Curated Collisions Series

Sarah Lindenauer is a Director in the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA) at Boston Children’s Hospital.

IDHA’s mission is to extend Boston Children’s pediatric leadership beyond hospital walls using transformative digital health technology. Sarah oversees the accelerator program and its portfolio in her role with IDHA. She is responsible for sourcing, vetting, and executing on key strategic partnerships with digital health companies of all sizes, from pre-seed start-ups to large tech companies.

Working with clinicians and researchers within the hospital, she also helps drive internal digital health development, from inception to commercialization.

Prior to joining Boston Children’s, Sarah worked at InVentiv Health (now Syneos Health), consulting to biopharmaceutical and medical device companies on digital strategies and solutions. Before that, Sarah worked as a product manager for a digital health start-up, SocialWellth.

Sarah received both her Master’s in Public Health and her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Dr. Esther Kim, ScD, RD is the Executive Director of Digital Health Innovation, a new team accelerating innovative healthcare technology pilots across the health system. She was previously the Program Director for the one of Massachusetts’ largest Medicaid ACO and one of the nation’s largest Medicare ACOs at Partners HeatlhCare. She also worked at Athena Health and led a clinical team for hospital EMR implementations, a Subject Matter Expert in Nutrition and in patient engagement for population health management clients.

As the Director of Wellness and Disease Management at South Shore Medical Center, she led a team of clinicians — endocrinologists, NP, PA, RN, RD, CDE, and Mas to engage patients and help manage their chronic diseases. She also led the employee wellness programs in collaboration with Virgin Pulse. She received her Doctorate in Nutritional Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Kim has also been a dietitian and health educator for over 15 years working at Tufts Medical Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Robert Schultz is an entrepreneur, professor, and innovation ecosystem builder from the Boston area.

He is the founding Managing Director of Massnex, the first life science diplomacy agency that aligns the incentives of industry, academia, government, and philanthropy to advance patient advocacy. He works with early-stage companies from around the world to help them collaborate with nonprofit organizations and promote trust with the communities they serve during product development and commercialization.

Robert graduated from the Northeastern University Bachelor of Science in International Business program and received his MBA from University of Massachusetts-Boston. He is a graduate of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio) MassCONNECT program where he developed his patient driven strategy in collaboration with the cystic fibrosis community. He currently teaches Healthcare Entrepreneurship at NYU.

Dr. Jacqueline Shreibati, MD, is clinical lead and senior health economist at Google Health. She was previously Chief Medical Officer at digital health start-up AliveCor. Dr. Shreibati is adjunct faculty at Stanford University School of Medicine, and practices general cardiology at a federally qualified health center. She received her BA from Columbia, and MD and MS in health services research from Stanford. She is active with the American College of Cardiology, including the Board of Trustees’ Clinician Well-Being Task Force and the Innovation Section Leadership Council.

Dr. Clare Purvis is a licensed clinical psychologist and Senior Director of Behavioral Science at Headspace. Her work is focused on using technology to support people in living full and vital lives. Dr. Purvis is an expert in the design and evaluation of digital mental health interventions.

At Headspace, Dr. Purvis leads the Science team, which is responsible for integrating behavioral science into company operations at scale and partnering with external researchers to advance the science of digitally-delivered mindfulness meditation. She also oversees Headspace Health, where her cross-functional product team is designing the future of Headspace’s mental health product and service offerings. Prior to joining Headspace, Dr. Purvis led clinical product innovation at Lantern, a venture-backed digital mental health startup.

In 2017, Dr. Purvis founded the Women Entrepreneurs and Leaders Lab (WELL), the first organization for women clinicians in digital health. WELL supports women at all stages of their careers by providing opportunities to develop deeper connections with peers and mentors in digital health. The leadership team hosts workshops and informal networking events for everyone interested in learning about the clinical side of digital health.

Dr. Purvis completed a postdoctoral fellowship in value-based healthcare innovation in the Clinical Excellence Research Center (CERC) at Stanford University, where she now serves as an Affiliate Scholar focused on the use of technology to make great healthcare more affordable. She received her BA in Psychology and International Studies from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and her PsyD in Clinical Psychology from the PGSP-Stanford Consortium.

