impact of Gender/Sex on Innovation and Novel Technologies
Our Team
Board of Directors
Saralyn Mark, MD
President and Founder, Chair, Board of Directors
Saralyn Mark, MD, a world renowned leader in women’s health, is an endocrinologist, geriatrician and women’s health specialist. She was the first Senior Medical Advisor to the Office on Women’s Health within the Department of Health and Human Services. She designed the first women’s health fellowship in the US, helped create the National Centers of Leadership in Academic Medicine, the National Centers of Excellence in Women’s Health, and landmark educational campaigns on critical health issues. She has published and delivered over 600 lectures and is a frequent health media expert. Dr. Mark works with agencies, academia, industry and NGOs around the globe. As President of SolaMed Solutions, LLC, Dr. Mark serves as a medical and scientific policy advisor to the White House, NASA and other organizations dedicated to improving health on Earth and in space. She holds 4 academic appointments including at Yale and Kings College-London. She is author of Stellar Medicine: A Journey Through the Universe of Women's Health.
Kevin Cevasco, PhD, MPH, MBA
Treasurer, Member, Board of Directors
Kevin Cevasco, PhD, MPH, MBA, brings extensive leadership experience in non-profit board governance, financial planning, and organizational strategy. He served as Chair and Treasurer of Friends of Patients at the National Institutes of Health providing strategic and financial oversight of programs for patients receiving life-saving treatments. Following his tenure at IBM and Dell, where he designed large-scale health information systems, he earned a PhD to further investigate individual and organizational health decision making.
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Charlotte Tomic, MBA
Secretary, Member, Board of Directors
Ms. Tomic, MBA, a public relations consultant, works with academic, nonprofit and corporate entities as well as authors, filmmakers and public health experts. She advises the American Medical Women’s Association, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, the EndBrain Cancer Initiative, and Smart City Capital. Charlotte has an MBA in Marketing and has developed ground-breaking health campaigns.
Priti Kaur, MBA
COO, Member, Board of Directors
Priti Kaur, MBA, a serial entrepreneur, is the CEO of Renibus Therapeutics, Inc, a company which focuses on the prevention of acute kidney injury. Additionally, she is the founder and CEO of HUB Investments which invests in real estate and start-up ventures. In 2011, she was awarded the Innovator Award from the Million Dollar Club for her development of an investor software package. She has successfully founded and developed several business enterprises and serves as a leader in the philanthropic, investment and biotechnology communities.
Anupam Agarwal, MD, MPH
Member, Board of Directors
Anupam Agarwal, MD, MPH, is a physician-scientist and cardiologist with extensive experience in clinical research, global drug safety, and regulatory strategy. He currently serves as an independent advisor to biotechnology and health-technology organizations on high-stakes development and safety decisions. Dr. Agarwal is the president of the San Francisco Harvard Club among many other professional affiliations.
Susan Alpert, MD, PhD
Member, Board of Directors
Susan Alpert, MD, PhD, is a microbiologist and Pediatric Infectious Diseases physician who, following work in clinical research and completing clinical education and training, worked at the US FDAin the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research as a Reviewer and Branch Chief, in the Centerfor Devices and Radiological Health as an Office Director, and at the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition as a Project Leader before moving to the medical device industry as the Senior Vice President for Global Regulatory Affairs at CR Bard and then at Medtronic. She is currently the Principal at SFADC LLC a regulatory consulting firm in Washington, DC and in addition to consulting she serves on the boards of a number of medical device companies.
Dawn Kernagis, PhD
Member, Board of Directors
Dawn Kernagis, PhD, is a scientist studying human resilience to extreme environments from the undersea to space. An exploration cave, technical, and free diver since 1993, Dr. Karnagis was an undersea crew member and scientist on the NASA NEEMO XXI mission. Based on her diving experiences and research background, Dr. Kernagis is also an inductee into the Women Divers Hall of Fame and is a Fellow of the Explorers Club.
Karla Shepard Rubinger, PhD, MSc
Member, Board of Directors
Karla Shepard Rubinger, PhD, MSc, has been Vice President for the past 25 years at Mary Ann Liebert Inc., publisher of over 100 peer/reviewed journals in health, medicine, and biotech. She has worked in these areas with foundations, agencies, and academia, including her graduate work at the London School of Economics and Princeton University. Dr. Rubinger was the founding director of the Rosalind Franklin Society to showcase and support women in science, and she is now the founding partner of Rubinger Associates.
Honorable Mark Lindsay, JD, MBA
Board of Directors, Honorary
Mark Lindsay, JD, MBA, Director of Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Practice at the Livingston Group, served as the Assistant to the President for Management and Administration in the Clinton White House where he managed a budget of over $1 billion. Mr. Lindsay was also the Senior Legislative Aide and Counsel to Representative Louis Stokes, President of the AARP Pharmacy Services Division, and Vice President of Public Communications and Strategy at UnitedHealth Group.
