdom (acquired by NRC Health).  Matt’s extensive experience includes five years at Cross Sector Consulting, where he provided strategic consulting services including planning, financial analyses, competitive analyses and implementation strategies for a variety of clients, including health care, education, community development finance and workforce organizations. Previously, he worked at the Urban Institute, where he developed predictive models to analyze the effects of health policy legislation.

Venture investor and company builder with proven track record in healthcare and technology. Co-founded LRVHealth in 2000. Led firm's investments in Diameter Health, Extreme Reach, First Light Diagnostics, Optasite (acquired by SBA), Protedyne (acquired by LabCorp), Socially Determined, and Verata. Previously a partner at Kestrel Ventures (Boston-based early stage venture firm), founding CEO of Mass Ventures (UMass-affiliated seed fund), and co-founder/CEO of Science Park Associates (venture development company affiliated with Yale University, Yale Medical School, and Yale New Haven Hospital). B.A. from Dartmouth College and M.B.A. from Yale University.

Dr. Jason Buchanan is a Venture Partner at Kind Capital and a member of Kind Capital’s SWOT Team. He has over 15 years of experience in the health care industry as a Clinical Informatics Officer and physician. During that time, he has cultivated an ever-growing passion for using data and technology to improve health outcomes. Jason has the distinction of being board certified in two medical specialties (Family Medicine and Clinical Informatics) and brings to Kind Capital expertise in the healthcare, healthtech, and medtech sectors.  His past work has focused on data analytics, telemedicine, electronic health records, workflow optimization, and health information technology training and education. In addition to staying clinically active as a physician caring for underserved populations, he advises health care systems, consulting firms, investment houses, payers, and providers on matters dealing with digital health, population health, data analytics, and clinical informatics. ‍ Jason is a product of inner-city New York. He attended Yale University for his undergraduate studies and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychobiology (Intensive Research track). He was then recruited to Houston, Texas for medical school and obtained his medical degree from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed his residency training in Family Medicine through the Houston Methodist Hospital System. Subsequently, he completed a master’s degree in Biomedical Informatics, with a specialization in Clinical Informatics, from The University of Texas at Houston Health Science Center School of Biomedical Informatics. He has remained in Houston, at Baylor College of Medicine, as an assistant professor of Family and Community Medicine where he has provided outstanding direct patient care to thousands of patients and has won numerous recognitions and awards for his service and quality of care. Currently, Jason is also pursuing an MBA with a specialization in Health, Innovation, and Technology at Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. ‍ Professional memberships include the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the American Association for Physician Leadership (AAPL), and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). He delights in being a husband and adores being a father. Jason is an avid runner and enjoys weight training, fishing, and taking time to appreciate the things often overlooked in life.

Spring Hollis is the CEO and founder of Star Strong Capital, an investment firm focused on debt opportunities for early-stage companies. Prior to founding Star Strong Capital, Spring was a portfolio manager at Park Cities Asset Management, a credit fund investing in small business and consumer finance debt opportunities. Spring previously worked as a managing director at Deutsche Bank in the Global Principal Finance and the Structured Transactions groups, focused on complex debt financings from the propriety trading desk.

Spring serves on the Board of Directors for the BOMA Project, an international non-profit focused on the economic empowerment of women in sub-Saharan Africa. Ms. Hollis has a J.D. from New York University and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin -Madison.

Dean Jeffrey Brock was recruited to Yale in July 2018 to assume the role of dean of science in the Faculty of Arts and Science (FAS). In August 2019, Jeff was appointed to the additional role of dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science (SEAS). From this unique position, serving simultaneously as the dean of engineering and the dean of science, Jeff leads strategic thinking bridging these multidisciplinary areas of research and teaching. 

Prior to Yale, Jeff held several leadership roles at Brown University. He was a founding deputy director of the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics and established the campus-wide Data Science Initiative. Additionally, he was chair of the department of mathematics. 

Jeff earned his undergraduate degree from Yale in 1992 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1997. He then held postdoctoral positions at both Stanford University and the University of Chicago. An elected fellow of the American Mathematical Society, Jeff’s research focuses on spaces with negatively curved, or “hyperbolic” geometry. His foundational work led to the geometric classification of objects called hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Recently, Dean Brock’s research has focused on connections between hyperbolic geometry and theoretical physics, leading to the idea of a geometric evolution of 3-manifolds reminiscent of heat flow, and on the notion of a topology and geometry, or shape of complex and high dimensional data sets. 

