Sharp Brains: Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

Neuroplasticity, Brain Fitness and Cognitive Health News

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Speaker Roster

Confirmed Summit Speakers, Chairs and Judges

Thomas R. Insel, MD, Co-founder and President of Mindstrong Health and former Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

Dr. Insel  is a psy­chi­a­trist, neu­ro­sci­en­tist, and cur­rent­ly a co-founder and Pres­i­dent of Mind­strong Health. From 2002–2015, Dr. Insel served as Direc­tor of the Nation­al Insti­tute of Men­tal Health (NIMH), the com­po­nent of the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH) com­mit­ted to research on men­tal dis­or­ders. Pri­or to serv­ing as NIMH Direc­tor, Dr. lnsel was Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty where he was found­ing direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Behav­ioral Neu­ro­science in Atlanta. Most recent­ly (2015 – 2017), he led the Men­tal Health Team at Ver­i­ly (for­mer­ly Google Life Sci­ences) in South San Fran­cis­co, CA. Dr. Insel is a mem­ber of the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Med­i­cine and has received numer­ous nation­al and inter­na­tion­al awards includ­ing hon­orary degrees in the U.S. and Europe.

Dr. Deanna Belsky, Associate at Dolby Family Ventures

Dean­na com­plet­ed post­doc­tor­al work at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, study­ing gen­er­al mol­e­c­u­lar mech­a­nisms in neu­rode­gen­er­a­tion, and she earned her PhD from Rock­e­feller Uni­ver­si­ty, study­ing ALS in Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s lab­o­ra­to­ry. Dean­na has an accu­mu­lat­ed 10 years of lab­o­ra­to­ry expe­ri­ence and is a recip­i­ent of the Nation­al Sci­ence Foun­da­tion Fel­low­ship, Women in Sci­ence Grant, and Neu­ro­science Fel­low­ship at Rock­e­feller Uni­ver­si­ty. Pri­or to join­ing the Dol­by Fam­i­ly Ven­tures team, Dean­na worked at a bou­tique biotech hedge fund and a life sci­ences con­sult­ing firm.

Dr. Srijan Sen, Professor of Depression and Neurosciences at University of Michigan

Sri­jan Sen is the Eisen­berg Pro­fes­sor and Asso­ciate Chair for Research in the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan. Dr. Sen leads the Intern Health Study, a lon­gi­tu­di­nal cohort study that assess­es stress and mood in med­ical interns, enrolling over 3,000 par­tic­i­pants from 80+ insti­tu­tions each year. Work from the study has has advanced our under­stand­ing of biol­o­gy of depres­sion under stress and influ­enced med­ical edu­ca­tion poli­cies. His stud­ies been pub­lished in lead­ing jour­nals and cov­ered in the New York Times, Wash­ing­ton Post, Time Mag­a­zine and oth­er media out­lets. These papers have been cit­ed over 120 times, on aver­age, with two of the papers rank­ing among the Alt­met­rics top 100 arti­cles of the year.

Jan Samzelius, Co-Founder & CEO

Jan has spe­cial­ized in quan­ti­ta­tive meth­ods for 40 years and has invent­ed the typ­ing cadence tech­nol­o­gy cen­tral to Neu­raMetrix. He has pre­vi­ous­ly led a large num­ber of ana­lyt­i­cal projects, rang­ing from mea­sur­ing cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion to price elas­tic­i­ties to con­joint analy­ses. He has been the CEO of six com­pa­nies (most of them star­tups), in sev­er­al cas­es improv­ing prof­its dra­mat­i­cal­ly. His expe­ri­ence includes one turn­around and one suc­cess­ful exit. Jan holds a BSc in eco­nom­ics from the Stock­holm School of Eco­nom­ics, grad­u­at­ing with hon­ors and an MBA from Har­vard Busi­ness School.

Dr. Tony Chang, Associate at Merck Ventures

Tony Chang, PhD, joined Ven­tures as an ana­lyst in 2016 and tran­si­tioned into an Asso­ciate with the New Busi­ness­es team in April 2017. Pri­or to this, he was a tech­nol­o­gy com­mer­cial­iza­tion offi­cer at the Uni­ver­si­ty of West­ern Cape in South Africa where he was respon­si­ble for the devel­op­ment of sev­er­al indus­try research col­lab­o­ra­tions and licens­ing deals. Pre­vi­ous­ly, Tony was a con­sul­tant in the strat­e­gy prac­tice of EY in Johan­nes­burg. Tony received his PhD in med­ical bio­chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cape Town and his MBA from Rot­ter­dam School of Man­age­ment, Eras­mus Uni­ver­si­ty. Tony is based in Amsterdam.

