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FoundHer Series

The FoundHer Series is focused on amplifying and supporting women academic innovators and entrepreneurs, particularly those who are in the early stages of their commercialization journeys. The goal of this series includes spotlighting women scientist entrepreneurs, bridging connections to other women founders and venture capitalists, providing education on commercialization basics and demystifying the process of fundraising and venture capital.

FoundHer Stories 2024

Our FoundHer Stories series highlights inspiring women scientist entrepreneurs who have spun out startups from their academic research and now lead their companies full time. Join us for a monthly series of intimate fireside chats with trailblazing entrepreneurs as they share their startup stories and advice to first-time technical founders.

TBD | A Fireside Chat with Lexi Rovner

Learn about Dr. Lexi Rovner’s experience spinning out 64x Bio in 2017 from her postdoctoral research at Harvard while working with Prof. George Church. Dr. Rovner will share how her company is transforming the future of cell and gene therapy with high-throughput engineering of cell lines to enhance the design and manufacture of next-generation therapeutics.  Speaker: Lexi Rovner, PhD (CEO, 64x Bio).  

Registration details coming soon.

April 2, 2024 at 1:00pm CST | A Fireside Chat with Elizabeth Wood

Learn about Dr. Elizabeth Wood’s experience co-founding JURA Bio in 2017 alongside Prof. George Church (Harvard) and former Church lab postdoc, Dr. Julie Norville. Dr. Wood will share how her company harnesses a combination of synthetic biology and machine learning to build an end-to-end discovery and development platform for developing immune-based therapeutics.  Speaker: Elizabeth Wood, PhD (CEO, JURA Bio).  

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May 1, 2024 at 1:00pm CST | A Fireside Chat with Marinna Madrid

Learn about Dr. Marinna Madrid’s experience co-founding Cellino in 2017 alongside Dr. Nabiha Saklayen while pursuing their doctorates at Harvard. Dr. Madrid will share how her company is building a scalable, automated biomanufacturing system for potentially curative personalized cell therapies.  Speaker: Marinna Madrid, PhD (CPO, Cellino).  

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June 28, 2024 at 1:00pm CST | A Fireside Chat with Janice Chen

Learn about Dr. Janice Chen’s experience spinning out Mammoth Biosciences in 2017 from her doctoral research at UC Berkeley while working with Nobel Laureate Prof. Jennifer Doudna. Dr. Chen will share how her company is harnessing the diversity of nature to power the next generation of CRISPR products for applications ranging from healthcare, agriculture, environmental monitoring, and biodefense.   Speaker: Janice Chen, PhD (CTO, Mammoth Biosciences).  

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July 17, 2024 at 1:00pm CST | A Fireside Chat with Mariana Matus

Learn about Dr. Mariana Matus’ experience spinning out Biobot Analytics in 2017 from her doctoral research at MIT while working with Prof. Eric Alm. Dr. Matus will share how her company analyzes sewage with molecular technologies and AI to provide early warning of population health threats across the globe.  Speaker: Mariana Matus, PhD (CEO, Biobot Analytics).  

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August 9, 2024 at 1:00pm CST | A Fireside Chat with Nishita Deka

Learn about Dr. Nishita Deka’s experience spinning out Sonera in 2018 while pursuing her doctorate at UC Berkeley. Dr. Deka will share how her company is building high-performance biomagnetic sensors for detecting muscle and brain activity, with the goal of building commercially viable non-invasive brain-computer interfaces. Speaker: Nishita Deka, PhD (CEO, Sonera).

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Past Events

Browse past panels and seminars from the FoundHer Series.