Dr. Maria van Pelt, PhD, CRNA, FAAN is Dean, School of Nursing /Associate Dean, Bouvé College of Health Sciences and Clinical Associate Professor at Northeastern University. Dr. van Pelt is widely regarded as an expert, scholar and leader in patient safety. Her seminal impact has been through national and international advancement of the healthcare profession through advocacy, education, research and policy development related to clinician peer support and wellness. She is a 2012 American Association of Nurse Anesthetists Foundation Doctoral Fellow, a 2014 American Hospital Association / National Patient Safety Foundation Patient Safety/Leadership Fellow and a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Dr. van Pelt earned her BSN from Holy Family University, her MS from St. Joseph’s University and her MSN and PhD from Villanova University.

Stuart Heminway is a pharmaceutical industry professional with over 30 years of experience and is an alum of Northeastern University. He is currently Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Eidos Therapeutics and oversees regulatory activities for Calcilytix Therapeutics and Orfan Biotech, all of which are BridgeBio companies. Stuart holds a M.S. in Biomedical Science and a B.S. in Toxicology.

Stuart has developed and led strategic and innovative approaches to address unmet medical needs for global drug development programs, predominantly related to cardiovascular, CNS, and autoimmune diseases. Over the past 10 years he has dedicated most of his time to working on pediatric and rare diseases. Prior to joining BridgeBio, Stuart held regulatory leadership roles with increasing responsibility at Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca, Portola Pharmaceuticals, Genentech, MyoKardia, and Aimmune. His career in drug discovery and development started in discovery research at DuPont Pharmaceuticals and includes roles in project management, clinical operations, and alliance management.

Mika Reiner Mayer is a partner at Cooley and is based in California. She is one of the most sought-after lawyers in patent prosecution and strategic portfolio management for life sciences startups and established companies alike. Widely known for her strategic insights and deep understanding of business, Mika is the go-to diligence counsel in Silicon Valley for life science companies and their investors. Mika has extensive experience with investor-side and company-side patent due diligence, having handled more patent due diligence reviews than any other lawyer in the US. Given the sheer volume of deals she advises on, Mika understands the issues that drive a deal and is an expert at spotting vulnerabilities within a target company’s IP portfolio. In addition to her diligence work, Mika has a very active patent prosecution and counseling practice. She is currently representing over 75 high-growth life sciences companies in building robust patent portfolios that protect core revenue-generating products and technologies. Her clients range from seed stage private companies to unicorn startups to publicly traded corporations. In November 2020, Mika received the prominent distinction of being named an “Intellectual Property Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal. This is the second time Mika has won this honor.

Candice Hsu is an associate at Cooley and is based in California. She focuses her practice on patent preparation and prosecution, portfolio strategy and IP due diligence for medical device and other life sciences companies. Candice has over 10 years of experience evaluating and prosecuting patent matters relating to a variety of diverse technologies including neurostimulation, medical imaging, robotics, implantable medical devices, diagnostics, digital health, machine learning/AI, and various consumer products.

Matt comes from a family of career healthcare pioneers, who set the standard for post-acute patient centered care and holistic delivery. He has since spent time with Accenture focusing on technology delivery in healthcare, and specializing in large system implementations. Currently he works for Mass General Brigham as Senior Technical Program Manager of Digital Health Innovation accelerating the system’s digital health innovation strategy/delivery. Matt is also co-founder and CEO of a holistic wellness platform called Alch3Me.

Paul L. Chausse Jr. currently serves as Vice President of Revenue Cycle for MaineHealth.  He has been in this role for the past seven (7) years with responsibility for Patient Access, Health Information Management and Patient Financial Services which support eleven (11) hospitals and seventeen hundred physicians (1700) as well as Home Care and SNF.  Paul has over thirty (30) years of Revenue Cycle Management experience, as well as a Black Belt in Lean Six Sigma and has led dozens of Kaizen events.  Prior to joining MaineHealth, Paul worked in revenue cycle leadership positions predominantly in Connecticut, designing and automating revenue cycle processes.  Earlier in Paul’s career he worked for Applied Management Systems, first as a Consultant, and then a Manager where he was first introduced to an “early version of lean” called System Engineering that focused on People, Process, and Technology with performance management at the core.  Paul has also had the opportunity to learn from very strong engineers and he credits Dr. Deming as having a large impact on his leadership philosophy and principles for transforming business effectiveness.     