Avery Bedows, Neurotechnology Specialist at Loup Ventures

Avery is obsessed with weav­ing tech­nol­o­gy, cog­ni­tion, and human well-being into a braid. The lure of tech dates back to his first cell­phone: in the two weeks before the phone shipped, he spent ~30 min­utes a day feel­ing but­ter­flies while look­ing at pho­tos of the phone on the carrier’s web­site. His fas­ci­na­tion with the brain began when he coau­thored an intro­duc­to­ry neu­ro­science book in high school, and evolved as he explored var­i­ous aspects of cog­ni­tive science/cognitive neu­ro­science lit­er­a­ture in his free time. His unwa­ver­ing focus on, and con­vic­tions to facil­i­tate, human well-being are just part of him.

Dr. Walter Greenleaf, Medical VR/ AR Expert at Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab

Wal­ter Green­leaf is a research neu­ro­sci­en­tist and med­ical prod­uct devel­op­er work­ing at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty. Wal­ter is known inter­na­tion­al­ly as an ear­ly pio­neer in dig­i­tal med­i­cine and vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) tech­nol­o­gy. Wal­ter is cur­rent­ly a Dis­tin­guished Vis­it­ing Schol­ar at Stan­ford University’s Vir­tu­al Human Inter­ac­tion Lab, the Direc­tor of Tech­nol­o­gy Strat­e­gy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Col­orado Nation­al Men­tal Health Inno­va­tion Cen­ter, and Mem­ber of the Board of Direc­tors for Brain­storm: The Stan­ford Lab­o­ra­to­ry for Brain Health Inno­va­tion and Entre­pre­neur­ship. In addi­tion to his research at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, Wal­ter is Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Strate­gic & Cor­po­rate Affairs to Mind­Maze and is VR/AR tech­nol­o­gy and neu­ro­science advi­sor to sev­er­al ear­ly-stage dig­i­tal health companies.

David B. Klein, Co-Founder & CEO of Click Therapeutics

David Ben­shoof Klein is a health­care investor and entre­pre­neur with over 17 years life sci­ence indus­try expe­ri­ence; he has played key roles in found­ing, financ­ing and oper­at­ing more than 10 life sci­ence com­pa­nies. In 2012, Mr.Klein co-found­ed Click Ther­a­peu­tics which devel­ops and com­mer­cial­izes soft­ware as med­ical treat­ments. He for­mer­ly served as Man­ag­ing Direc­tor at Opus Point Part­ners, senior con­sul­tant to Pfiz­er, and strate­gic advi­sor to numer­ous pub­licly trad­ed and pri­vate­ly held life sci­ence com­pa­nies. Mr. Klein holds a B.A. from Bran­deis Uni­ver­si­ty and has been a guest lec­tur­er at Colum­bia University’s Biotech­nol­o­gy Pro­gram. A native New York­er, Mr. Klein is an avid art enthu­si­ast and is co-founder and own­er of Klein Sun Gallery, America’s lead­ing Chi­nese con­tem­po­rary art gallery with loca­tions in New York’s Chelsea art dis­trict and Bei­jing, China.

Ana Maiques, CEO of Neuroelectrics

Ana Maiques is the CEO of Neu­ro­electrics, a com­pa­ny aim­ing to change the way we inter­act with the brain, devel­op­ing inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies to non-inva­sive­ly mon­i­tor (EEG) and stim­u­late the brain (tCS-elec­tri­cal stim­u­la­tion) to help many patients in need. The com­pa­ny is now start­ing its reg­u­la­to­ry path in the USA through a clin­i­cal tri­al in Boston. Ana Maiques was nom­i­nat­ed by IESE as one of the most influ­en­tial entre­pre­neurs under 40 in Spain (2010) and received the EU Prize for Women Inno­va­tors from the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion EC in 2014 and one of the Most Inspir­ing Fifty Women in Europe. Neu­ro­electrics recent­ly received the Best Start-up in Health 2015 by Wired UK mag­a­zine in Lon­don. She spends her time between Barcelona and Boston.

