Jim Jen - Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship and Director of the Corporate Startup Lab (CSL)
In addition to his work at CMU, Jim has played an active leadership role in the growth of the Pittsburgh entrepreneurship community over the last 20 years. He co-founded AlphaLab, a nationally ranked accelerator program (and one of the first accelerators in the U.S.) and subsequently helped launch AlphaLab Gear, AlphaLab Health and the Robotics Factory with corporate and industry partners. Jim also led initial investments in more than 200 pre-seed and seed stage companies for Innovation Works, and guided some of Pittsburgh’s fastest-growing tech companies, resulting in several billion dollars of exit values and additional investment.
Prior to moving to Pittsburgh, Jim led product management at multiple Silicon Valley-based companies, both venture-backed and Fortune 500. As a management consultant, Jim advised consumer-oriented companies on strategic planning and revenue growth strategies. Jim holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts, in Economics and a Master of Business Administration, all from Stanford University.
Ilana Diamond - Managing Partner - 412 Venture Fund LP
As Managing Partner of 412 Venture Fund, Ilana leads fund activities, including sourcing, evaluating and investing in promising startups.
Previously, Ilana was a Managing Director at Riverfront Ventures, Innovation Works' Venture Fund for early stage companies. She also served at Innovation Works as Managing Director of Hardware and AlphaLab Gear where she led a team that helped startups make rapid progress through the early stages of product and customer development.
Earlier in her career, Ilana led and grew tech companies from startup to exit — building management teams, raising venture capital, and managing mergers and acquisitions from both sides of the table (buyer and seller). Ilana frequently serves in leadership roles on boards of private companies and not-for-profit organizations. Her academic background includes a B.A. in Biological Sciences and Economics from Northwestern University, and an M.B.A. from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management.
Hensley Sejour, Principal, Black Tech Nation Ventures
Hensley Sejour is a Principal at Black Tech Nation Ventures. Hensley is a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business where he earned his MBA. Hensley also has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from Lafayette College and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Tech. Prior to BTN Ventures, Hensley was a Product Manager at AWS after completing his MBA. Before returning to school for his MBA, Hensley had a 14-year career at BP Oil with roles spanning R&D, Process Development, and Technology Leadership.
Nicholas Shapiro, Principal, UPMC Enterprises
Nicholas Shapiro is Principal on the Digital Solutions team and Vice President at UPMC Enterprises, the venture capital arm of UPMC. He focuses on sourcing and executing investments, new business launches, and portfolio management. Mr. Shapiro joined UPMC Enterprises from the Boston Consulting Group. He previously held roles at The Brink's Company, American Capital and Houlihan Lokey. He serves on the board of directors of Arkos Health, RxAnte, sovaSage, BrainCheck and the Pittsburgh Venture Capital Association, and as a board observer at Moxe Health and Redesign Health. Nick graduated from the University of Virginia and Harvard Business School.
Sean Ammirati - Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship - Tepper School of Business
Sean Ammirati is a Distinguished Service Professor of Entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. In addition to teaching, Sean also is the Co-Founder and former Director of the Carnegie Mellon Corporate Startup Lab (CSL). The CSL has conducted research and developed tools to help large companies better adapt and integrate entrepreneurial best practices into their own innovation processes. Sean was also recently named one of CMU’s six Generative AI Fellows, for academic year 23-24, where his research will focus on how large language models can support entrepreneurial processes.
In addition to his work at CMU, Sean is also a venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and author. Sean has led seed investments into 20 early-stage companies including: NoWait (acq Yelp), JazzHR (acq Jobvite), Altru (acq iCIMS), SPIDRTech (acq Versaterm), LegalSifter (acq Carrick Capital), The Zebra, Crystal, and Healthie. His first book, The Science of Growth, was released by St. Martin's Press in April 2016 and was subsequently translated and published in Korean and Mandarin.
Dave Passavant, Founder and CEO, numo
Dave is the founder and CEO of numo, a fintech incubator subsidiary of PNC Bank. numo builds fintech startups with funding from PNC. Since 2018 numo has successfully built and exited 2 fintech companies. numo is currently exclusively focused on Triple, an offers platform for banks that is experiencing breakout growth.
Prior to PNC Dave spent time at successful west coast startups SquareTrade and Deem. He started his career with Accenture. Dave holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science from Washington & Lee University and an MBA from The Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University.
