2022 PHIND Symposium

Dr. Ryan Spitler is the Deputy Director of the Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Center at Stanford University. He completed his Post Doctorial Research Fellowship (SCIT) at Stanford University School of Medicine, conducting research in the developing field of Magnetogenetics for remote controlled cellular reprogramming and developed smart MRI cell tracking tools for oncology cell tracking studies. He has designed numerous biological models, synthetic biology approaches and worked on the development of new technologies in a number of scientific areas ranging from medical devices to gene therapy. Prior to his position at Stanford, Dr. Spitler received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Developmental Biology at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine. His research at the Beckman Laser Institute included developing and characterizing new nitric oxide-based drugs, laser, and LED-based multimodal wound healing therapies some of which are currently being used in the clinic as a result of his work. 
Dr. Spitler received his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he worked in the area of structural biology. Over the past two decades he has held a number of academic and industrial positions and has served as an advisor or advisory board member for a number of Bay Area companies. Dr. Spitler is the recipient of the Stanford Cancer Imaging Fellowship Training Award, RSL Innovation Challenge Award, the Biophotas Research Fellowship, and the Stanford Center for Biomedical Imaging Achievement Award.  

Dr. Ada Poon received her Ph.D. degree from the EECS department at the University of California at Berkeley. Upon graduation, she spent some time in industries, working at Intel and SiBeam. Afterwards, she returned to academic and joined the faculty of the ECE department at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Since then, she has changed her research direction from wireless communications to integrated biomedical systems. In 2008, she joined the faculty of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. She is a Terman Fellow at Stanford University. She received the Okawa Foundation Research Grant in 2010 and NSF CAREER Award in 2013. She was a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub investigator.

Dr. Allison Okamura received the BS degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and the MS and PhD degrees from Stanford University. She is Professor in the mechanical engineering department at Stanford University, with a courtesy appointment in computer science. She is an IEEE Fellow and is currently the co-general chair of the 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems and a deputy director of the Wu Tsai Stanford Neurosciences Institute. Her awards include the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society Technical Achievement Award, IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award, and Duca Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education. Her academic interests include haptics, teleoperation, virtual reality, medical robotics, soft robotics, rehabilitation, and education.

Dr. Zhenan Bao is a K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Bao founded the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR) in 2016 and serves as the faculty director.

Prior to joining Stanford in 2004, she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies from 1995-2004. She received her Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1995. She has over 700 refereed publications and over 100 US patents with a Google Scholar H-Index of 190.

Bao is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. She is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is a Fellow of MRS, ACS, AAAS, SPIE, ACS PMSE and ACS POLY.

Bao is the inaugural recipient of the VinFuture Prize Female Innovator 2022, the ACS Chemistry of Materials Award 2022, MRS Mid-Career Award in 2021, AICHE Alpha Chi Sigma Award 2021, ACS Central Science Disruptor and Innovator Prize in 2020, Gibbs Medal by the Chicago session of ACS in 2020, Wilhelm Exner Medal by Austrian Federal Minister of Science 2018, ACS Award on Applied Polymer Science 2017, L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award in the Physical Sciences 2017, AICHE Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering in 2014, ACS Carl Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award in 2013, ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2011, Royal Society of Chemistry Beilby Medal and Prize in 2009, IUPAC Creativity in Applied Polymer Science Prize in 2008.

Bao is a co-founder and on the Board of Directors for C3 Nano and PyrAmes, both are silicon-valley venture funded start-ups. She serves as an advising Partner for Fusion Venture Capital and advisors for multiple start-ups.

Angela McIntyre is the Executive Director of the Stanford Wearable Electronics (eWEAR) Initiative. She manages the eWEAR affiliates program and provides member companies opportunities to connect with research and events related to wearables at Stanford University. Before coming to Stanford, Angela was the lead consultant for industry research on wearables at Gartner. She advised companies bringing emerging wearable technology to market and was a frequent speaker at industry events. Her research included wearables as part of the Internet of Things, for artificial intelligence applications, for healthcare and as human-machine interfaces. Angela’s career in the tech industry also includes management of multi-company research programs at Intel and of R&D collaborations with semiconductor process equipment suppliers at Texas Instruments. Angela has an M.S. in Electronic Materials from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. in Management from MIT Sloan School and a Bachelors of Electrical Engineering from the University of Dayton.

Dr. Zhenan Bao is a K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Bao founded the Stanford Wearable Electronics Initiative (eWEAR) in 2016 and serves as the faculty director.

Prior to joining Stanford in 2004, she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies from 1995-2004. She received her Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Chicago in 1995. She has over 700 refereed publications and over 100 US patents with a Google Scholar H-Index of 190.

Bao is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors. She is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. She is a Fellow of MRS, ACS, AAAS, SPIE, ACS PMSE and ACS POLY.

Bao is the inaugural recipient of the VinFuture Prize Female Innovator 2022, the ACS Chemistry of Materials Award 2022, MRS Mid-Career Award in 2021, AICHE Alpha Chi Sigma Award 2021, ACS Central Science Disruptor and Innovator Prize in 2020, Gibbs Medal by the Chicago session of ACS in 2020, Wilhelm Exner Medal by Austrian Federal Minister of Science 2018, ACS Award on Applied Polymer Science 2017, L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award in the Physical Sciences 2017, AICHE Andreas Acrivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering in 2014, ACS Carl Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award in 2013, ACS Cope Scholar Award in 2011, Royal Society of Chemistry Beilby Medal and Prize in 2009, IUPAC Creativity in Applied Polymer Science Prize in 2008.

Bao is a co-founder and on the Board of Directors for C3 Nano and PyrAmes, both are silicon-valley venture funded start-ups. She serves as an advising Partner for Fusion Venture Capital and advisors for multiple start-ups.