Keith Epstein, Healthcare Practice Leader at Blue Heron

Start­ing with Blue Heron in 2012, Kei­th has more than two decades of Wash­ing­ton-based inves­tiga­tive report­ing and edit­ing expe­ri­ence. His arti­cles have appeared in major news­pa­pers such as The Wash­ing­ton Post, the Mia­mi Her­ald, and mag­a­zines includ­ing Busi­ness­WeekCon­gres­sion­al Quar­ter­ly, and CIO Insight. He has report­ed on region­al and nation­al polit­i­cal can­di­dates, tech­nol­o­gy exec­u­tives, and the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, health care, and insur­ance indus­tries. He also was a leader at two inde­pen­dent non­prof­it news­rooms, the Huff­in­g­ton Post Inves­tiga­tive Fund and the Cen­ter for Pub­lic Integri­ty. He has a BA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Karen Rommelfanger, Director of the Neuroethics Program at Emory University

Karen Rom­melfanger is the Pro­gram Direc­tor of Emory University’s Neu­roethics Pro­gram at the Cen­ter for Ethics and is an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Neu­rol­o­gy and in the Depart­ment of Psy­chi­a­try at Emory Uni­ver­si­ty. Dr. Rom­melfanger received her PhD in Neu­ro­science from Emory Uni­ver­si­ty. She is also the Senior Asso­ciate Edi­tor for the Amer­i­can Jour­nal of Bioethics Neu­ro­science and board mem­ber of the Inter­na­tion­al Neu­roethics Soci­ety. She also serves as a mem­ber of the BRAIN Initiative’s Neu­roethics Work­ing Group and the advi­so­ry coun­cil to the direc­tor of NIH for BRAIN 2025. In her recent inter­na­tion­al work, she is co-chair of the Inter­na­tion­al Brain Initiative’s Neu­roethics Work­group and is a mem­ber of the Glob­al Futures Coun­cil on Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy for the World Eco­nom­ic Forum.

Dr. Anna Wexler, Assistant Professor at the Perelman School of Medicine at UPenn

Anna Wexler is an Assis­tant Pro­fes­sor in the Depart­ment of Med­ical Ethics and Health Pol­i­cy at the Perel­man School of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia. She is the Prin­ci­pal Inves­ti­ga­tor of the Wexler Lab, which stud­ies eth­i­cal, legal and social issues sur­round­ing emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy, with a par­tic­u­lar focus on do-it-your­self and direct-to-con­sumer med­i­cine and sci­ence. She received her Ph.D. in 2017 from the HASTS (His­to­ry, Anthro­pol­o­gy, Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy & Soci­ety) Pro­gram at MIT, where her dis­ser­ta­tion cen­tered on the DIY brain stim­u­la­tion move­ment. Pri­or to her Ph.D., Anna worked as a free­lance science/travel writer and doc­u­men­tary film­mak­er. She co-direct­ed and co-pro­duced the fea­ture doc­u­men­tary film Unortho­dox (2013).

Jacqueline Studer, Senior VP and General Counsel of Akili Interactive Labs

Jack­ie has decades of expe­ri­ence pro­vid­ing legal strat­e­gy and sup­port to large and emerg­ing growth health­care com­pa­nies. Pri­or to join­ing Akili, she served as Cor­po­rate Vice Pres­i­dent, Gen­er­al Coun­sel and Sec­re­tary at IDEXX Lab­o­ra­to­ries, where she led the legal, com­pli­ance and reg­u­la­to­ry orga­ni­za­tions. She held pri­or roles lead­ing the legal, pri­va­cy and com­pli­ance orga­ni­za­tions at Blue Health Intel­li­gence, Allscripts Health­care Solu­tions, and var­i­ous lead­er­ship posi­tions at GE Health­care includ­ing as Gen­er­al Coun­sel of the GE Health­care IT & Per­for­mance Solu­tions divi­sion. Stud­er holds a bachelor’s degree in man­age­ment from Pur­due Uni­ver­si­ty and a J.D. from Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty School of Law.

Dr. Clare Purvis, Fellow at Stanford Clinical Excellence Research Center

Dr. Clare Purvis com­plet­ed her train­ing in clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gy at Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty, VA Palo Alto Health­care Sys­tem, Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin — Madi­son, and Palo Alto Uni­ver­si­ty (PGSP-Stan­ford Con­sor­tium). Clare’s grad­u­ate research  focused on men­tal health tech­nol­o­gy, and she joined a men­tal health tech­nol­o­gy start­up, Lantern, upon com­plet­ing her doc­tor­ate. In that role, she cre­at­ed clin­i­cal inter­ven­tions, con­duct­ed research, and applied evi­dence-based behav­ior sci­ence to inform user expe­ri­ence and design. She is fas­ci­nat­ed by the inter­sec­tion of tech­nol­o­gy and health, and believes in the poten­tial for tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion to rad­i­cal­ly improve health­care in the Unit­ed States.