Jeff resides locally with his wife, Sarah Cussler ’92, and their three children. An accomplished musician, he was the founding jazz bassist for the Vijay Iyer Trio, and a member of the Whiffenpoofs while in college at Yale.

Donald is co-founder and CEO of Tidelift. Previously he was a Venture Partner at General Catalyst and a member of the investment team at Greylock Partners, and an executive at Typesafe and Red Hat. He holds a BS in economics and computer science from Yale University, an MS in computer science from Stanford University, and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Steven Kan is the Chief of Staff and Head of Operations for Google Cloud AI. He is responsible for managing the overall operations of Cloud AI and ensuring the Cloud AI team have the resources and organization to create amazing AI products for customers who want to transform their businesses with AI.  

Previously, Kan was Google’s head of Android, Virtual Reality, and IoT New Business Development. He was responsible for enabling and scaling new hardware and software products and technologies through global partnerships.  Kan joined Google in 2011 and helped launch and grow Google Drive, Chrome OS, and On Hub, key consumer products which are now used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide. In 2014 he took over new business development responsibilities for Android, IoT, and VR.  Before joining Google, Kan was Vice President of Business Operations at Apture (acquired by Google).

Prior to Apture, he was with venture firms Clearstone and Redpoint where he helped incubate multiple companies including the online video technology company Nokeena Networks (acquired by Juniper). Kan began in online media at Overture (acquired by Yahoo) where he helped start and grow the contextual advertising business to a $100 million run rate.  

Kan studied Applied Physics at Yale and has an MBA from UCLA Anderson where he was Venture Fellow. He lives in Northern California and can be found sailing the Bay or skiing in Lake Tahoe with his wife and two children.

Sheng Liang is President of Engineering and Innovation at SUSE where he leads SUSE’s global team of engineers, and is responsible for the rapid growth of SUSE’s expanding portfolio from the enterprise Linux operating system to the Rancher container management platform. Prior to SUSE, Sheng was Co-Founder and CEO of Rancher Labs, and CTO of the Cloud Platforms group at Citrix Systems. He started as a Staff Engineer in Java Software at Sun Microsystems, where he worked on the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). Sheng has a B.S. from the University of Science and Technology of China and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He lives in the United States.

Bhaskar Ghosh (BG)  is  Partner and CTO at Silicon Valley venture capital firm 8VC, where he focuses on investing in early-phase start-ups building B2B SaaS, enterprise infrastructure and  data-driven businesses, and helping incubate companies with tech-entrepreneurs. Some of BG’s representative early-phase investments in enterprise Infrastructure include (Yugabyte, Acryl Data, Tetrate, Nylas, Seaplane, Ponder etc) and in vertical SaaS automation include (Tilda, Formlogic, Ushur). 

Prior to becoming an accidental venture capitalist, BG was a builder and engineering executive in Silicon Valley for 20+ years. As the founding Head of Data Infrastructure at LinkedIn, BG and his team built and ran the data platforms that helped  enable LinkedIn's meteoric growth from 50MM to 550MM+ members. Previously, BG ran engineering at Yahoo! RightMedia (the largest real-time display-ads exchange of its time), and learned about “big data” while writing parts of the Oracle and Informix RDBMS kernels.  Most recently,  BG ran engineering at NerdWallet, helping scale the company to a market leader in consumer finance marketplaces. BG has a PhD in Computer Science from Yale, a holder of 22 US patents and passionately involved in non-profits building social, education and cultural infrastructure in the American deep south and South Asia.

Domingos Silva is a partner in the Intellectual Property Practice who brings to clients extensive experience in the chemical, materials science, pharmaceutical, diagnostics, biotechnology, and biochemistry areas.

Domingos has a long professional history in the science field. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Princeton and pursuing his post-doctorate fellowship work at MIT, Domingos embarked on a career as a research scientist for Incara Research Labs, and later as medicinal chemistry manager in the oncology and antibacterial programs for GlaxoSmithKline. As a medicinal chemist, Domingos co-authored 16 peer-reviewed publications, and was named as in inventor in 17 patent applications. At GlaxoSmithKline, he was a member of the development team for a novel kinase inhibitor, which was eventually approved by the FDA as an oral antitumor agent.