Dr. H. Tom Soh is a Professor of Radiology and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. His laboratory develops synthetic biomaterials and biosensor devices. He earned his B.S. (1992), with a double major in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science with Distinction from Cornell University and his M.S. (1995) and Ph.D. (1999) in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. Between 1999 and 2003, he served as a technical manager of MEMS device research group at Bell Laboratories and Agere Systems. Between 2003 and 2015, he was the Ruth Garland Professor at UC-Santa Barbara (UCSB) in the department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials. His lab moved to Stanford in 2015. He is a recipient of numerous awards including MIT Technology Review’s “TR 100” Award, ONR Young Investigator Award, Beckman Young Investigator Award, ALA Innovator Award, NIH Director’s TR01 Award, NIH Edward Nagy Award, Guggenheim Fellowship, and Alexander van Humboldt Fellowship. Dr. Soh is a Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), and member of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Dr. Logan Schneider is the Clinical Lead for Sleep Health at Alphabet, Consultant Neurologist at the Stanford/VA Alzheimer’s Research Center, and Clinical Assistant Professor (affiliated) of Sleep Medicine at the Stanford Sleep Center. Following postdoctoral training in sleep, genetics, and big data with Dr. Emmanuel Mignot, Dr. Schneider advised multiple startups: a mental health technology company, Medibio; an infant, sleep-aid device by Hatch (subsequently funded by Amazon); and a computer-vision, sleep-monitoring system that was acquired by Alphabet. Dr. Schneider has also dedicated his time to democratizing sleep health and awareness through his work within the American Academy of Neurology and American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

Dr. Murat Baday is Stanford Scientist and the co-founder of Smartlens – a clinical-stage medical technology company that envisages the prevention of blindness due to Glaucoma. Dr. Baday obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Biology and Biophysics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his M.S. in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Baday has been working on cancer, remote diagnostics, and AI in healthcare research at Stanford Research in Bioengineering, Radiology, and Neurology departments since 2013. Dr. Baday is co-founder/advisor of several startups. He has studied computational particle physics at Cornell University. Dr. Baday has expertise in several fields including optics, microfluidics, imaging, medical devices, machine learning, and bioinformatics.

Neema Moraveji, Ph.D. received the BS degree from the University of Maryland, MS from Carnegie Mellon University, and Ph.D. from Stanford University. He is Chief Scientific Officer at Spire Health, a company he founded based on his research at Stanford. Along with his stellar colleagues, his work received the Cooper-Hewitt Design Award and best paper nomination at ACM CHI. Previously, Moraveji was a researcher at Microsoft Research in Beijing and spun off one of his project into a commercial MS product. His work has been included in the NY Times, TEDxSiliconValley, and stocked in all Apple Retail stores globally.

Alex Gao founded and is currently the head of the Digital Health Lab at Samsung Research America (SRA), with a mission to transform healthcare delivery via innovative digital technology, human centered design, and AI. Alex also serves on the Board of Managers for the Personal Connected Health Alliance (PCHA), a HIMSS organization dedicated to advancing the technology and application of connected health innovations. 

Alex has 25 years of global experience building technology and innovation driven organizations, from the size of Fortune 100 to Silicon Valley startups. He brings broad and multidisciplinary experience across industry sectors of Media/Entertainment, Consumer-Electronics/IT convergence, Internet/Mobile communications, Energy, Semiconductor, and most recently digital health. 

Alex previously led the Technology Strategy team at Samsung Research America (SRA), responsible for strategy for establishing models, principles and practices for successful R&D in Silicon Valley, evangelizing vision-driven initiatives that focus on services creation, user experiences design, product concept innovation, and computing science research. 

Alex holds a Master of Science degree from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science degree from Tsinghua University. 

Alex has 30+ peer reviewed publications and 20+ US patents.

LinkedIn

Joseph M. DeSimone is the Sanjiv Sam Gambhir Professor of Translational Medicine and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University. He holds appointments in the Departments of Radiology and Chemical Engineering with courtesy appointments in the Department of Chemistry and in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. 

The DeSimone laboratory's research efforts are focused on developing innovative, interdisciplinary solutions to complex problems centered around advanced polymer 3D fabrication methods. In Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, the lab is pursuing new capabilities in digital 3D printing, as well as the synthesis of new polymers for use in advanced additive technologies. In Translational Medicine, research is focused on exploiting 3D digital fabrication tools to engineer new vaccine platforms, enhanced drug delivery approaches, and improved medical devices for numerous conditions, with a current major focus in pediatrics. Complementing these research areas, the DeSimone group has a third focus in Entrepreneurship, Digital Transformation, and Manufacturing.

Before joining Stanford in 2020, DeSimone was a professor of chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University. He is also Co-founder, Board Chair, and former CEO (2014 - 2019) of the additive manufacturing company, Carbon. DeSimone is responsible for numerous breakthroughs in his career in areas including green chemistry, medical devices, nanomedicine, and 3D printing. He has published over 350 scientific articles and is a named inventor on over 200 issued patents. Additionally, he has mentored 80 students through Ph.D. completion in his career, half of whom are women and members of underrepresented groups in STEM. 

In 2016 DeSimone was recognized by President Barack Obama with the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest U.S. honor for achievement and leadership in advancing technological progress. He has received numerous other major awards in his career, including the U.S. Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award (1997); the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention (2005); the Lemelson-MIT Prize (2008); the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (2009); the AAAS Mentor Award (2010); the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment (2017); the Wilhelm Exner Medal (2019); the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award (2019 U.S. Overall National Winner); and the Harvey Prize in Science and Technology (2020). He is one of only 25 individuals elected to all three branches of the U.S. National Academies (Sciences, Medicine, Engineering). DeSimone received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1986 from Ursinus College and his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1990 from Virginia Tech.