Louis Gagnon, CEO of Total Brain

Louis has 25 years of expe­ri­ence as a high-growth glob­al dig­i­tal busi­ness­es leader, most notably at Amazon’s sub­sidiary Audi­ble where he served as Chief Prod­uct and Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer. He also was recent­ly appoint­ed Advi­sor to TPG Cap­i­tal fol­low­ing a short CEO assign­ment to turn around port­fo­lio com­pa­ny Ride.com. Oth­er past notable roles include Chief Prod­uct & Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer at Yodle and Senior VP of Glob­al Prod­ucts at Mon­ster Worldwide.

Dr. Gregory Rose, Director of the Center for Integrated Research in Cognitive and Neural Sciences at SIU Med

Dr. Rose (Ph.D. in Psy­chol­o­gy, Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Irvine, 1980) is a fac­ul­ty mem­ber with appoint­ments in the Depart­ments of Anato­my and Phys­i­ol­o­gy at South­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty School of Med­i­cine. His research area is Neu­ro­science, where he has long focused on under­stand­ing mech­a­nisms of synap­tic plas­tic­i­ty, learn­ing, and age-relat­ed mem­o­ry impair­ments. For the past sev­er­al years he has been using func­tion­al mag­net­ic res­o­nance imag­ing tech­niques to exam­ine changes in rest­ing state func­tion­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty fol­low­ing cog­ni­tive train­ing in ado­les­cents with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties. He has over 125 ref­er­eed pub­li­ca­tions in sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals as well as numer­ous invit­ed book chap­ters, and over the years has received mil­lions of dol­lars from nation­al fund­ing agen­cies to sup­port his sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies. In mid-career he spent ten years in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try (Mem­o­ry Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and Bris­tol-Myers Squibb Co.) devel­op­ing nov­el cog­ni­tion enhanc­ing drugs for the treat­ment of Alzheimer’s dis­ease and schizophrenia.

Ariel Garten, Founder and Chief Evangelism Officer at InteraXon

Ariel Garten is the Founder and Chief Evan­ge­lism Offi­cer of Inter­aXon, which cre­ates thought con­trolled com­put­ing prod­ucts and appli­ca­tions. Ariel has also researched at the Krem­bil Neu­ro­science Insti­tute study­ing hip­pocam­pal neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis, dis­played work at the Art Gallery of Ontario, been head design­er at a fash­ion label, and opened Toron­to Fash­ion Week. Referred to as the “Brain Guru” by Now Mag­a­zine, CBC Radio and the Toron­to Star, Ariel has also run a suc­cess­ful real estate busi­ness, spent time as the design­er and own­er of a Cana­dian fash­ion bou­tique, and is a prac­tic­ing psychotherapist.

Dr. Margaret Morris, clinical psychologist, author of Left to Our Own Devices and former senior researcher at Intel

Mar­garet E. Mor­ris is a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist, researcher, and cre­ator of tech­nolo­gies to sup­port well-being. As a Senior Research Sci­en­tist at Intel from 2002 to 2016, she cre­at­ed and eval­u­at­ed sys­tems to pro­mote emo­tion­al reg­u­la­tion, social con­nect­ed­ness and per­son­al change. She has con­duct­ed User Expe­ri­ence research at Ama­zon and is an affil­i­ate fac­ul­ty mem­ber in the Depart­ment of Human-Cen­tered Design and Engi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Seat­tle. In addi­tion to cre­at­ing new health tech­nolo­gies, Mar­garet exam­ines how peo­ple appro­pri­ate exist­ing tools to enhance health and relationships.

Rebecca Canter, Associate at the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF)

Rebec­ca joined SV in July 2018 and works as an Asso­ciate for the Demen­tia Dis­cov­ery Fund. Pri­or to join­ing SV, Rebec­ca was a Post­doc­tor­al Sci­en­tist at Bio­gen in Cam­bridge, MA, con­duct­ing research on (neuro)inflammation in degen­er­a­tive dis­eases like ALS, fron­totem­po­ral demen­tia, and Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Her aca­d­e­m­ic cre­den­tials include BA, Behav­ioral Biol­o­gy, Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty; PhD, Brain and Cog­ni­tive Sci­ences, Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy. As out­side inter­ests Rebec­ca enjoys cycling, gar­den­ing, and travelling.

