Ami Bhatt, MD

Assistant Prof of Medicine and Genetics

Dr. Bhatt is an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Genetics at Stanford University. A 2014 ASH Scholar and 2016 Damon Runyon Clinical Investigator Award Winner, she currently leads a translational laboratory group (bhattlab.com) in the Departments of Medicine and Genetics at Stanford University. The goal of the Bhatt lab is to understand the interplay between the microbial environment in patients with noncommunicable diseases, especially those with hematological malignancies (leukemia and lymphoma). The laboratory focuses on (1) the use of next generation sequencing to define the microbiome and host immunologic features in patients with hematological diseases and (2) developing custom computational tools for the identification of novel human commensals and pathogens in these immunosuppressed patient populations, and (3) using statistical and functional biological methods to understand the interplay between the human microbiome and the development of immunological diversity.

In addition to her academic efforts, Ami is committed to improving cancer care, education and research in resource-limited settings. She is the Director of Global Oncology for the Center for Innovation in Global Health at Stanford University and is this year’s Rosenkranz Prize winner (for her Global Health research work). She, along with Franklin Huang, is a co-founder and co-president of the non-profit organization Global Oncology (http://globalonc.org). GO spearheads creative, multi-disciplinary projects focused on improving cancer outcomes in impoverished settings. Outside of her day job, she enjoyed the outdoors and mentoring passionate students and trainees. She is incredibly proud of two of her mentees (Jason Wang and Shivaal Roy), who along with a very talented group of undergraduates are making Stanford history today with its first ever Health Hackathon! Amish Parashar is a founding team member of Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley where he is a Venture Partner & Director of Strategic Business Development.

Anurag Mairal

Exec VP @ Orbees Medical

Dr. Anurag Mairal is a Consulting Associate Professor of Medicine and the Director, Global Exchange Program at Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign, Stanford University. In these roles, he leads initiatives focused on applying the biodesign process to resource-constrained settings globally. Further, he facilitates opportunities for students, faculty and fellows at Stanford to work on global healthcare needs. He is part of the founding faculty team for BIOE 371, Global Biodesign: Medical Technology in an International Context, a graduate-level course offered to engineering, business, and medical students at Stanford University. Earlier, he served as Associate Director for the Stanford-India Biodesign and Singapore-Stanford Biodesign programs. Concurrently, he is a co-founder and Executive Vice President of Orbees Medical, a SF Bay Area-based strategy consulting firm serving global healthcare industry, with a focus on medtech, pharmaceutical, and digital health industry.

Dr. Mairal has an extensive background in medical technology development and commercialization, collaborating with partners in the U.S., India, China, and other emerging markets to advance product development, manufacturing, and distribution. Recently, he took two years off from Orbees Medical to take a senior leadership role at PATH, a major global health nonprofit based in Seattle. In this role, he oversaw research and development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies in PATH's medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health divisions. Previously, he held several positions at Johnson & Johnson, including Business Development Director and Product Director for structural heart, cardiology, and peripheral vascular products at Cordis. Before joining J&J, he was a Group Leader and a Process Development Manager at Membrane Technology and Research (MTR). At MTR, he was responsible for business development, strategic alliances, and product development in the bioseparations area. An active mentor to entrepreneurs and industry professionals, he serves on the boards of several for-profit and non-profit organizations and is a Charter Member at EPPIC Global Network.

Dr. Mairal earned a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. He also holds an MS in chemical engineering from the Indian Institution of Technology in Mumbai and a BS in chemical engineering from National Institute of Technology, Raipur. Dr. Mairal was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Twente, Netherlands and at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Mairal has an MBA from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. At Haas, he was a founding co-Chairman of the South Asia Business Conference and Chair of the Biotech Panel for the Asia Business Conference. His work has been published in more than 30 publications, and he has been issued seven patents.

Amish Parashar

Venture Partner & Director of Strategic Business Development @ Yamaha Motor Ventures

Amish Parashar is a founding team member of Yamaha Motor Ventures & Laboratory Silicon Valley where he is a Venture Partner & Director of Strategic Business Development.

Prior to joining YMVSV’s founding team, Amish served in a variety of operating and entrepreneurial roles. He has served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence and company founder. Most recently he was Director of Innovation of a hundred-person private research & development lab which created dozens of novel hardware technologies for start-ups and multinational corporations working in regulated industries.

Amish is a frequent lecturer on complex technology innovation and has held teaching appointments at Stanford’s d.school, Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, Singularity University, and UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management.

Amish earned two engineering degrees: an A.B. from Dartmouth College and a B.E. from the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth. He also earned a MSc from the University of London. Amish has over a dozen patents granted or pending.