Dr. Philip Rubin, PhD
Board of Directors, emeritus
Philip Rubin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, technologist, and science administrator, is currently the Senior Advisor to the President and Chief Executive Officer Emeritus at Haskins Laboratories in New Haven, Connecticut. He is also a Professor Adjunct in the Department of Surgery at the Yale University School of Medicine and a Fellow at Yale's Trumbull College. From 2012-2015, he was the Principal Assistant Director for Science at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President of the United States and led the White House neuroscience initiative.
Outreach Committee
Alires Almon
Alires Almon, Director of Innovation for the Mental Health Center of Denver, is also the founder of Deep Space Predictive which brings behavioral technology for deep space exploration. As a leader in the Colorado aerospace industry, Alires is the chair of the Colorado Space Business Roundtable and a member of the DARPA supported 100 year Starship program. She founded a snowboarding company, Ride or Die, LLC, the home of Black Bettie, for riders who are women of color.
Frances E. Ashe-Goins RN, PhD (Hon)
Frances E. Ashe-Goins, RN, PhD (Hon), is an Adjunct Professor at the University of SC. She retired as the DHHS Office on Women's Health's Deputy Director where she was instrumental in the development of highly successful programs addressing Women and HIV/AIDS, Lupus National Awareness, Violence against Women, Minority Women’s Health,Young Women’s Health, Organ Donation, and Human Trafficking . She has received numerous awards for her efforts.
Pamela Barnes
Pamela Barnes is a former Administrative Officer for NASA with over 2 decades of experience in human capital, organizational/operational management, strategic workforce planning/development, and labor/management negotiation. During her exemplary NASA career, she received many awards including Distinguished Service Awards and the Office of Strategic Infrastructure Award for Employee Engagement. Ms. Barnes optimizes investments as a member of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce while teaching math and reading to young students.
Chris Carberry
Chris Carberry is CEO and co-founder of Explore Mars, Inc, a nonprofit dedicated to sending humans to Mars within the next two decades. Prior to the creation of Explore Mars, Chris was Executive Director of The Mars Society. Chris also spent years as an historical researcher and archivist. In 2013, he spearheaded the annual Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, DC that has become the largest annual conference in the world focused on sending humans to Mars.
Eliza Chin, MD
Eliza Lo Chin, MD, is Executive Director of the American Medical Women's Association (AMWA) and Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF School of Medicine. She served as Co-Chair for the 2015 Sex and Gender Medical Education Summit. Dr. Chin is also the author of This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine and the recipient of AMWA's Bertha Van Hoosen Award. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley, Harvard Medical School and Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health and a former Visiting Scholar at Mills College Women's Leadership Institute.
Wade Davis
Wade Davis, a former NFL player, is a corporate inclusion and culture advisor. He consults with the NFL, NHL and Google and is a senior consultant at YSC, a leadership strategy firm. Wade is a UN Women Global Champion for innovation, a committee member for the National Fair Housing Alliance, and a member of VICE’s Diversity and Inclusion Advisory board. He launches initiatives to achieve political, and socio-economic equality for women and men.
Michelle Hailey, PhD
Michelle L. Hailey, Ph.D. is a global business professional, trainer, speaker, and published author. Dr. Hailey has served as a Global Consultant to a former member of the Kenyan National Assembly on women’s empowerment issues. Her passion for educating, impacting, and empowering the lives of others to excel within the global community is the driving force behind her award-winning work. Dr. Hailey is now the Director of Graduate and Undergraduate Student Services and Academic Support at Catholic University, and also serves as an adjunct professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, Washington, DC Campus.
Catherine Johns
Catherine Johns, CEO of Kielder Observatory in England and a Board Director of the International Association of Science Parks (IASP), founded Women in IASP. During her tenure as Director of the North East Centre of Excellence for Satellite Applications, she built the fastest growing space cluster in the UK and turned the North East Technology Park into a multi-million pound pioneering science park. While serving on many boards, she manages Southpaw Dance Company and is an evaluator for Strength in Places, Innovate UK’s 300 million pound innovation fund.
Mitzi Krockover, MD
Mitzi Krockover, M.D., Founder and CEO of Woman Centered, LLC, is the host/producer of the Beyond the Paper Gown podcast. Additionally, she is a Managing Director at Golden Seeds, an angel investment organization that focuses on funding early-stage companies led by women. Dr. Krockover was the founding Medical Director of the Iris Cantor-UCLA Women’s Health Center and the Vice President of Women’s Health at Humana Inc.