Dr. Peter Whitehouse, Professor of Neurology at Case Western Reserve University

Peter is a Pro­fes­sor of Neu­rol­o­gy and for­mer or cur­rent pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try, Psy­chol­o­gy, Cog­ni­tive Sci­ence, Neu­ro­science, Bioethics, His­to­ry, Nurs­ing and Orga­ni­za­tion­al Behav­ior at Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty, Pro­fes­sor of Med­i­cine at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, and Pres­i­dent of Inter­gen­er­a­tional Schools Inter­na­tion­al. He is also cur­rent­ly a strate­gic advi­sor in inno­va­tion at Bay­crest Health Cen­ter. He received his under­grad­u­ate degree from Brown Uni­ver­si­ty and MD-PhD (Psy­chol­o­gy) from The Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty (with posi­tions at Har­vard and Boston Uni­ver­si­ties), fol­lowed by a Fel­low­ship in Neu­ro­science and Psy­chi­a­try and a fac­ul­ty appoint­ment at Hopkins.

Dr. Nir Grossman, Lecturer in the Division of Brain Sciences at Imperial College London

Nir is an assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don and a found­ing fel­low of the UK Demen­tia Research Insti­tute. The long-term goal of his research is to devel­op neu­ro­mod­u­la­to­ry inter­ven­tions for brain dis­or­ders by direct con­trol of the aber­rant neur­al activ­i­ty. Nir received a BSc in physics from the Israeli Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (Tech­nion), an MSc in elec­tro­mag­net­ic engi­neer­ing from the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg-Har­burg, and a PhD in neu­ro­science from Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don. He then com­plet­ed a post­doc train­ing, as a Well­come Trust Fel­low, at the Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (MIT) and Har­vard Uni­ver­si­ty. Nir was recent­ly received the Neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion award by the Sci­ence mag­a­zine and PINS for describ­ing how tem­po­ral inter­fer­ing of elec­tric fields can stim­u­late deep brain struc­tures non-invasively.

Dr. Reza Zomorrodi, Project Scientist at University of Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)

Dr. Reza Zomor­ro­di is a neu­ropsy­chol­o­gy expert, with a pen­chant for com­pu­ta­tion­al neu­ro­scien­ceis. He a Project Sci­en­tist at the Temer­ty Cen­tre for Ther­a­peu­tic Brain Inter­ven­tion at CAMH. He holds a PhD in com­pu­ta­tion­al neu­ro­science from Laval Uni­ver­si­ty, and an MSc in atom­ic and mol­e­c­u­lar physics from IASBS-IRAN. Dr. Zomor­rodi’s cur­rent research focus­es on devel­op­ing new sig­nal pro­cess­ing tech­niques and apply­ing non-inva­sive brain stim­u­la­tion to study the role of dis­rupt­ed brain net­work and enhance their func­tions in mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tion of patients with men­tal illness.

Yannick Roy, Co-founder of NeuroTechX

Yan­nick is spear­head­ing Neu­roTechX – the inter­na­tion­al neu­rotech com­mu­ni­ty, as a cofounder and exec­u­tive direc­tor. He is an elec­tri­cal engi­neer with a back­ground in com­put­er sci­ence cur­rent­ly doing his PhD in visu­al neu­ro­science at Uni­ver­si­ty of Mon­tre­al. He’s obsessed about com­bin­ing brain & tech. When he’s not engag­ing with oth­er neu­rotech enthu­si­asts or man­ag­ing neu­rotech projects, he’s usu­al­ly in his lab work­ing on his research. He also teach­es com­put­er sci­ence at ETS in Montreal.

Kito Rosetti, CEO at CTF MEG

Mr. Toset­ti has many years of busi­ness expe­ri­ence in devel­op­ing and man­ag­ing ven­tures both in Cana­da and abroad. He has led mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar projects in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, med­ical device and engi­neer­ing indus­tries. Pre­vi­ous CTF, he was the CEO of Zycor Labs, CEO of iCell Ther­a­peu­tics and he co-found­ed and was the CEO of MIV Ther­a­peu­tics Inc, which he grew from a start-up to a pub­lic company.

