About

The Health Sciences Entrepreneurs program (HSE) operates within the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, and was created to introduce entrepreneurial business opportunities in the health and life sciences to Northeastern University innovators. The program was founded in 2005 by alumnus Joseph Fleming, PAH ’70, MS ’71, and focuses on educating alumni, student, staff and faculty entrepreneurs by providing them with the knowledge and tools to build successful companies.

At the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, we have many disciplines that lend themselves to the entrepreneurial world; pharmacy, nursing, drug development, physical therapy, public health, health informatics, digital health, telemedicine, audiology and speech language, physician assistant, counseling and pre-med. Though many of our entrepreneurs come from the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, HSE supports innovators from across all disciplines.

HSE hosts annual events in entrepreneurship and in 2010 launched a mentoring program for alumni, students, staff and faculty from Northeastern who are starting businesses in healthcare, health sciences and life sciences. Ventures apply to the program and, if selected, have access to a mentoring team that meets regularly with the venture to help develop the venture to a launch state.

In addition, the program supports various formal educational opportunities such as the new Entrepreneurship in Health Sciences course. This class is now offered each spring is the cornerstone for the NEW Health Sciences Entrepreneurship Minor!

Health Sciences Entrepreneurs Team

Gene Tunik PhD PT
Associate Dean of Research and Innovation, Bouvé College of Health Sciences

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.

Linda Tvrdy, JD, PhD
Associate Director

Linda has a JD from George Washington University Law School, and a PhD in US History from Columbia University. She has administered entrepreneurial academic programs at New York University and Columbia Business School. She was a fellow with the Blue Ridge Labs Social Impact Tech Incubator, an entrepreneur in residence with the AARP Foundation and is the founder of DaisyDebt.org, a social impact startup that utilizes tech for good by helping low-income consumers access their rights against third-party collectors. Teaching experience includes co-developing the course “The Future(s) of the Global Economy and Society” for Columbia University’s Committee on Global Thought Master’s Program, and developing a course on the history of the US Constitition through the lens of popular media and satire for the New School’s program on Writing and Democracy.

Eugene Buff, MD, PhD
Entrepreneur in Residence

Eugene is a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) and Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) with over twenty-five years of combined scientific, consulting and management experience. He is Founder and President of Primary Care Innovation Consulting (PCIC), which provides technology strategy consulting for both large and small companies globally and has unique access to cutting edge innovation at universities, incubators and accelerators worldwide.

Since 2021 Eugene has served as Entrepreneurship Programs Coordinator at Bentley University, Waltham, MA and has taught courses on Entrepreneurship, Venture Creation, and Strategy.

Dr. Buff earned his Masters degree in Biochemistry as well as his Medical Doctor degree from Russian State Medical University. He is a PhD in Genetics and is a coauthor of 14 papers in peer reviewed international journals.

Eugene is an active member of the Licensing and Technology Transfer community and serves on several committees and task forces at AUTM. Dr. Buff is a Startup Development Officer (SDO) at National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2). He is a member of many consulting and professional network organizations and often mentors and presents on issues of Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Innovation, and Technology Transfer both in US and internationally. He designed and taught “Customer Driven Technical Innovation for Engineers”, a core course for Entrepreneurship Minor within the College of Engineering.