Domingos became a registered patent agent in 2009. Prior to joining Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, Domingos worked for a boutique intellectual property firm and a large Philadelphia law firm. Domingos drafts and prosecutes patent applications in the areas of pharmaceutical sciences (including drug formulation and delivery, novel chemical entities, and repurposing of known drugs), chemistry (including inorganic, organic and bioorganic), diagnostics, biotechnology and materials sciences. He also performs prior art searches, and drafts legal opinions (including patentability, due diligence and freedom-to-operate).

Mitra joined OUP in 2021 as a Senior Associate and focuses on life science investments.  

Previously, Mitra was an Investment Associate at Connecticut Innovations (CI), responsible for sourcing, diligencing and supporting opportunities across digital health, devices, diagnostics and therapeutics. Prior to CI, she was a Life Sciences Consultant in the healthcare practice at L.E.K. in NYC, where she worked with a range of biopharma companies from startups to large pharma across project types and therapeutic areas. She was also a Company Creation Fellow at Flagship Pioneering.  

Mitra also worked as a Strategy Analyst in Yale’s Office of the Provost. Additionally, she is an alumnus of Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research, where she was a Venture Fellow for Canaan Partners, and a Blavatnik Associate.  Prior to Yale, Mitra was a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellow in Kampala, Uganda, where she worked with the Infectious Diseases Institute’s Director of Research.

Mitra received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Yale University, where she was a Ford Foundation Fellow, Pfizer Endowed Fellow, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Mitra also holds a B.A. in biology from the University of Texas.

Brian joined F-Prime Capital in 2018 and focuses primarily on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors.  Prior to joining F-Prime, Brian was an engagement manager at McKinsey and Company, where he advised pharmaceutical and medical technology companies on business development, R&D, and strategy topics.  Brian holds a Ph.D. in immunology from Yale University and received his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame.

Jason Ruth, Ph.D. joined 5AM Ventures as an Associate in 2017, was promoted to Senior Associate in 2019 and then Principal in 2020. He serves as an Observer on the Board of Expansion Therapeutics. He was previously an Observer on the Boards of Vor Biopharma (NASDAQ:VOR), Homology Medicines (NASDAQ: FIXX), Cabaletta Bio (NASDAQ: CABA), and Entrada Therapeutics. Previously he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he studied PRMT5 dependency in MTAP-null cancers and high throughput screening in Levi Garraway’s laboratory, and started BiomedStartup. Dr. Ruth serves as Chief Scientific Officer and as a Scientific Advisory Board member for the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network. He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania as an HHMI-Interfaces Fellow and received a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship to investigate cancer immunology with Lewis Chodosh. Dr. Ruth received a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California in Irvine. His work is published in journals including Science and Lancet Hematology. Dr. Ruth is based in the Boston, MA office.

Nilay Thakar, Ph.D is a Principal with ARCH Venture Partners, joining the company as an Associate in 2018. Dr. Thakar focuses on company creation, identifying and evaluating new life sciences technologies, and providing operating assistance to early-stage portfolio companies. Dr. Thakar is a co-founder of Skylark Bio and serves as its Head of Business Development. He also supported investments in, and serves as board observer at, Arbor Biotechnologies and One BioMed. He has authored eight peer-reviewed publications with greater than 250 citations in the areas of neuroscience, stem cell biology, intracellular signalling, and epigenetics. Prior to ARCH, Dr. Thakar led the turnaround of an Australian biotech start-up Stem Cells Limited and out-licensed their assets to Evotec GmbH, served as a Think Tank Advisor at the Australian Academy of Sciences, and worked as an Analyst at Dendright, a biotech start-up developing personalized immunotherapy. Dr. Thakar also conceived an app to help blind Australians use public transport and was selected a Finalist for Queensland Government Open Data Award. Dr. Thakar holds a B.S. in Biochemistry (High-Distinction honors) and a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Queensland in Australia. He also completed his M.B.A. at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Amanda is a molecular geneticist with 21 years of biopharmaceutical industry experience, specifically in business development and licensing transactions, venture capital, company building, and finance strategy. Most recently, she served as Managing Director of Venture Investments for Connecticut Innovations, investing in innovative biotherapeutics companies. Prior to that, she was a Partner at Baxalta Ventures. In addition to her role at Rallybio, she is Executive Chairman of Hoba Therapeutics and a Founding Partner at Eir Ventures.  Amanda earned her Ph.D. from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale.

