Alix Ambassadors — Class of 2020
Alix Ventures — Supporting Early Stage Life Science Startups Engineering Biology to Drive Radical Advances in Human Health 🚀
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Calling All Innovators — Click to Reach Out 🚀
After receiving countless applications, conducting multiple rounds of interviews, & much deliberation we are excited to announce Alix Ventures’ inaugural class of campus ambassadors. Welcome to the family folks, we look forward to having you a part of the team & sharing the journey ahead!
This year’s class hails from leading research universities such as:
Berkeley, Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, & Stanford
Austin Nalen Sprole is passionate about working with businesses with the potential to have a tangible impact on people’s lives and loves partnering with entrepreneurs fueling growth across the campus startup ecosystem.
After studying international studies and global health at Middlebury College, Austin worked on public health projects across Tanzania and Rwanda. She was then inspired to tackle healthcare issues plaguing her own country and joined Oxeon Partners in New York, a firm growing healthcare IT and services startups through financial and human capital. Austin spent four years with Oxeon and launched the firm’s west coast office before heading back to school.
While at Haas, Austin has interned at The Riverside Company, where she partnered with the healthcare team to diligence a live deal and conduct market research & as a Finance Associate at Genentech, where she gained exposure to the world of biotech and completed a project on AI opportunities across the finance function. At Haas, Austin is Co-President of the Private Equity Club, a Haas Venture Fellow, and a Principal on the Haas Sustainable Investment Fund — investing the Haas endowment in public equities.
Austin is particularly excited about innovation in biotech and healthcare services, areas where she sees the most potential for direct patient impact.
She is originally from Sun Valley, Idaho, and in her free time, you can find her doing anything that brings her closer to her mountain town roots — skiing, hiking, cycling, camping, or fishing.
Merouane Ounadjela is passionate about using life science investment as a mechanism to push forward transformative ideas that will impact the future of human health.
Merouane’s career path has taken him across much of the life science spectrum. He cut his life science teeth during his undergraduate years in cutting-edge academic labs such as the Zhou Lab at Stanford University/Palo Alto Veteran Affairs Hospital, Herschlag Lab at Stanford University, and Quake Lab at Stanford University. He then transitioned to biotechnology, where he worked as a Discovery Biology intern at the muscle-biology company Cytokinetics, Inc. located in South San Francisco for two consecutive summers. Struck by the promise of genomic editing technology, he moved across the country to Intellia Therapeutics, one of the “Big Three” therapeutic genomic editing companies focused on transitioning CRISPR/Cas9 from science-fiction to medicine.He then moved to New York City to join the Merad Lab at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where his focus was on the synergistic effects of CAR-T therapy and focal radiation before his eventual return to graduate school.
Outside of the life sciences, Merouane is an avid sports fan, amateur wine enthusiast and photographer, cook, writer, and voracious consumer of movies, television, and books. He is currently focused on writing his first screenplay, which envisions some of the potential consequences of germ-line editing on the relationships between parents and children and draws inspiration from the classic films Blade Runner and GATTACA. Merouane is bilingual (French, English), and is hoping to eventually become trilingual (Spanish).
Kevin Huang is an MD/MBA Candidate at Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School who is passionate about advancing biomedical innovation for patients.
Kevin has experience working in biotechnology venture investing, startup business development, life sciences consulting, and biomedical research. He has conducted translational research on novel targeted therapy combinations in lung cancer and on colon cancer metabolism.
In his free time, he enjoys playing the piano, cooking and doing trivia.
Amee Kapadia >> Now Analyst @ Cantos Ventures
Johns Hopkins — Program: MS Biomedical Engineering
Quote:
“The Alix Ventures Ambassador program not only kickstarted my career in venture, but also introduced me to TechBio & all the opportunities to apply bioengineering in entrepreneurship. The mentorship from the Alix team, access to the world’s leading & emerging bio-innovators, & pace of learning makes for an unmatched experience. If you’re at all curious about TechBio venture, are eager to learn by doing, & want to make friends that last a lifetime, the Alix Ambassador program is for you!”
Amee Kapadia a biotech entrepreneur passionate about elevating teams who are building the future of medicine.
Amee is a senior at Johns Hopkins University studying Biomedical Engineering and Entrepreneurship. At Hopkins, she co-founded EdgeSense, a breast oncology startup developing tissue markers for improved radiation treatment. She currently leads business strategy, spearheading fundraising efforts and helping direct the team’s prototypes toward commercialization.
On campus, Amee is the lead student coordinator for the JHU Business Plan Competition and a mentor for student ventures through TCO Labs. She has also worked at LifeSprout, a regenerative medicine startup, in Operations and R&D as an early hire. There, Amee built the inventory and supply chain management system, helped prepare for clinical trials, and sparked her passion for healthcare/life science entrepreneurship.