Derek Chiang leads an oncology-focused computational biology team at Bayer.  He earned his PhD in Molecular & Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.  Derek led efforts for cancer gene discovery in liver cancers as a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute and an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina.  He also oversaw the development of the RNA-seq analysis pipelines for The Cancer Genome Atlas.  Derek’s positions in pharma include Senior Investigator at Novartis (2012-2018) and Director at Merck (2019-2020).

Jackie Crossen’s biography coming soon!

Jake de Medeiros is a Senior Strategy & Business Development Associate within the Innovation and Digital Health
Accelerator (IDHA) at Boston Children’s Hospital. He focuses on conducting diligence on Accelerator applicants
and leads market research efforts into digital health verticals. He also works with both internal and external
innovators by providing advisory support, including business model development and commercialization strategy
guidance. Jake graduated with a BBA from the Isenberg School of Management while completing the Pre-Medical
track at UMass Amherst.

Dr. Y. Raymond Fu is renowned AI expert, Professor, and a successful serial Entrepreneur.
• Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Big Data

Academy and Fellow:
• IEEE Fellow, IAPR Fellow, SPIE Fellow, OSA Fellow, ACM Distinguished member
• ACM Future of Computing Academy member, Global Young Academy member

Entrepreneurship:
• Founder and CEO of AI startup Giaran acquired by the prestigious global cosmetic and beauty company Shiseido (Stock 4911: Tokyo) in 2017.
• Co-founder, Board member, CTO and later Chief Scientist of TVision Insights since 2015, a big data company inventing novel computer vision technology to measure second-by-second, eyes-on-screen Attention to TV and CTV content and ads. Tvision raised in total $40million fund after series B.

I am currently Cofounder and Managing Partner at Tau Ventures, a seed fund in Palo Alto focused on applied AI in digital health, automation (cars, drones, robots), and enterprise. Our 15 current investments include ArmorCode (application security), Biotia (analyze pathogen genomes to prevent hospital contamination), Blendid (robotic arm for making food), Cerby (cybersecurity to harness shadow IT), Elemental Machines (IoT to improve production of foods+drugs), FidoCure (treat cancer in dogs), Freedom Robotics (cloud platform for robotics), Infinitus (helping patients navigate healthcare), Iterative Scopes (computer vision for colon cancer), RapidDeploy (unified public safety), RubiconMD (referral service for primary care physicians), Signos (weight loss through glucose monitoring), Totient (cancer drug discovery), and two investments in stealth.

I have been in Silicon Valley for 20 years — at Samsung NEXT Ventures where I seed-funded nuTonomy (self-driving cars, sold for $450M), cofounded a startup called HealthIQ (as of May 2019 a series D that has raised $120M and valued at $450M), at Norwest Ventures ($10B AUM), and doing product and analytics at Google. My academic training is BS in computer science and MS in biomedical informatics, both from Stanford, and MBA from Harvard. I speak natively 3 languages, live carbon-neutral, am a 70.3 Ironman finisher, and have built a hospital in rural India serving 100,000 people.

Caroline Hewitt is the assistant dean and clinical professor at Northeastern University . Her academic experience includes leadership roles at Hunter College and Columbia University as well as maintaining a program of research in health service delivery, specifically using data driven analytics to understand reproductive health care service gaps in the US.