Michal is Regional Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC, East North America. Located at the Innovation Center in Cambridge, she leads the Johnson & Johnson Innovation team to build, advance, and manage the External R&D portfolio of co-investments spanning across pharmaceutical, consumer health and medical devices.  Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Michal served as the Executive Director of Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) Harvard Medical School site, where she was responsible for development and commercialization of technologies emerging from research at HMS laboratories and for the strategy and execution of all industry collaborations. She negotiated agreements with major biopharma, life sciences, food and cosmetics companies to advance the translation of discoveries into products and create a revenue-generating product pipeline and worked with scientific founders and investors to create new startup companies.  Before joining Harvard University’s OTD in 2005, Michal held several senior business and technology development leadership positions in the biotech and tech industries and co-founded a biotechnology startup.  Michal serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards FutuRx Accelerator, and prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Innovation was a member of the SAB and a Member of the Board of Directors of a number of not-for-profit entities and companies, including Prize4Life, Compugen Ltd. and Alma Lasers. She holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science, an MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, and a BA in Medicine from Hadassah Medical School, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Marc Appel is the CEO of Orange Grove Bio ("OGB"), a biotech platform focused on the investment in and development of preclinical stage assets. He is an experienced investor in the healthcare and biotech spaces. He helped build the structured healthcare and royalty investing strategy at Marathon Asset Management, and prior to that worked across the capital structure in public market healthcare opportunities. Marc serves as an entrepreneur-in-residence to the Blavatnik program at Yale, a mentor to the Weill-Cornell eLab, a member of the external advisory review boards at both the Biotechnology Center at Stonybrook and the Dartmouth Innovations Accelerator for Cancer, and an adviser to the Robertson Fund at Rockefeller University.

Anna Turetsky joined The Mark Foundation as Principal, Venture Investments in November 2019. Prior to this, Anna was a Vice President at Lightstone Ventures, a global, early-stage venture fund investing in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. She played a major role in the firm’s investments in Tizona Therapeutics, Gemini Therapeutics, Locana, Cyteir Therapeutics, and Disarm Therapeutics, and served as an Observer on the Boards of Directors of these companies. Anna’s additional work experience includes internships and strategic consulting for corporate venture funds and biotech companies. Anna holds a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University and a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Vagelos Science Scholar. At Harvard, Anna completed her graduate research as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her interdisciplinary projects combined chemical biology, engineering, and translational medicine to develop novel cancer diagnostics.

Paulina joined Sanofi Ventures in 2022 with a background in early stage biotech investing and company building. Prior to joining Sanofi, Paulina was a Principal on the investment team at Omega Funds where she served as the board director or observer for Scorpion Therapeutics, Arrakis Therapeutics, IFM, and additionally led or co-led Omega’s investments in Theseus (NASDAQ: THRX), Ikena (NASDAQ: IKNA), Synthekine and Vanqua Bio.

Previous to Omega Funds, Paulina began her career with Polaris Partners. Paulina served on the boards of Kala Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: KALA), Neuronetics (NASDAQ: STIM) and Lyra Therapeutics (NASDAQ: LYRA), Microchips Biotech (acquired by Dare Biosciences), Arsenal Medical and CAMP4 Therapeutics, where she was the founding CEO. Paulina completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Robert Langer’s lab in the Chemical Engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During her time at MIT, Paulina founded the MIT Postdoctoral Association and served as its President. Paulina also served on the MIT Intellectual Property Committee. Paulina completed her PhD in Molecular Medicine from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Paulina graduated magna cum laude from East Carolina University with a quadruple major in biochemistry, neuroscience, biology and chemistry. Paulina attended East Carolina University on a full athletic scholarship and served as the captain of the women’s varsity tennis team.

Marie-Claire is a Principal at Pfizer Ventures where she is responsible for investing in early-stage private biotechnology companies to advance innovative science and speed novel medicines to patients.
Marie-Claire holds a B.Pharm.Hons. degree in Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Physiology & Pharmacology from the University of Nottingham U.K. She conducted postdoctoral work at Yale University in the department of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and the Department of Molecular Psychiatry. 
Marie-Claire has been at Pfizer for 24 years leading various platform groups. She founded the Primary Pharmacology Group in 2009 and led it for 12 years during which time the group was responsible for identifying Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir), Cibinqo (abrocitinib) and 10 small molecules that are currently in clinical trials. She was recognized as a PhRMA ‘We Work For Health’ Champion in 2018 and was a 2019 finalist for the CT Women of Innovation Award. She is a registered member of The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. She is Chair of the Board of Directors for the United Way of Southeastern CT and Treasurer of the Board of Directors for the Thames River Innovation Place. She is currently the Executive Sponsor for the Pfizer Women’s Resource Group in CT.