Álvaro Fernández, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of SharpBrains

Álvaro Fer­nán­dez, a mem­ber of the World Eco­nom­ic Forum’s Coun­cil on the Future of Human Enhance­ment, runs Sharp­Brains, an inde­pen­dent mar­ket research firm track­ing health and per­for­mance appli­ca­tions of brain sci­ence. Mr. Fer­nan­dez is the co-author of “The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: How to Opti­mize Brain Health and Per­for­mance at Any Age”, and the Edi­tor-in-chief of Sharp­Brains’ mar­ket report on Per­va­sive Neu­rotech­nol­o­gy. Pre­vi­ous­ly he worked in McK­in­sey & Com­pa­ny, Ber­tels­mann, Docent and Ashoka: Inno­va­tors for the Pub­lic, and has an MBA and MA in Edu­ca­tion from Stan­ford Uni­ver­si­ty and a BA in Eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­si­dad de Deusto, in his native Spain.

Charlie Hartwell

Charlie Hartwell, Operating Partner at the Bridge Builders Collaborative

Char­lie helps fund and sup­port the visions of social entre­pre­neurs who have scal­able busi­ness mod­els for appli­ca­tions, prac­tices, prod­ucts, and tools that build bridges for mind-train­ing. He is a Har­vard Busi­ness School grad­u­ate who has led, found­ed, run and worked in orga­ni­za­tions in 16 dif­fer­ent indus­tries. Pre­vi­ous­ly Char­lie was Pres­i­dent of Ideas to Go, an inno­va­tion-con­sult­ing firm. His career has includ­ed Wall Street, cor­po­rate mar­ket­ing stints at HJ Heinz and Pills­bury. In 1998, he formed the first for-prof­it expe­di­tion com­pa­ny in the US, help­ing launch the his­toric Ban­croft Arne­sen Expe­di­tion across Antarc­ti­ca by polar explor­ers Ann Ban­croft and Liv Arnesen.

Robert Bilder

Dr. Bob Bilder, Direc­tor of the UCLA Ten­nen­baum Cen­ter for the Biol­ogy of Creativity

Dr. Bob Bilder is the Direc­tor of the Ten­nen­baum Cen­ter for the Biol­ogy of Cre­ativ­ity in the Jane & Ter­ry Semel Insti­tute for Neu­ro­science and Human Behav­ior, and the Michael E. Ten­nen­baum Fam­ily Pro­fes­sor of Psy­chi­a­try & Biobe­hav­ioral Sci­ences and Chief of Med­ical Psy­chol­ogy — Neu­ropsy­chol­ogy at David Gef­fen School of Med­i­cine. He has received many awards for his research con­tri­bu­tions, served on diverse fed­eral and inter­na­tional advi­sory boards, pro­vided edi­to­r­ial ser­vice to many schol­arly jour­nals, and received mul­ti­ple grants from the NIH, pri­vate foun­da­tions, and industry.

Kate Sharadin, Founder & CEO of eQuility

Kate is the founder and CEO of eQui­l­i­ty, devel­op­ing a pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy to treat CNS and Inflam­ma­to­ry dis­or­ders. Pri­or to found­ing eQui­ity, she led the bio­med­ical start­up prac­tice for the Inven­tion Sci­ence Fund, incu­bat­ing start­up com­pa­ny projects in med­ical device and dig­i­tal health. She is co-founder and board mem­ber of MEDX Accel­er­a­tor, an Israeli med­ical device and dig­i­tal health incu­ba­tor in Tel Aviv. Pre­vi­ous­ly she spent 23 years in the cap­i­tal mar­kets and invest­ment bank­ing, lead­ing equi­ty research and invest­ment teams in med­ical technology/devices and led a strate­gic advi­so­ry prac­tice for small pri­vate and pub­lic com­pa­nies in the areas of med­ical device and regen­er­a­tive medicine.

Nickolai Vysokov,  Co-Founder & CEO of BrainPatch

Inspired by the beau­ty, com­plex­i­ty, and plas­tic­i­ty of the nerve cells, Nick­o­lai ded­i­cat­ed his career to neu­ro­science. Nick­o­lai com­plet­ed his Ph.D. at Impe­r­i­al Col­lege Lon­don focus­ing on neu­ronal devel­op­ment and then worked in indus­try on cell ther­a­py for stroke patients. In 2017 togeth­er with his net­work of friends, he start­ed an ambi­tious project to devel­op a com­mer­cial plat­form tech­nol­o­gy for using arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence (AI) in non-inva­sive brain stimulation.

