UNLEARN - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Founder & Head of Machine Learning
Aaron is a mathematician with research interests at the interface of computer vision, machine learning, physics, and geometry. Previously, Aaron was an algorithm engineer and manager of the hand tracking team at Leap Motion. He was a postdoctoral researcher in mathematics at the University of Waterloo. Aaron received his Ph.D. in mathematics from The University of Pennsylvania for work on aspects of differential topology and geometry inspired by theoretical physics.
Job Titles:
- Biostatistician
- Research Biostatistician
Alyssa is a biostatistician interested in leveraging simulation and decision-theoretic approaches in clinical trials and drug development. She has a background in early-phase trials in cancer, having previously published research at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA), Columbia University (New York, NY), and The Institute for Cancer Research (London, UK).
Job Titles:
- Head of Business Development
Andrew is a business development expert in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Most recently, he supported NewCo formation and translational efforts at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Prior to Salk, Andrew developed the partnering strategy for InSphero, a Swiss biotechnology company spun out of ETH Zurich, and co-founded Nymirum, a private venture backed biotechnology company, spun out of the University of Michigan. Andrew holds a Ph.D. in Biophysics and Chemical Biology from the University of Michigan and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Toledo.
Anton is a physicist-turned-machine learning scientist with interests in Gaussian Processes, variational methods, optimization, and computational geometry. Previously, he was a research associate at Stanford SLAC, solving latent variable models in nonlinear X-Ray spectroscopy. He holds a Biophysics Ph.D. from the University of Michigan where he developed the 2D electronic Stark spectroscopy technique for observing charge-separation dynamics in the Photosystem II reaction center.
Job Titles:
- Marketing and Events Coordinator
Ayo is a Marketing and Events Coordinator with interests in event planning and marketing. Previously, Ayo worked at nonprofit organizations as a Development Associate to execute fundraising events and marketing campaigns. Ayo received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism with an emphasis in Broadcasting from California State University, Northridge to create and produce television news segments.
Job Titles:
- Entrepreneur and Senior Technology Executive
- Strategic Advisor
Charles is a scientist with interests at the intersection of physics, machine learning, and computational biology. Previously, Charles worked as a machine learning engineer at Leap Motion and a computational biologist at Pfizer. He was a Philippe Meyer Fellow in theoretical physics at École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France, and a postdoctoral scientist in biophysics at Boston University. Charles holds a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University and a B.S. in biophysics from the University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Advisor
- Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Craig Lipset is a recognized leader at the forefront of innovation in clinical research and medicine development. He is a growth advisor to technology and biopharmaceutical companies, leading universities, and the venture community, bringing vision and driving action at the intersection of research, digital solutions, and patient engagement. Craig was the Head of Clinical Innovation and Venture Partner at Pfizer, on the founding Operations Committee for TransCelerate Biopharma, and on the founding management teams for two successful startup ventures (Perceptive Informatics and Adnexus Therapeutics). During that time, Craig designed and launched multiple industry firsts - from the first fully remote/virtual clinical trial for a new medicine to the first returning of results and data to research participants. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research, the MedStar Health Research Institute, and the People-Centered Research Foundation (the central office for PCORnet), as well as on the Editorial Board for Therapeutic Innovation & Regulatory Science. Craig has been listed among the PharmaVOICE most inspiring people in the life sciences (Red Jacket hall-of-fame), Pharmaceutical Executive's Emerging Leaders, CenterWatch Top 20 Innovators in Clinical Trials, and the AlleyWatch Who's Who in eHealth.
Job Titles:
- Pharma Industry and Life Sciences Strategy Consultant
- Strategic Advisor
Daniel is a pharma industry and life sciences strategy consultant who has worked across the pharmaceutical, life science tools, data analytics, and private equity industries. His experiences include leading portfolio strategy for the immuno-oncology franchise at Pfizer and partnering with clients across the life sciences industry to answer key business questions primarily focused on corporate and business development strategy. Daniel is particularly interested in how tightening budgets, increased competition and emerging technologies are pressuring the pharma industry to find a quicker and more efficient way to develop drugs. Daniel holds a Ph.D. in Biology from M.I.T. and an AB from UC Berkeley in Molecular and Cellular Biology with a focus on genetics.
Daniele is a physicist with research interests in data science and machine learning, including geometric deep learning, machine learning applications to computational physics problems, and natural language processing. Previously, he was a data scientist at Quid developing natural language processing algorithms. In his physics career he worked on mathematical and computational models for elementary particle physics and cosmology. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics from MIT and he was a physics postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley Lab.
Job Titles:
- Machine Learning Scientist
David Li-Bland is a mathematician with research interests straddling machine learning, optimization, physics, and geometry. Previously, David was a research engineer at The Human Diagnosis Project. He was a postdoctoral researcher in mathematical physics at the University of California, Berkeley. David received his Ph.D. in mathematics from The University of Toronto for work on the geometry and quantization of physical systems.