Heather is a Principal in our San Francisco office, concentrating on early-stage innovative therapeutic investments. Heather brings to bear her training as a Medicinal Chemist in academia and the Astellas Research institute, as well as a decade of public markets experience as an Equity Research Analyst at two boutique banks to help identify and build companies as they move through development.  She had the opportunity to lead deals and support clinical companies in her previous role at Sofinnova Investments. Heather currently sits on the Board of Entasis Therapeutics (ETTX), the Advisory Board of Life Science Cares Bay Area and Magnify, a UCLA incubator.

Jonathan Mandelbaum, Ph.D., is a Vice President on the Private Equity team. Prior to joining OrbiMed, Dr. Mandelbaum worked at Accelerator Life Science Partners where he focused on biopharmaceutical company creation. Previously, Dr. Mandelbaum worked as a research scientist in the oncology drug discovery unit at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Mandelbaum received a B.Sc. from McGill University and a Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular and Biophysical Studies from Columbia University.

Annie Lamont has more than 30 years of experience as a venture capitalist investing in transformative companies and entrepreneurs. In 2014, Annie, along with Patricia Kemp and Andrew Adams, launched Oak HC/FT, a venture capital firm that invests in early to growth stage tech-enabled companies shaping the future of healthcare information and financial services. Before founding Oak HC/FT, Annie was and remains a Managing Partner at Oak Investment Partners.

Annie is known as a leading healthcare and fintech investor, appearing on the Forbes Midas List, Institutional Investor’s FinTech Finance 40 list, and the Top 100 Venture Capitalist rankings published by CB Insights and The New York Times. She was the first recipient of the National Venture Capital Association’s award for Excellence in Healthcare Innovation. Annie was also honored with Healthcare Private Equity Association’s 2017 Russell L. Carson Award for lifetime
achievement in healthcare investing. Annie serves as a core participant of the Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary’s Innovation and Investment Summit (DSIIS), a collaboration between HHS and healthcare innovation and investment professionals to discuss the healthcare landscape, emerging opportunities, and the government’s role in facilitating accelerated innovation and investment.

She previously served on the Stanford Board of Trustees and the Executive Committee of the National Venture Capital Association.

Annie received her bachelor’s degree in political science from Stanford University.

Justin Borgman is a subject matter expert on all things big data & analytics. Prior to founding Starburst, he was Vice President & GM at Teradata (NYSE: TDC), where he was responsible for the company’s portfolio of Hadoop products. Justin joined Teradata in 2014 via the acquisition of his company Hadapt where he was co-founder and CEO. Hadapt created “SQL on Hadoop” turning Hadoop from a file system to an analytic database accessible by any BI tool.

Dr. Houston is President and Chief Executive Officer of Arvinas. Previously, he was the SVP of Specialty Discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). He spent more than 18 years at BMS in roles of increasing responsibility and had accountability for all Discovery Biology disease teams as well as various Discovery technology departments. He was also the site head of the BMS Connecticut facility. Dr. Houston was a member of the BMS R&D Executive Leadership team and chaired the Target Portfolio Committee which had governance oversight in the discovery space. With his teams and research colleagues, he progressed over 200 compounds into early development, several of which advanced into late stage clinical trials, and toward commercialization.

He was also the principal architect and driver of the ‘Leveraging Technology’ initiative at BMS which oversaw the design and implementation of an industry-leading integrated lead discovery and optimization process. This initiative created revolutionary changes in the discovery process at BMS with significant improvements in capacity, speed and cost control resulting in marked increases in research productivity and success rates.

Dr. Houston has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, he worked at Glaxo Welcome Research and Development in the UK, where he served as head of the Lead Discovery Unit. Dr. Houston currently serves on the boards of directors of NextCure, Inc., Oerth Bio, Cybrexa Therapeutics and BioCT.

Dr. Houston obtained his B.Sc. degree in Medical Microbiology from Glasgow University and obtained his Ph.D. with Professor Brian Catley in Microbial Biochemistry from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. He also completed his post-doctoral studies on an MRC grant with Professor Julia Douglas at Glasgow University.