Richard Hanbury, Founder & CEO of Sana Health

Richard Han­bury is founder and CEO of Sana Health, a neu­ro­mod­u­la­tion plat­form for pain relief and deep relax­ation, which he devel­oped to erad­i­cate his own life-threat­en­ing pain prob­lem fol­low­ing a spinal-chord injury from a jeep crash near Sana in Yemen in 1992, its now his life’s mis­sion to devel­op Sana to help oth­ers. Richard has an MBA (Health­care) from the Whar­ton School, and DipLaw (Col­lege of Law Lon­don). He has spend 25 years devel­op­ing the Sana tech­nol­o­gy from the orig­i­nal bench­top device to the cur­rent device under­go­ing clin­i­cal trials.

Dr. Hagit Alon, VP Scientific Affairs at Joy Ventures

Dr. Hag­it Alon is pas­sion­ate about biol­o­gy, med­i­cine and the tech­nol­o­gy relat­ed to them. She holds a PhD in com­pu­ta­tion­al biol­o­gy from the fac­ul­ty of med­i­cine, Tel Aviv Uni­ver­si­ty, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Nation­al Insti­tutes of Health (NIH). She also com­plet­ed two mas­ters degrees (in Mol­e­c­u­lar Biol­o­gy from the Weiz­mann Insti­tute of Sci­ence and in Com­put­er Sci­ences, from New York Uni­ver­si­ty). Hag­it estab­lished an inno­v­a­tive plat­form in the field of Amy­otroph­ic Lat­er­al Scle­ro­sis (ALS). Her expe­ri­ence in lead­ing a group of devel­op­ers and mak­er skill set have secured her place in TOM (Tikkun Olam Mak­ers) lead­er­ship team. She was part of the orga­niz­ing team in var­i­ous TOM events in Israel, San Fran­cis­co, San Diego and New York.

Kathleen Herath

Kathleen Herath, Associate Vice President Health & Productivity at Nationwide Insurance

Kath­leen Herath over­sees the Health and Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty strat­e­gy at Nation­wide for the company’s 33,000 asso­ciates. She is respon­si­ble for the company’s inte­grat­ed health and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty pro­gram, which includes: health screen­ings, well­ness pro­grams, dis­abil­i­ty and dis­ease man­age­ment, health edu­ca­tion, work-life resources and walk­ing pro­grams and occu­pa­tion­al health clin­ics. The Health and Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty pro­gram at Nation­wide has received numer­ous nation­al awards for the first four years includ­ing the 2009 IBI Health Inno­va­tion Award, the Amer­i­can Heart Association’s Plat­inum Fit-Friend­ly Employ­er award, the 2010 HUB mag­a­zine APEX award and the pres­ti­gious C. Everett Koop Nation­al Health Award.

Elan Tye, Investor at JAZZ Venture Partners

Elan is an investor with JAZZ Ven­ture Part­ners focused on tech­nolo­gies that unlock human poten­tial. Pre­vi­ous­ly Elan has start­ed and grown ven­ture-backed star­tups as an oper­a­tor and advis­er across dig­i­tal health, AI, and neu­rotech. Oth­er expe­ri­ences at the Boston Con­sult­ing Group and Mon­i­tor Deloitte. He received his BA from Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty and his MBA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, Berkeley.

Gilad Peleg-Lorberbaum, Chairman of Joy Ventures

Mr. Peleg-Lor­ber­baum has 25 years of expe­ri­ence in life sci­ences man­age­ment, includ­ing blue chip cor­po­rate phar­ma busi­ness devel­op­ment, the launch­ing of inno­v­a­tive start-ups and ven­ture cap­i­tal / pri­vate equi­ty port­fo­lio man­age­ment. Mr. Gilad Peleg-Lor­ber­baum is the Man­ag­ing Gen­er­al Part­ner at Corun­dum Inno­va­tion, Co. Ltd, and serves as the Chair­man at Joy Ven­tures. From 2008 up to late 2015 he was Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer at Rain­bow Med­ical Ltd. Pre­vi­ous­ly he led exec­u­tive jobs at Glen­rock Israel, NanoCyte Inc, Reico Ven­ture Cap­i­tal,  and Teva Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Indus­tries. He holds an MBA from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hart­ford, Con­necti­cut, Unit­ed States. and a Bachelor’s degree in Eco­nom­ics and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from the Hebrew Uni­ver­si­ty of Jerusalem, Israel.

Marcel Legrand, Chief Revenue Officer of Total Brain

Mar­cel is a proven exec­u­tive with a track record of achieve­ment in inno­va­tion and pos­i­tive fis­cal results. Adept in all areas of strate­gic oper­a­tions, sales man­age­ment and mar­ket plan­ning. Mar­cel is a Co-founder and oper­at­ing part­ner of Ver­ti­cal Knowl­edge LLC and pre­vi­ous­ly served posi­tions as part­ner at Black­fin Cap­i­tal and Strat­e­gy & Cor­po­rate Devel­op­ment at Monster.