Beyond academia, Dr. Hewitt served as the Director of Advanced Practice at Atrius Health here in Boston where she oversaw the professional practice of over 400 advanced practice providers. She has also worked with public health organizations on federally-funded Title x and Ryan White programs in her role as Director of Clinical Education at Cicatelli Associates in NYC. Dr. Hewitt is the founder a non-profit educational organization and has served on several national boards in including the National Certification Organization, and the National Organization for Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health continues to serve in an advisory capacity on nursing scope of practice issues for numerous organizations, nationally

With over 20 years as a dual certified women’s health and adult nurse practitioner, Dr. Hewitt has committed her clinical practice to ensuring access to sexual and reproductive health care for our communities most vulnerable people.

Dr. Hewitt earned her BA in History from Skidmore College, MSN at the Institute of Health Professions at Massachusetts General Hospital and her Doctor of Nursing Science degree at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

My national policy experience includes serving on the Board of Directors for the National Organization of Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health (NPWH), and three terms on the Board of Directors of the National Certification Corporation (NCC), a nonprofit providing national credentialing for advanced practice nurses, registered nurses as well as for other health care professionals and continue to serve in an advisory capacity on nursing scope of practice issues for numerous organizations, nationally.

Sarah is an experienced design-driven product and business strategist with a demonstrated history of working in health care technology and services. She is passionate about using empathy and industry-proven frameworks to solve big problems & drive meaningful innovation within the healthcare industry. She has helped new businesses cross the chasm of execution and launch in as little as 7 months.

She currently works as an Associate Director of Product Strategy at Optum. Previously, she was a Senior Product Experience Manager on the Fusion Team within Optum Technology, where she has spent 4 years working with teams to build and launch new products and services centered around those UnitedHealth Group is committed to serve, patients and providers.

Sarah is a graduate of the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, where she completed a dual concentration in Management & Marketing, in addition to a health science minor from Bouvé College of Health Sciences. During her time at Northeastern, Sarah was actively involved in Women in Business, The American Red Cross Club, Lead360 and volunteered as a fitness coach for FitNU. She completed 3 Co-ops during her 5-year tenure; including roles focused on healthcare delivery, improvement and consulting.

She loves gluten-free cooking and living an active lifestyle. In her free time, you can find her traveling across the globe exploring new cities and cultures.

Rebecca Love, RN, BS, MSN, FIEL, is a nurse entrepreneur, inventor, author, TedX Speaker and first nurse featured on Ted.com, and part of the inaugural nursing panel featured at SXSW 2018.  Rebecca, was the first Director of Nurse Innovation & Entrepreneurship in the United States at Northeastern University School of Nursing – the founding initiative in the Country designed to empower nurses as innovators and entrepreneurs, where she founded the Nurse Hackathon, the movement has led to transformational change in the Nursing Profession. Rebecca is an experienced Nurse Entrepreneur, founding HireNurses.com in 2013 which was acquired in 2018, and currently serves as Vice President of Customer Strategy, OptimizeRx. In early 2019, Rebecca, along with a group of leading nurses in the world, founded and is President of SONSIEL: The Society of Nurse Scientists, Innovators, Entrepreneurs & Leaders, a non-profit that quickly attained recognition by the United Nations as an Affiliate Member to the UN. Rebecca is passionate about empowering nurses and creating communities to help nurses innovate, create and collaborate to start businesses and inventions to transform healthcare.

Rebecca holds a M.S. in Nursing from Northeastern University, B.A. in International Relations/Spanish from Boston University, and is currently Faculty at Norwich University, sits on the board of NextGen Ventures &  the Host Committee for the Massachusetts ACLU. She currently lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her husband and 3 children.

Matt is the Startup Program Manager for MassChallenge HealthTech, a digital health accelerator program in Boston Massachusetts that addresses healthcare challenges through demonstration projects led by startups, governments, universities, and preeminent healthcare organizations and institutions. MassChallenge HealthTech generated over 370 partnerships in its first four years, impacting millions of patient lives and helping entrepreneurs generate millions in revenue and funding.

Varun is a Digital Innovation leader for J&J’s external innovation organization responsible for partnerships in digital health for J&J Innovation, and technology responsibilities for the Lung Cancer Initiative and World Without Disease at J&J, shaping their digital strategy and portfolio efforts globally.