Ronghui Gu is the inaugural Tang Family Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University. He is the primary designer and developer of CertiKOS, the first verified concurrent OS kernel, and SeKVM, the first verified commodity cloud hypervisor--major milestones toward building safe and secure systems software. Gu also founded CertiK, a Web3 cybersecurity unicorn startup valued at $2 billion and backed by Insight Partners, Tiger Global, Sequoia, Coatue, and Goldman Sachs. CertiK has collectively served more than 1,800 enterprise clients and secured more than $300 billion worth of assets in cryptocurrency.

For his work in systems verification, Gu received: an OSDI Jay Lepreau Best Paper Award, two Amazon Research Awards, an SOSP Best Paper Award, and a CACM Research Highlight. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from Yale University in 2016 and his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University in 2011.
 

Miles is an Investor in early-stage startups. As Founding Partner of Purpose Built Ventures, he invests in tech startups working to make people healthier or wealthier. He has invested in and advised dozens of companies at the earliest stages including Honor, Brightside Health, Remix, Notable Health, and Balto Software. Additionally, he has helped seed nonprofits such as Issue One, One Acre, MakeHaven and Imagine Worldwide.

Miles is an Entrepreneur. Starting his career as an entrepreneur while still a college student, he co-founded Higher One in his living room. As senior exec and later board chair, he led the company from idea to $200mil+ revenue, 750+ employees and IPO including making multiple acquisitions. He was proud to campaign internal culture and values including open communication and client service. Higher One also ranked highly on the national Great Place to Work list twice as well as Inc 500 and multiple other fast growth lists.

Miles went on to start two other venture-backed startups: SeeClickFix (SaaS for government) where he serves on the board and OneUni (higher education via smartphone).

Miles was an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year regional winner and national finalist.

Miles is a Podcast Host: Startups for Good is a podcast exploring high-growth and high-values ventures. Join us to hear how startups can be a force for good. Guests include founders of mission-driven companies, creators of startup nonprofits, and their investors/donors plus other inspiring thinkers and doers. http://startupsforgood.com/

Domingos Silva is a partner in the Intellectual Property Practice who brings to clients extensive experience in the chemical, materials science, pharmaceutical, diagnostics, biotechnology, and biochemistry areas.

Domingos has a long professional history in the science field. After obtaining a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Princeton and pursuing his post-doctorate fellowship work at MIT, Domingos embarked on a career as a research scientist for Incara Research Labs, and later as medicinal chemistry manager in the oncology and antibacterial programs for GlaxoSmithKline. As a medicinal chemist, Domingos co-authored 16 peer-reviewed publications, and was named as in inventor in 17 patent applications. At GlaxoSmithKline, he was a member of the development team for a novel kinase inhibitor, which was eventually approved by the FDA as an oral antitumor agent.

Domingos became a registered patent agent in 2009. Prior to joining Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, Domingos worked for a boutique intellectual property firm and a large Philadelphia law firm. Domingos drafts and prosecutes patent applications in the areas of pharmaceutical sciences (including drug formulation and delivery, novel chemical entities, and repurposing of known drugs), chemistry (including inorganic, organic and bioorganic), diagnostics, biotechnology and materials sciences. He also performs prior art searches, and drafts legal opinions (including patentability, due diligence and freedom-to-operate).

Mitra joined OUP in 2021 as a Senior Associate and focuses on life science investments.  

Previously, Mitra was an Investment Associate at Connecticut Innovations (CI), responsible for sourcing, diligencing and supporting opportunities across digital health, devices, diagnostics and therapeutics. Prior to CI, she was a Life Sciences Consultant in the healthcare practice at L.E.K. in NYC, where she worked with a range of biopharma companies from startups to large pharma across project types and therapeutic areas. She was also a Company Creation Fellow at Flagship Pioneering.  

Mitra also worked as a Strategy Analyst in Yale’s Office of the Provost. Additionally, she is an alumnus of Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research, where she was a Venture Fellow for Canaan Partners, and a Blavatnik Associate.  Prior to Yale, Mitra was a Rotary Ambassadorial Fellow in Kampala, Uganda, where she worked with the Infectious Diseases Institute’s Director of Research.

Mitra received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Yale University, where she was a Ford Foundation Fellow, Pfizer Endowed Fellow, and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. Mitra also holds a B.A. in biology from the University of Texas.

Brian joined F-Prime Capital in 2018 and focuses primarily on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors.  Prior to joining F-Prime, Brian was an engagement manager at McKinsey and Company, where he advised pharmaceutical and medical technology companies on business development, R&D, and strategy topics.  Brian holds a Ph.D. in immunology from Yale University and received his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame.

