Victoria Gonzalez

Victoria Gonzalez is a trailblazer in the St Louis tech start-up community, combining 30 years of experience in manufacturing, technology, innovation and leadership to help grow both the ecosystem and individual start-ups.  After fifteen years in corporate, including business, manufacturing and engineering leadership roles, Victoria transitioned to the entrepreneurial world. She was the driving force behind Nidus Partners LP, an innovative partnership model that evaluated over 400 technologies, founded seven start-ups, which combined, have secured over $70M in funding.

As a founder and CEO, Victoria has developed and commercialized cutting-edge technologies, including energy, agriculture and medical innovations. She has built diverse, high-performing teams, breaking barriers in male-dominated industries while championing inclusivity and empowering women in technology.

Victoria is dedicated to fostering the next generation of women innovators and reshaping the future of technology through her work teaching entrepreneurship at Washington University, participating as a mentor in Equalize, and advising the women of Electrochaea GmbH as a Board Member.

Sheila Grant, PhD

Dr. Sheila Grant received her PhD in materials engineering from Iowa State University. After graduation, she worked at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA.  In 2001, Dr. Grant became a faculty member in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Missouri (MU) in Columbia, MO. She has served MU as the Associate Dean of Research in the College of Engineering as well as the Associate Vice Chancellor for Research.  She is currently a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, and her research has been supported by the NSF, NIH, U.S. Army Research Laboratory, and USDA as well as private companies. Her research interests include the development of nanostructured biocomposites for enhanced tissue integration and the development of novel sensing mechanisms and sensing platforms.  She has published over 100 papers and has numerous patents. She has created several high tech ventures including G5 Biological Innovations, LLC which received an NIH Phase 1 STTR.  Dr. Grant is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society, and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Rebekah Griesenahuer, PhD

Rebekah Griesenauer, PhD, serves as the Head of Data at dannce.ai (a Duke and Harvard spinout), where she leads data strategy, engineering, and clinical translation initiatives to transform innovative technologies into practical applications. With over 15 years of experience spanning biomedical engineering, clinical research, and technology commercialization, Dr. Griesenauer has held roles as a data strategist, adjunct professor, and startup advisor. Her career includes building data ecosystems at Valo Health, driving early-stage startup growth, and teaching biomedical business development at Washington University in St. Louis. She has worked with over five early-stage startups, bringing expertise in data strategy, engineering, and all aspects of commercialization to help these companies succeed.

Elaine Hamm, PhD

Elaine Hamm, PhD, is the CEO of the pharmaceutical accelerator, Ascend BioVentures where she manages early stage life science startups and evaluates the commercial potential of life science technologies.  She is on the executive team for Otologic Pharmaceutics which is developing new drugs for hearing loss and tinnitus; Cadenza Bio, a company focused on developing a life changing therapeutic for Multiple Sclerosis; and CLAIRIgene, a startup out of Duke developing gene therapy for Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s.  She also serves as the Executive in Residence for the Tulane University School of Medicine.

Prior to joining Ascend BioVentures, Dr. Hamm was the COO of Accele BioPharma and served as management for a portfolio of pharmaceutical companies ranging from diabetes to infectious disease. Dr. Hamm has 13 years of professional leadership experience in the commercialization of early stage pharmaceutical therapeutics and diagnostics with experience in technology transfer, market analysis, and commercialization of preclinical and clinical stage products. Dr. Hamm also has functioned on the investment side, working with early-stage companies on Seed, Series A financing.  In 2022, Dr. Hamm completed a deal with Boehringer Ingelheim, worth up to $100M+.

Dr. Hamm also serves as the Executive Director of the nonprofit, The Alliance for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, whose mission is to establish responsible, ethical, and reasonable standards for the development and implementation of AI in healthcare. The AAIH works to actualize the promise of artificial intelligence in medicine thereby improving patients’ lives and creating more efficient, sustainable, and accessible healthcare systems.

Dr. Hamm received her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Oklahoma and holds several licensed US and International patents. In addition to her technology-based commercialization experience, Dr. Hamm owns a wine bar with her Sommelier husband and spends her free time hosting wine classes, fostering rescue dogs, antiquing, and reading trashy books.

Charlie Hanford

Charlie Hanford is a Senor Licensing Associate at the Office of Technology Management at Washington University where he helps to assess, protect, market and license technologies developed by WashU investigators.  Charlie has worked in the technology transfer space for over 13 years.  Prior to joining WashU, he worked in the University of Missouri’s Technology Advancement Office.  He received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from Truman State University and holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Missouri.

Frank Hardin, PhD

Frank Hardin is a licensing associate at the Office of Technology management where he helps evaluate, protect, market and commercialize technologies created by WashU innovators. Frank has a life science and education background. He studied human African trypanosomiasis in graduate school, plant biotechnology and biofuel production as a postdoctoral fellow, and was the educational outreach manager at a non-profit, agriculture and plant science research institute before joining OTM three years ago.

Joy Jiang, PhD

Dr. Jiang is an associate professor in the Division of Public Health Sciences at Washington University School of Medicine.

Dr. Jiang has made major contributions to original statistical methods research with a particular focus on breast cancer risk prediction using medical images. She is actively working on novel methods that capitalize on the exploding volume of data to improve our understanding of the breast cancer pathway.

Her work has been recognized and funded by the National Institute of Health where she was awarded the NIH MERIT Award in 2021. Dr. Jiang was recognized as a member of the Forbes 30 under 30 in Healthcare for her development of statistical methods for precision oncology in 2023.

Brett Maland

Brett is a Business Development Director for the Office of Technology Management with a focus on software and the physical sciences. He has been working in the intellectual property field for over fifteen years, primarily in tech transfer, but also in private practice as a registered patent attorney.  His prior experience includes technology transfer at the University of Missouri, law for the Missouri Attorney General’s Office and engineering for Halliburton and Jacob’s Engineering.  Brett received his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Arizona, his master’s degree in business administration from Arizona State University, and his juris doctorate from the University of Missouri.