Dr. Lew Lim, CEO & Founder of VieLight

Lew Lim is an engi­neer with a pas­sion for help­ing peo­ple. He is the co-inven­tor of sev­er­al wear­able pho­to­bio­mod­u­la­tion (PBM) / low lev­el light ther­a­py devices, and has been rec­og­nized for the devel­op­ment of the intranasal light ther­a­py sys­tems, par­tic­u­lar­ly to address neu­ro­log­i­cal issues. He is a Doc­tor of Nat­ur­al Med­i­cine with addi­tion­al diplo­mas in Med­ical Neu­ro­science and Busi­ness and Accoun­tan­cy. He obtained his degrees and diplo­mas from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia at Berke­ley, Uni­ver­si­ty of Sheffield, Duke Uni­ver­si­ty, Quan­tum Uni­ver­si­ty and The Char­tered Insti­tute of Man­age­ment Accoun­tants, UK.

Debra Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Director of The Arrow­smith Program

Deb­bie Gilmore is the new Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Arrow­smith Pro­gram, hav­ing been Arrowsmith’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Aus­tralia and New Zealand for 18 months. Deb­bie first heard about the Arrow­smith Pro­gram when she was Head of Diverse Learn­ing Needs at the Catholic Edu­ca­tion Office, Syd­ney, Aus­tralia. Her work as a teacher, lit­er­a­cy advis­er, assis­tant prin­ci­pal and prin­ci­pal helped her under­stand the need to ‘unlock’ the poten­tial of stu­dents with learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, and her role as a moth­er of a son with such chal­lenges gave her first hand expe­ri­ence of their strug­gles. Deb­bie holds a Mas­ters of Edu­ca­tion and var­i­ous Grad­u­ate Cer­tifi­cates in Education.

Sydney Swaine-Simon, Co-founder of NeurotechX

Syd­ney is a Mon­tre­al native with an innate dri­ve to grow the local inno­va­tion ecosys­tem. In 2012 Syd­ney became one of the co-founders of Dis­trict 3, one of Quebec’s largest inno­va­tion cen­ters. Hav­ing got a taste for inno­va­tion and tech­nol­o­gy, Syd­ney went on to co-found Neu­roTechX, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion which has built the largest net­work of neu­rotech­nol­o­gy enthu­si­asts. For fun, Syd­ney is a core mem­ber of the DEF CON Bio­hack­ing Vil­lage, as well as is a men­tor for the Mozil­la Open Lead­er­ship Program.

Mel Barsky, Director at Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI)

Mel is respon­si­ble for .devel­op­ing and iden­ti­fy­ing new com­mer­cial oppor­tu­ni­ties that will expand the con­tin­ued Cana­di­an and inter­na­tion­al growth of CABHI. Mel brings to CABHI more than 25 years of lead­er­ship expe­ri­ence in ven­ture cap­i­tal, health­care IT, sales, mar­ket­ing, oper­a­tions, finan­cial ser­vices and infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Mel has also served at INTERVENT Cana­da, Dynacare Med­ical Lab­o­ra­to­ries, Sco­tia Pri­vate Equi­ty, and Amer­i­can Express. Mel holds an Hon­ours Bach­e­lor of Arts in Eco­nom­ics and Polit­i­cal Sci­ence from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, and a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion, Finance and Inter­na­tion­al Busi­ness from Queen’s University.

Sylvain Piquet, COO of Peak

Syl­vain is a sea­soned inter­na­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy busi­ness leader, with a focus on oper­a­tions, busi­ness devel­op­ment and dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing. Cur­rent­ly COO at Peak, a lead­ing brain train­ing app on mobile. Pri­or to Peak he was head­ing up Sales & Oper­a­tions glob­al­ly for the Paris based SSP Smart, and worked 7 years at Criteo, His spe­cial­ties include build­ing, struc­tur­ing and lead­ing inter­na­tion­al S&O teams; Mobile Adver­tis­ing / Pro­gram­mat­ic Ad Tech/ Retail, Trav­el and Clas­si­fieds eCom­merce / Enter­prise and Mid-Mar­ket Sales/ Cross-chan­nel and cross-device Ana­lyt­ics and Attri­bu­tion.  


–> Learn more & Reg­is­ter for the 2019 Sharp­Brains Vir­tu­al Sum­mit: The Future of Brain Health