Varun has an MBA from Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business and has gained rich experiences in areas including digital health, Medical Device R&D M&A and economic research. Previous to his current role, Varun guided strategy and data-driven approaches for J&J’s Medical Devices R&D investment decisions. He also has helped bootstrap digital health initiatives related to post-orthopedic surgical care.

Varun supports a Boston startup ecosystem, nurturing as a mentor and investor in the energy tech and climate tech space. He is also a founding member of OneAmazingThing.org.

[email protected]

www.linkedin.com/in/varunramdevan

Laurie is the Program Manager for the Health Sciences Entrepreneurs Program at Northeastern University. She graduated from Northeastern with a Mechanical Engineering degree and then earned an MBA from Babson College, focusing on Economics and Entrepreneurship. Laurie worked in Engineering, Project Management and Enterprise Sales at Verizon Communications. After leaving Verizon, she had key roles in startups, small businesses, and non-profits. Laurie is a ViTAL Advisor, New England Innovations Awards Ambassador and Judge, leads a Society of St. Vincent de Paul chapter and acts as a volunteer and coordinator for a local food pantry.

Nate is the Director of Major Gifts at Northeastern University’s Bouvé College of Health Sciences, where he oversees fundraising for the Health Sciences Entrepreneurs Program.  He works with alumni, friends, and foundations to guide them in achieving their philanthropic goals and to maximize their impact on the University, its students and programs.  As a development and alumni relations professional Nate has covered Boston and Silicon Valley for nearly a decade and has developed a depth of knowledge about the health and life sciences industries and their entrepreneurial ecosystems.  Prior to working in higher education, Nate was an equities trader and subsequently practiced corporate law in roles at two Boston-based hedge funds.  He graduated from Suffolk University Law School in Boston.

Carmen Castañeda Sceppa, MD, PhD is the Dean of Bouvé College of Health Sciences and Professor at Northeastern University. She has taught at Northeastern since 2008 and served in a series of leadership roles culminating in her appointment as college dean in July 2018.

As a physician and nutrition scientist, Dr. Sceppa’s work centers around developing and testing lifestyle interventions to promote healthy aging. Her research examines health and wellness in settings that promote physical activity among underserved and vulnerable populations, specifically, older adults and the elderly, particularly Hispanics and African Americans.

Dr. Sceppa’s research provides evidence-based information to transform the way we think about healthy lifestyles. The Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine have used her research findings to revise the Dietary Recommended Intake for protein in older adults. Her pioneering work on resistance exercise in older adults with kidney disease and diabetes was translated into clinical practice by the American Diabetes Association and adopted as standard of care. Her research also contributed to the American College of Sports Medicine’s and Heart Association’s recommendations for physical activity in older adults.

Continued funding for Dr. Sceppa’s translational program of research includes funding from the Brookdale Foundation, the International Life Sciences Institute, the National Institutes of Health (NIA, NINR, NIDDK, NHLBI), the National Space and Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI), as well as corporations and foundations such as Novartis, Departments of Public Health, and Boston Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Sceppa has been an active and long-time member and contributor of the Gerontological Society of America (GSA) since 1994 and a GSA Fellow for Health Sciences Section since 2019. She has also been an active member of the American Society for Nutrition (ASN) since 1994, chair-elect from 2012-14 and chair of ASN’s Aging & Chronic Disease Research Interest Section from 2014-16.

Dr. Sceppa received her medical degree from Francisco Marroquín University in Guatemala City, Guatemala and her PhD in Nutrition from The Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a native Spanish speaker and fluent in English.

Dr. Tunik received his B.S. in Physical Therapy from Northeastern University, PhD in Neuroscience from Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Department of Psychological and Brain Science at Dartmouth College. Prior to coming to Northeastern in 2015, Dr. Tunik has held faculty appointments at NYU and Rutgers University. His primary research interest is in the study of brain mechanisms involved in human motor control, motor learning, and motor recovery from disease. He is the Associate Dean of Research and Innovation for the Bouvé Colleges of Health Sciences at Northeastern University. In his role, he helps lead the Health Sciences Entrepreneurs Program.