Amee is particularly excited about disruptive innovation in genomics, digital therapeutics, and personalized medicine. She aspires to live in a world where disease is optional.
Outside of work, you can find Amee experimenting in the kitchen, playing random sports, or trying to start a farm in her backyard.
Julie Clauss is a 15+ year R&D leader in Big Pharma and Biotech with experience directing cross-functional teams & launching leading-edge technologies.
Most recently, she held the role of VP Head of R&D Operations @ Ipsen, where she led portfolio strategy development.
Julie is most excited about companies rethinking business models in healthcare that focus on more agile patient centric care — with hopes of bringing breakthrough treatments to market faster.
She is a courageous, team spirit, open-minded, passionate person, engaged to share her experiences with her network.
Outside of work, Julie has 2 adorable girls (10 & 6 Years old), loves sports such skiing & scuba diving, and more recently started playing the piano.
Chris Biondi is 2nd year MBA student @ Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management.
Prior to business school he spent 5+ years as a bench scientist studying early stage immuno-oncology and precision medicine therapies for a variety of cancer indications. Realizing his true passion was solving interesting problems that made a more direct impact on patients, he made a career pivot from the lab into healthcare consulting. He has worked with several biotech startups on projects ranging from competitive intelligence to growth strategy development. Most recently, he was a summer Consultant at Health Advances in San Francisco and focused on portfolio prioritization for oncology drug developers.
Chris is most interested in start-ups in the precision medicine and cell and gene therapy sectors as they hold great promising for improving cancer patient outcomes.
Outside of work, Chris enjoys fitness, travel, and cooking — recently mastering the art of the sushi roll.
Eric Dai >> Now Deal Analyst @ a16z Bio + Health
Penn — Program: PhD Bioengineering
Quote:
“The Alix Ventures Ambassador program is amongst the most inspirational & empowering professional experiences of my career. As an Ambassador, I engaged with industry legends, studied the inside baseball of TechBio venture capital, & built lifelong friendships. I learned how to change the world through Life Sciences & create transformative patient impact from my time at Alix — I highly encourage all passionate & innovation interested student scientists to apply!”
Eric Dai is passionate about bringing people together to improve healthcare and change the world through biotechnology.
Eric, a lifelong scientist, has over 10 years of research in fields spanning particle physics, developmental biology, biomimetic design, and stem cell engineering. At Penn, Eric is pursuing doctoral research in the Mauck Lab, where he studies how physical forces like stretch can dictate genome organization to engineer stem cell behavior, with diverse applications spanning therapeutics (e.g., regenerative medicine) and consumer goods (e.g., cultured meat). Also an active leader, Eric serves as an InSITE Fellow at Penn, a Project Director for the Penn Biotech Group, and a Co-President of the Penn Graduate Consulting Club.
Eric is dedicated to driving positive impact in early stage biotech venture capital, where he will work with leading researchers to create the next generation of therapeutics, food, and clean technologies using genome and cellular engineering.
Outside of the lab, Eric is an avid violinist, concert enthusiast, and fried food connoisseur.
Kayj Shannon >> Now Co-Founder @ Zafrens (Alix Portfolio)
Stanford — Program: MBA
Quote:
“Alix Ventures’ ambassador program was an amazing launchpad for my career in TechBio entrepreneurship. Not only did I get hands on TechBio VC experience, but also Alix Ventures mentorship helped me build my personal brand as a thought leader through their all reaching BIOS platform. The program most importantly taught me the skills necessary to co-found a company — bringing things full circle I joined Alix’s portfolio company Zafrens as a Co-Founder & Head of Corp Dev. There is no question, without Alix I wouldn’t have had such an amazing next chapter in my career. HIGHLY recommend this program to all entrepreneurial student scientists!”
Kayj Shannon is passionate about innovative technologies in the healthcare and biopharma space.
The son of two doctors, he became interested in the life sciences at a young age and majored in molecular biology at Princeton University where he wrote his thesis on the application of novel chemical patterning to promote cell binding to develop thrombus resistance vascular grafts.
After graduating, he decided to pursue a career on the business side of the biopharma industry and spent 2 years as an analyst at Datamonitor Healthcare before joining Amgen in their R&D Strategy group. At Amgen Kayj worked in several capacities to help shape the long-term strategy of the company including identifying novel therapeutic technologies for investment alongside Amgen Ventures, developing therapeutic area strategies, and optimizing clinical trial operations.
Kayj left Amgen to pursue his MBA at Stanford, and hopes to one day lead a company that will expand cell and gene therapies outside their current niche in oncology and rare diseases and apply them to mass-market diseases.
Outside of work, Kayj enjoys Jiu-Jitsu, surfing, skiing, and golf & volunteers at Camp Del Corazon — a non-profit summer camp for children with heart disease.
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