Jason Ruth, Ph.D. joined 5AM Ventures as an Associate in 2017, was promoted to Senior Associate in 2019 and then Principal in 2020. He serves as an Observer on the Board of Expansion Therapeutics. He was previously an Observer on the Boards of Vor Biopharma (NASDAQ:VOR), Homology Medicines (NASDAQ: FIXX), Cabaletta Bio (NASDAQ: CABA), and Entrada Therapeutics. Previously he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he studied PRMT5 dependency in MTAP-null cancers and high throughput screening in Levi Garraway’s laboratory, and started BiomedStartup. Dr. Ruth serves as Chief Scientific Officer and as a Scientific Advisory Board member for the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network. He received his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania as an HHMI-Interfaces Fellow and received a Ruth L. Kirschstein NRSA Predoctoral Fellowship to investigate cancer immunology with Lewis Chodosh. Dr. Ruth received a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California in Irvine. His work is published in journals including Science and Lancet Hematology. Dr. Ruth is based in the Boston, MA office.

Nilay Thakar, Ph.D is a Principal with ARCH Venture Partners, joining the company as an Associate in 2018. Dr. Thakar focuses on company creation, identifying and evaluating new life sciences technologies, and providing operating assistance to early-stage portfolio companies. Dr. Thakar is a co-founder of Skylark Bio and serves as its Head of Business Development. He also supported investments in, and serves as board observer at, Arbor Biotechnologies and One BioMed. He has authored eight peer-reviewed publications with greater than 250 citations in the areas of neuroscience, stem cell biology, intracellular signalling, and epigenetics. Prior to ARCH, Dr. Thakar led the turnaround of an Australian biotech start-up Stem Cells Limited and out-licensed their assets to Evotec GmbH, served as a Think Tank Advisor at the Australian Academy of Sciences, and worked as an Analyst at Dendright, a biotech start-up developing personalized immunotherapy. Dr. Thakar also conceived an app to help blind Australians use public transport and was selected a Finalist for Queensland Government Open Data Award. Dr. Thakar holds a B.S. in Biochemistry (High-Distinction honors) and a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of Queensland in Australia. He also completed his M.B.A. at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Amanda is a molecular geneticist with 21 years of biopharmaceutical industry experience, specifically in business development and licensing transactions, venture capital, company building, and finance strategy. Most recently, she served as Managing Director of Venture Investments for Connecticut Innovations, investing in innovative biotherapeutics companies. Prior to that, she was a Partner at Baxalta Ventures. In addition to her role at Rallybio, she is Executive Chairman of Hoba Therapeutics and a Founding Partner at Eir Ventures.  Amanda earned her Ph.D. from Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale.

Michal is Regional Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation LLC, East North America. Located at the Innovation Center in Cambridge, she leads the Johnson & Johnson Innovation team to build, advance, and manage the External R&D portfolio of co-investments spanning across pharmaceutical, consumer health and medical devices.  Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Innovation, Michal served as the Executive Director of Harvard University’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) Harvard Medical School site, where she was responsible for development and commercialization of technologies emerging from research at HMS laboratories and for the strategy and execution of all industry collaborations. She negotiated agreements with major biopharma, life sciences, food and cosmetics companies to advance the translation of discoveries into products and create a revenue-generating product pipeline and worked with scientific founders and investors to create new startup companies.  Before joining Harvard University’s OTD in 2005, Michal held several senior business and technology development leadership positions in the biotech and tech industries and co-founded a biotechnology startup.  Michal serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards FutuRx Accelerator, and prior to joining Johnson & Johnson Innovation was a member of the SAB and a Member of the Board of Directors of a number of not-for-profit entities and companies, including Prize4Life, Compugen Ltd. and Alma Lasers. She holds a Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science, an MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, and a BA in Medicine from Hadassah Medical School, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

Marc Appel is the CEO of Orange Grove Bio ("OGB"), a biotech platform focused on the investment in and development of preclinical stage assets. He is an experienced investor in the healthcare and biotech spaces. He helped build the structured healthcare and royalty investing strategy at Marathon Asset Management, and prior to that worked across the capital structure in public market healthcare opportunities. Marc serves as an entrepreneur-in-residence to the Blavatnik program at Yale, a mentor to the Weill-Cornell eLab, a member of the external advisory review boards at both the Biotechnology Center at Stonybrook and the Dartmouth Innovations Accelerator for Cancer, and an adviser to the Robertson Fund at Rockefeller University.