Howard Lavine, JD
Howard Lavine, a professional writer, was the senior speechwriter for Kurt Schmoke, former mayor of Baltimore; director of speechwriting for Donna Shalala, DHHS Secretary, and chief speechwriter and senior policy advisor for culture for former Governor Ted Kulongoski of Oregon. He has served on the boards of Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Writer’s Center in Maryland.
Guadalupe Pacheco
Guadalupe Pacheco, President/CEO and founder of Pacheco Consulting Group, provides cultural and technology-centric healthcare solutions to the public and private sectors. He served as a Senior Health Advisor to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Office of Minority Health within the DHHS. He developed the Center for Linguistically Appropriate and Cultural Competency in Health Care, the National Standards for Culturally and Linguistically Services in Health and Healthcare, and cultural competency e-learning health programs.
Jonathan Taylor
With 20+ years in entertainment journalism, including senior editorial positions at the Los Angeles Times, Variety and Deadline.com, followed by a successful Corp Command PR career, Jonathan Taylor has direct working relationships with key journalists and has mastered the art of crafting stories that are vital to successful communications plans. He is Co-Principal of Robertson Taylor Partners, a Strategic Consulting Firm.
Design Advisory Council
Margaux Boyaval
Margaux Boyaval cultivates high-performing user-centric design & innovation teams in MedTech and FemTech. She is an expert in user strategy and market launch for digital health and medical device
products. Her professional experience of over 25 years ranges from client lead for Fortune 500
companies and startups at Ximedica to establishing research, CX, and UX capabilities in bio/pharma at
Amgen and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
Genah Burditt
Genah Burditt is a lifetime science educator and STEAM mentor and an aerospace entrepreneur. She is the owner of two aerospace companies, EyasSat, LLC and Blue Foot Engineering. Ms. Burditt is a member of the Executive Committee for the Colorado Space Business Roundtable. She is also the co-founder of a scholarship program for first generation, female students at Metropolitan State University of Denver and a proud mom of 3 amazing children.
Margaret Burnett, PhD
Margaret Burnett, PhD, is an ACM Fellow, a CHI Academy member, a Distinguished Professor of Computer Science at Oregon State Unversity, and a member of the Academic Alliance Advisory Board of the U.S. National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). Her award-winning research on gender biases in software spans over 10 years. Burnett leads the team that created GenderMag, a systematic method for software professionals to find and fix gender biases in the software they build.
Sydney Coleman
Sydney Coleman is a thought leader and subject matter expert in product development and equity and inclusion. Before joining Google, she developed go-to-market strategies at startups and led a national marketing team at a large global company. She has independently served as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Consultant at VC firms and startups across sectors. Sydney is passionate about advocating for tech’s most vulnerable users, leveraging technology to discover and express a shared humanity.
Karin Hollerbach, PhD
Karin Hollerbach, PhD serves as Managing Director of Taku International and conducts R&D for a medical device / wearables company in Silicon Valley. Her technical interests in blended cyber-physical, sensing and control systems and IoT cut across multiple industries and extend into her personal interests in aviation and wilderness expeditions. She has undergraduate degrees from MIT and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering / Control Theory from UC Berkeley/UCSF.
Annabelle Horch
Annabelle Horch is a Senior Application Developer and team lead for the architecture team of the Provider Depiction Analytics and Reporting group of United Healthcare’s Community and State division. She was previously a Senior Software Engineer in a management/team lead role for Home Healthcare Solutions, a division of Cardinal Health, where she was the lead developer/engineer. She is well versed in software and database design, development and documentation and has worked in both standard and Agile development teams. She is also knowledgeable in the areas of computer networking and security, and systems administration, as well as various other areas of IT.
Dianna Klein, MBA
Dianna Klein, a pilot for a major U.S. airline flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, served as an officer in the USAF Reserves. In 2014, she founded Shenandoah Aviation, LLC, an aviation safety consulting company specializing in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). She holds a Master of Science in Aeronautical Science with a dual specialization in human factors and aviation safety. Dianna received an MBA from the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.
Marc Ó Gríofa, MD, PhD
Marc Ó Gríofa, MD, PhD, is a Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine, NOAA trained diving medical officer (DMO), aquanaut, diver and principal investigator for the NASA NEEMO missions and Project CASPER. Dr. Ó Gríofa is also a biomedical engineer, a joint trauma and tactical medical instructor for special operations and as a director and founder of the Pyxis Institute, is passionate about promoting STEM education across all barriers using a mission-based approach.
Asta Roseway
Asta Roseway is a Research Designer at Microsoft Research in Human Computer Interaction. Her group collaborations include explorations around next generation skin interfaces and her work has been showcased at events such as CES, ARS Electronica, SXSW, and NY Fashion Week. Asta is also a co-founder of studio99, a Microsoft Research effort to bridge art and technology practices. She is a Parsons School of Design alumna.