Gisele Marcus, MBA

Marcus currently serves in a dual role as the Vice Dean of the Office of EDI and Professor of Practice – DEI at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.  She serves on the Board of Directors of First Mid Bankshares, Inc. (FMBH).  Marcus has been a five-time General Manager at Fortune 250 companies. including Thermo Fisher Scientific, AT&T, and Johnson Controls, leading organizations up to $800M in P&L with 1200 employees globally across 40 countries and five continents.

As a TEDx speaker, Marcus is known to deliver knowledge and practical tips to her audiences on the intersection of DEI and networking.  She has been featured in the BBC, Huffington Post, and Black Enterprise.  Most recently, has been a repeat guest on the FOX affiliate’s Good Morning St Louis talk show. 

Marcus possesses an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Leena Prabhu, PhD, MBA

Leena Prabhu, PhD, MBA, is Director, Business Development & Licensing at OTM.

Leena and her team are responsible for evaluating invention disclosures, managing patent portfolios, negotiating licenses, building relationships with internal and external stakeholders, and developing commercialization strategies to maximize the translational impact of university technologies.

Prior to joining the OTM, Leena worked at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as a research scientist and as a technology transfer professional. Leena has also worked at Schering Plough Pharmaceuticals (Merck) as part of the international & domestic product management team.

She holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from I.I.Sc. (Indian Institute of Science) and a MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management.

Victoria Swamidass, MBA

Victoria Swamidass is a healthcare technology executive and founding CEO of PlatformSTL, a WashU-focused software startup. She is a proven product launcher, with extensive experience leading the development of clinical tools for patients and physicians. In 2024, Victoria and two faculty founders were welcomed to OTM’s Wall of Inventors to further develop Trusted Kidney with WashU researchers. Trusted Kidney is now a commercially available product with a growing client base, and currently in use by pathologists in a clinical setting.

In 2017, Victoria founded PlatformSTL to provide healthcare technology-focused software development services and explore innovation opportunities within St. Louis. The PlatformSTL team includes software engineers with decades of development experience, and expertise in user interface design. Victoria has partnered extensively with faculty members at WashU to develop academic efforts toward commercial technologies. Her team has provided software development for multiple labs at WashU, including the development of minimum viable products for three winners of the Big Ideas Competition.

Through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, Victoria has secured $2.5M in nondilutive funding, supporting both academic labs at WUSTL and company R&D. PlatformSTL has been awarded seven small business grants, including a Phase II award.  Victoria has personally applied for and overseen company work for each funded grant and served as principal investigator for several awards.

Victoria holds two decades of healthcare technology experience. In prior roles at Express Scripts, Inc. she was responsible for the product development and market launch of multi-million and billion-dollar healthcare programs. In addition, Victoria served as an associate director for the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

Victoria received a B.A. in Communications and a B.A. in German & Psychology from Saint Louis University, followed by an M.B.A. from Webster University. She also holds a Women’s Leadership Forum Certificate from WashU’s Olin Business School.

Malcolm Townes, PhD, MBA

Dr. Malcolm Townes serves as Innovation Fund Manager in the Office of Technology Management (OTM) at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU). In this role, he oversees the WashU Gap Fund, which provides funding for translational work on promising non-drug technologies to increase the chances of attracting the necessary industry partners to commercialize them. Dr. Townes has worked in the field of technology transfer for over 17 years. Prior to joining WashU, he was associate director for technology commercialization at Saint Louis University. Before that, he was associate director for the office of technology transfer and economic development at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T). Earlier in his career, Dr. Townes served in various product management roles with several industrial products companies where he had profit and loss (P&L) responsibility for product lines with as much as $50 million in annual revenues. He received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Missouri S&T. He obtained a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in entrepreneurship and marketing from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. He earned his Ph.D. in Public and Social Policy, with a focus on technology transfer policy and practice, from Saint Louis University.

Nancy Tye-Murray, PhD

Dr. Nancy Tye-Murray founded the Audiovisual Speech Perception Laboratory at Washington University School of Medicine and served as Principal Investigator for over twenty years. The lab received continuous funding from both NIH NIDCD and NIH NIA. Previously, she served as Director of Research at Central Institute for the Deaf and held the Richard Silverman Chair.  In 2015, she determined to take her research out of the Ivory Tower and make it available to the millions of people who have hearing loss. She founded Amptify, C-Corp (formerly clEAR), a company which provides a hearing healthcare digital therapeutic and an online marketplace for hearing-related products. The company grew with support from St. Louis Arch Grants, Washington University in St. Louis, and two NIH NIDCD SBIR grants.  Amptify was acquired by Neurotone in December, 2024. Tye-Murray now works on the Neurotone Advisory Board.

Doug Villhard

Doug Villhard is a professor, entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and novelist.  He started his career at Disney before becoming a successful startup founder.  After decades of starting and selling companies, he is supposed to be retired. Instead, he is having too much fun leading the highly ranked entrepreneurship program at the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.  Villhard recently chaired a year-long study to analyze the problem of why less than 2% of venture capital goes to female and underrepresented minority founders. He also leads an annual program to help female and underrepresented minority founders better compete for Arch Grant funding in St. Louis.  

Craig Weilbaecher, PhD

Craig is a Business Development Director at Washington University, specializing in technology transfer and commercialization in the Medical Device, Digital Health, and Medical Software sectors. He manages diverse intellectual property portfolios and fosters partnerships to drive innovation and accelerate technology commercialization through spinouts and out-licensing opportunities. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering and has been working in technology transfer for 12+ years.