Job Titles:
- CEO, Greyscaling LLC
- Regulatory Advisor
Diane is a pharmaceutical industry veteran who is passionate about changing people's lives by helping groundbreaking drugs reach the global market. Previously, Diane served for more than 30 years in various leadership roles in drug development at Pfizer. She has a proven track record of innovative regulatory strategies, including the first approved "virtual" clinical trial. Diane developed and executed regulatory strategies for a broad portfolio of Pfizer's blockbuster drugs, including Celebrex and Lyrica.
Diane holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT and serves as Senior Advisor for MIT's NEW Drug Development ParadIGmS (NEWDIGS) program. She is currently an independent consultant with interests in pediatrics, digital health, personalized medicine and working in the grey space of regulatory science.
Dr. Ann Taylor is the former Chief Medical Officer at AstraZeneca. She was responsible for AstraZeneca's global Patient Safety, Quality Assurance, and Regulatory Policy organizations, and the overall Benefit Risk assessment of our medicines.
Dr. Taylor was head of Clinical Biologics at Medimmune before becoming CMO. Prior to joining AstraZeneca in 2018, Dr. Taylor was Vice President and Global Head of the Program Office for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR). She also previously served as Global Head, Translational Medicine at NIBR, after having positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer Global Research and Development. Since Mar 1, Dr. Taylor has been leading the global Issues Management Team for Covid-19 for Astra Zeneca.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics at UNC
- Statistics Advisor
Dr. Joseph Ibrahim, Alumni Distinguished Professor of biostatistics at UNC, is principal investigator of a National Institute of Health (NIH) grant for developing statistical methodology related to cancer and genomics research. Dr. Ibrahim is the Director of the Biostatistics and Data Management Core at UNC's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is the biostatistical core leader of a Specialized Program of Research Excellence - or SPORE - grant in breast cancer that is currently funded from NIH.
Dr. Ibrahim's areas of research focus are Bayesian inference, missing data problems, medical imaging analysis, and cancer genomics. He received his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Minnesota in 1988. With over 26 years' experience working in cancer clinical trials, Ibrahim directs the UNC Laboratory for Innovative Clinical Trials (LICT). He is also the Director of Graduate Studies in UNC's Department of Biostatistics, as well as the Program Director of the cancer genomics training grant in the department. Sr. Ibrahim has served on several national committees and study sections, including being the Section Chair of the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science of the American Statistical Association and the Biostatistical Methods and Research Design (BMRD) NIH Study Section. He has also served as the Associate Editor for several statistical journals and was the Editor of JASA - Application and Case studies from 2013-2015. He is currently an Associate Editor for both JASA-Theory and Methods and JASA - Applications and Case Studies. Dr. Ibrahim has published over 340 research papers, most in top statistical journals. He also has published two advanced graduate-level books on Bayesian survival analysis and Monte Carlo methods in Bayesian computation. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS), International Society of Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.
For the past 26 years, Dr. Ibrahim, his students, and his co-workers, has been deeply engaged in cancer clinical trials and genomics research. In clinical trials, Dr. Ibrahim has developed methods for meta-analysis and network meta-analysis, adaptive methods for Bayesian design and analysis of clinical trials, and informative prior elicitation based on historical data for Bayesian clinical trials design and analysis. In genomics, Dr. Ibrahim has specifically examined statistical issues in motif discovery, gene expression analysis, eQTL, DNA/RNA sequence analysis, intra-tumor heterogeneity, single cell sequencing methods, and deep learning. Dr. Ibrahim has also been deeply invested in developing Bayesian survival analysis methods for cancer clinical trials and genomic data.
Job Titles:
- Executive
- Regulatory Advisor
- Senior Pharmaceutical Executive
Dr. Marina Brodsky is a pharmaceutical executive with a proven record of leadership and extensive industry experience. She is adept in the design and execution of clinical development programs which achieve regulatory success and meet the needs of customers, as well as in medical affairs strategies and tactics such as product launches and engaging medical community. She is currently an independent consultant, providing strategic advice to small and mid-sized companies in the areas of drug development, medical affairs and business development.
Marina retired from Pfizer Inc. in 2016 as Vice President in medical affairs after more than two decades in positions of increasing responsibility, including five years as Therapeutic Area Head (2011-2016). In that role, she led teams of scientists and physicians providing expert support for a portfolio of blockbuster Pfizer medicines such as Celebrex and Lyrica, and guiding the development of several early compounds for Alzheimer's Disease, Parkinson's Disease, and other neurological disorders. Prior to that role, Marina was Team Leader in medical affairs (2005-2011) and R&D (late stage development/pre-launch, 2000-2005), and a clinician/clinical team leader in early development (1995-2000). Marina has worked in several therapeutic areas including pain, neuroscience, mood disorders, addiction, and insomnia, and has co-authored papers on the use of machine learning methods to predict patient responses to treatment.