Anna Turetsky joined The Mark Foundation as Principal, Venture Investments in November 2019. Prior to this, Anna was a Vice President at Lightstone Ventures, a global, early-stage venture fund investing in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. She played a major role in the firm’s investments in Tizona Therapeutics, Gemini Therapeutics, Locana, Cyteir Therapeutics, and Disarm Therapeutics, and served as an Observer on the Boards of Directors of these companies. Anna’s additional work experience includes internships and strategic consulting for corporate venture funds and biotech companies. Anna holds a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University and a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, where she was a Vagelos Science Scholar. At Harvard, Anna completed her graduate research as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow in the Center for Systems Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her interdisciplinary projects combined chemical biology, engineering, and translational medicine to develop novel cancer diagnostics.

Paulina joined Sanofi Ventures in 2022 with a background in early stage biotech investing and company building. Prior to joining Sanofi, Paulina was a Principal on the investment team at Omega Funds where she served as the board director or observer for Scorpion Therapeutics, Arrakis Therapeutics, IFM, and additionally led or co-led Omega’s investments in Theseus (NASDAQ: THRX), Ikena (NASDAQ: IKNA), Synthekine and Vanqua Bio.

Previous to Omega Funds, Paulina began her career with Polaris Partners. Paulina served on the boards of Kala Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: KALA), Neuronetics (NASDAQ: STIM) and Lyra Therapeutics (NASDAQ: LYRA), Microchips Biotech (acquired by Dare Biosciences), Arsenal Medical and CAMP4 Therapeutics, where she was the founding CEO. Paulina completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Robert Langer’s lab in the Chemical Engineering department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During her time at MIT, Paulina founded the MIT Postdoctoral Association and served as its President. Paulina also served on the MIT Intellectual Property Committee. Paulina completed her PhD in Molecular Medicine from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Paulina graduated magna cum laude from East Carolina University with a quadruple major in biochemistry, neuroscience, biology and chemistry. Paulina attended East Carolina University on a full athletic scholarship and served as the captain of the women’s varsity tennis team.

Marie-Claire is a Principal at Pfizer Ventures where she is responsible for investing in early-stage private biotechnology companies to advance innovative science and speed novel medicines to patients.
Marie-Claire holds a B.Pharm.Hons. degree in Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Physiology & Pharmacology from the University of Nottingham U.K. She conducted postdoctoral work at Yale University in the department of Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and the Department of Molecular Psychiatry. 
Marie-Claire has been at Pfizer for 24 years leading various platform groups. She founded the Primary Pharmacology Group in 2009 and led it for 12 years during which time the group was responsible for identifying Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir), Cibinqo (abrocitinib) and 10 small molecules that are currently in clinical trials. She was recognized as a PhRMA ‘We Work For Health’ Champion in 2018 and was a 2019 finalist for the CT Women of Innovation Award. She is a registered member of The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. She is Chair of the Board of Directors for the United Way of Southeastern CT and Treasurer of the Board of Directors for the Thames River Innovation Place. She is currently the Executive Sponsor for the Pfizer Women’s Resource Group in CT.

Heather is a Principal in our San Francisco office, concentrating on early-stage innovative therapeutic investments. Heather brings to bear her training as a Medicinal Chemist in academia and the Astellas Research institute, as well as a decade of public markets experience as an Equity Research Analyst at two boutique banks to help identify and build companies as they move through development.  She had the opportunity to lead deals and support clinical companies in her previous role at Sofinnova Investments. Heather currently sits on the Board of Entasis Therapeutics (ETTX), the Advisory Board of Life Science Cares Bay Area and Magnify, a UCLA incubator.

Katie serves as the CEO & Managing Partner of The Engine, a venture capital fund built by MIT, that invests in early-stage companies solving the world’s biggest problems through the convergence of breakthrough science, engineering and leadership. She serves as a Board Member for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Form Energy, Via Separations, Lilac Solutions, Sublime Systems, WoHo, and VEIR.

Katie has advised hundreds of founders and invested in over 100 companies. Key investments include Pillpack (acquired by Amazon for $1 billion), Bevi, GrabCad, Synack, Zagster, NBD Nano, Neurala and Amino.

She holds an MBA from Yale and BA in Biology from Oberlin College.

Brian Gormley is a Special Writer covering life sciences for Dow Jones VentureWire and the Wall Street Journal. He joined Dow Jones in 2004.