Thomas Robinson, MD

Professor, Pediatrics + Medicine @ Stanford

Thomas Robinson focuses on designing solutions to help children and families improve their health- and sustainability-related behaviors. Dr. Robinson is the Irving Schulman, MD Endowed Professor in Child Health, Professor of Pediatrics and of Medicine, in the Division of General Pediatrics and the Stanford Prevention Research Center at Stanford University, and Director of the Center for Healthy Weight at Stanford University and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. He originated the solution-oriented research paradigm and directs the Solutions Science Lab at Stanford.

Robert Chang, MD

Assistant Profesor, Opthalmology @ Stanford

Dr. Chang and his co-inventors created the first universal smartphone adapter to take pictures of the front and back of the eye, licensed to Digisight Technologies as the PAXOS scope.

He is co-creator of the first Stanford-China Biodesign Bootcamp (www.dhealthchina.com/) held at the Stanford Center at Peking University in Beijing to teach the process of healthcare innovation, which has now turned into an annual event. He also conceived the first DreamCatchers MedTech Hackathon in Hong Kong (www.dreamcatchers.hku.hk/?p=1533) and taught biodesign in Brazil (www.hipuc.com/).

He won first place at the 2015 Philips Healthsuite Hackathon, and his most recent startup team was awarded the Robert Howard Next Step Award from Lunar. Besides exemplifying physician innovation, Dr. Chang is a full-time glaucoma and cataract surgeon and early adopter of cutting edge technologies with a current focus on machine learning in medicine.

Dr. Chang received his MD from a combined BA/MD program at the University of Missouri, Kansas City School of Medicine. He completed his residency at the prestigious Washington University in St. Louis, followed by a research and clinical glaucoma fellowship at the renowned Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed papers, delivered more than 100 invited national and international lectures, trained more than 40 students and fellows, been awarded over 11 grants, holds several patents, and advises multiple medtech, pharma, and digital health companies.

Gurmeet Sran, MD

Medical Director @ Dignity Health

Since joining Dignity Health in 2013, Dr. Gurmeet Sran has worked closely with leadership and IT staff to ensure proper deployment of EMRs, clinical governance oversight, and has been instrumental in developing and implementing analytic solutions across Dignity Health. Currently, he is the Medical Director of Health Analytics helping manage the Dignity Health Insights program that is leveraging Hadoop technology to amalgamate disparate clinical data sources for big data analytics. His focus is pursuing rapid cycle methods to launch projects that can help improve quality of care, reduce spend, and improve patient outcomes throughout Dignity Health’s acute and ambulatory care facilities.

Prior to Dignity Health, Dr. Sran completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Stanford Hospitals and Clinics where his research included how to reduce diagnostic expenditures in the hospital setting using EMR based solutions. Dr. Sran earned his medical degree from Boston University, a Masters in Computational Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. He continues to see patients on a part-time basis.

Malinka Walaliyadde

a16z Partner

Malinka Walaliyadde is a partner on the deal and research team at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where hefocuses on investments at the intersection of computer science and biohealth. Prior to a16z, Malinka spent time at Corning (in their life sciences division) as well as Counsyl (a genomics company). He also spent time as a consultant in the healthcare and bio tech industries. Malinka received his Bachelors of Science in Materials Engineering and Bioengineering from Cornell University, where he cofounded a small business andstarted an international gold medal winning genetic engineering team.

Farzad Soleimani, MD

Associate Director, Biodesign Fellowship Program @ Texas Medical Center

As the Associate Director at TMCx and an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, Farzad Soleimani, M.D., applies his extensive experience and leadership in health care entrepreneurship to ushering in the next generation of innovative startups. He has served as the founding CEO of telemedicine company eTherapi, strategist and business developer for Hansen Medical (HNSN), co-founder of IGAN Biosciences and founder and CEO of product review platform Review2Buy, and was as an early-stage financial supporter at Mohr Davidow Ventures and XSeed Capital Management. In addition to his work as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, he has also published a wide array of articles on health care innovation and currently holds numerous medical technology patents. Soleimani completed his residency training and served as chief resident at Baylor College of Medicine. He earned his M.B.A., M.D., M.S., and B.S. from Stanford University, where he was also a member of the Stanford Biodesign Innovation Program, as well as the co-founder and executive editor of the Stanford Scientific Review (SSR).

Ravi Pamnani

Director of Marketing @ Transcend Medical

Ravi has over ten years of experience in medical technology innovation. Most recently, he led market development efforts at Transcend Medical (acquired by Alcon in March 2016), a venture-backed medical device startup focused on novel glaucoma therapies. Ravi was the 2010-2011 Eberhard Grube Innovation Fellow at the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. He received an M.S. in Management Science and Engineering and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering, both from Stanford University. As an undergraduate, he helped start and lead Stanford Student Biodesign & Biopharma, preparing students for careers in life sciences. He is a frequent lecturer on medical device development and innovation, including recent work co-developing healthcare innovation boot camps in China and Brazil in collaboration with Stanford faculty members.