Before Pfizer, Marina was a researcher in an academic setting in Moscow, Russia, and an R&D scientist at Teva Pharmaceuticals in Israel. She received her BS from Lomonosov State University in Moscow and Kalinin State University, in Russia. She obtained her PhD in Neuroscience and Pharmacology from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences in New York.
Francisco is a Partner on the investment team at 8VC. He focuses on Bio-IT, Health-IT, and Enterprise AI investments.
Francisco previously was the Resident Data Scientist at Formation8 Partners where he worked with portfolio companies to strategize, prototype, and recruit for data products. He was the founder of Catenus Science, a data science consulting and recruiting firm that used an apprenticeship model to help early stage companies build data science teams.
Francisco received his Ph.D. from Stanford in Biomedical Informatics, where he was a Ruth L. Kirchstein Fellow. His research focused on clinical decision support for Radiology which won him the Martin Epstein award for best paper at the American Medical Informatics Association in 2014. He was the commencement speaker for the Stanford School of Medicine in 2015.
Prior to that he got his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley while doing research in Parkinson's disease at UCSF.
Job Titles:
- Managing Partner, DCVC Bio
John is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio. Prior to joining DCVC, John was a VP at Monsanto and Managing Director of Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV). Before joining MGV, John was a Managing Director at Burrill & Company. Prior to his career in venture capital, John was an entrepreneur, initially at Paradigm Genetics, where he joined as a visiting scientist before becoming Chief Science Officer and eventually President and CEO following the company's IPO. After Paradigm, John founded and served as CEO of Arête Therapeutics, which earned backing from leading life science venture firms.
John started his career in academia, rising to the rank of Full Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, where he was a David and Lucille Packard Fellow and an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow. John received a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. from the University of Windsor and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis.
Job Titles:
- Founder & Head of Data Science
Jon is a physicist whose research interests focus on data science and machine learning. Jon received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington and was a postdoctoral fellow in theoretical particle physics at UC Berkeley. His academic work was focused on building computational tools to analyze, simulate, and calculate properties of data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). He was an LHC Theory Initiative Fellow during graduate school and as a postdoc. After academia, Jon worked as a data scientist at Leap Motion.
Josh is a clinical data specialist with an interest in the role of technology in healthcare. Previously, Josh worked as a clinical research coordinator where he led clinical trials focused on Alzheimer's. Josh earned his masters in Bioethics from New York University and a B.S. in Exercise Physiology from the University of Miami.
Job Titles:
- People Operations Specialist
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Dir. Clinical Affairs
Luis is a scientist at heart with interest in business and innovation. Before joining Unlearn, Luis worked in clinical development at Biogen focusing on study design and execution of clinical trials and as medical writer at Medpace focusing on developing a variety of regulatory documents in close collaboration with regulatory affairs folks. Prior to that, Luis conducted neuroscience research on neurodevelopmental disorders such as Fragile X Syndrome and Down Syndrome at Children's Hospital in Washington DC and at Boston University. He has co-authored several peer-reviewed papers and served as peer-reviewer for a number of scientific journals. He holds a PhD from University of Malaga (Spain) and an MBA from IE Business School (Spain).
Job Titles:
- Dir. Applied Biostatistics
Michelle is a patient- and people-focused data analyst and biostatistician with twenty years of experience in clinical trials, observational studies, diagnostic devices, and translational medicine. She has a passion for medical communications and has presented at numerous scientific conferences. Most recently, Michelle was Director of Clinical Biostatistics at Exact Sciences. She received her bachelors and masters in Mathematical Sciences and Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Advisor
- Associate Professor of Physics
- Associate Professor of Physics, Boston University
Peter is a Data Scientist focused on releasing tested, scalable, and reproducible models. He has previously worked with Civis Analytics writing software for survey work for clients including political campaigns. Before that he built artificial neural networks for Sentient Technologies, where he tried to teach computers some fashion sense.
Priscilla is an alliance management professional who's passionate about building relationships and long-term partnerships in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. She has over 8 years of experience in clinical trial project and alliance management. Prior to working at Unlearn, Priscilla was an alliance manager at Epic Sciences were she led strategic partnership portfolios throughout project life cycle ranging from feasibility to late-phase clinical trials for top grossing pharmaceutical companies across the globe. Priscilla holds a B.S in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Merced.
Job Titles:
- Technologist
- Dir. Engineering Ops
Rajeev is a technologist with decades of industry experience. His current area of interest is artificial intelligence and its impact on humanity. Rajeev started his career as a software engineer and worked across various roles at Intel Corp and Agilent Technologies where he managed cross-functional and cross-geo organizations. He is a published author and a blogger. More about him can be found on his personal website - http://rnanda.
Ryan is a data scientist with a background in clinical research and a passion for using data to solve difficult problems in healthcare. Before joining Unlearn, he was a data scientist at Carium where he worked to provide physicians with deeper insights into their patients and allow patients better access to their physicians. Prior to that, he worked as a research associate at the Yale School of Medicine where he studied the relationship between early trauma and addiction as well as built models that predicted relapse.