Carmel Majidi Clarence H. Adamson Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Carmel Majidi’s career mission is to discover materials, hardware architectures, and fabrication methods that allow robots and machines to behave like soft biological organisms, and be safe for contact with humans. The aim is to replace the bulky and rigid hardware in existing robots with soft, lightweight, and deformable technologies that match the functionality of natural biological tissue. Currently, his group is focused on filled-elastomer composites and soft microfluidic systems that exhibit unique combinations of mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties and can function as “artificial” skin, nervous tissue, and muscle for soft robotics and wearables. He’s particularly interested in approaches that are practical from a rapid prototyping and robotics implementation perspective. This includes efforts to enable robust mechanical and electrical interfacing between soft-matter systems and conventional microelectronics and hardware.
Aarti Singh, Director, NSF AI institute on Societal Decision Making, Carnegie Mellon University
Aarti Singh received a B.E. in electronics and communication engineering from the University of Delhi in 2001, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2003 and 2008, respectively. She was a postdoctoral research associate at the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University from 2008-2009 before joining Carnegie Mellon.
Vikki Kertes, SVP Organizational Financial Wellness, PNC
Shane Shaneman, Senior AI Strategist, NVIDIA
Shane is the Senior AI Strategist for NVIDIA’s Public Sector team focused on Generative AI and Robotics & Autonomy. Shane is responsible for developing and executing strategic activities, partnerships, and initiatives to accelerate and enhance NVIDIA’s impact across the Federal Government. Prior to NVIDIA, Shane led National Security & Defense research at Carnegie Mellon University and was Adjunct Faculty in the Robotics Institute from 2016-2023. Prior to Carnegie Mellon, Shane worked at the Air Force Research Laboratory and various technology companies across the Defense Industrial Base between 2000 – 2016, with a focus on strategic planning, innovation, and emerging technologies. Shane also served in the United States Air Force for 10 years in various operational assignments across Air Force Special Operations Command and Air Combat Command, and research assignments at AFRL and DARPA. Shane has also served as a volunteer Wish Granter for the Make-A-Wish Foundation for over 30 years.
Jeffrey Brashear, Adjunct Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Carnegie Mellon University
Jeffrey has more than 25 years of experience helping clients develop and execute strategies to take advantage of disruptive technologies. He has focused on helping clients clarify their understanding of artificial intelligence (AI), it’s value proposition to them, their paths to closing enablement gaps in human and technical capabilities, and their options for establishing and refining governance to help safeguard against AI’s unique challenges. Most Recently, Jeff has began a position teaching about Artificial Intelligence at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.
Dr. John Almasan, Senior Managing Director, TIAA
Dr. John Almasan is an accomplished technology executive with over 20 years of experience leading global tech teams and building large-scale AI, data, analytics, and cloud platforms for prominent companies such as TIAA, McKinsey & Company, American Express, Bank of America, and Nationwide Insurance. With deep expertise in multi-cloud big data engineering, machine learning, and data science, John is a hands-on practitioner and passionate about enabling the acceleration of AI adoption. As an adjunct professor at various universities and a member of Arizona State University's Board of Advisors, John is committed to preparing the next generation to meet the future's skillset needs and demands. He focuses on employee cross-training and actively engages in teaching and mentoring students in the field. John holds two master’s degrees in engineering and statistics, a Doctor of Business Administration with focus on Machine Learning and has over 40+ patents filed. He has received several awards throughout his career for his contributions to the technology industry.
Rajesh Saini, Head of Data Products, PNC
Michael Luk, Managing Director, Deloitte Consulting LLC
As dean of Deloitte’s AI Academy, Dr. Michael Luk is educating and reskilling a global workforce with immersive training in capabilities needed for the digital economy now and in the future. He is also the Chief Technology Officer of recently acquired SFL Scientific, a world-class team of data scientists, engineers, and managers at Deloitte, providing clients with innovative, practical solutions.
With over a decade of experience in Artificial Intelligence/Data Science, Michael has extensive experience in machine learning, deep learning, and AI. The majority of his work has been focused towards building and integrating large-scale enterprise models, frameworks, and solutions that provide a demonstrable return on investment. Michael holds a Ph.D. in particle physics from Brown University and earned a Master of Advanced Study in applied mathematics from the University of Cambridge.
James Leslie, Chief Financial Officer, Formation Bio
James Leslie is the Chief Financial Officer at Formation Bio. Prior to joining Formation Bio he spent eleven years as a CFO at PE and VC-backed tech enabled companies in the healthcare (Celmatix), insurance (TitleVest) and education (Flatiron School) industries. Prior to becoming a CFO, James was an investment banker in the Restructuring and Reorganization group at Blackstone. James earned his BA from Vassar College and MBA from Columbia Business School.
Abhinav Gupta, Co-Founder and President, Skild AI
Deepak Pathak, Co-Founder and CEO, Skild AI
Dave Mawhinney, Executive Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship,Carnegie Mellon
Dave Mawhinney is the Executive Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, and executive director, Donald H. Jones Center for Entrepreneurship. Dave is also an associate teaching professor at the Carnegie Mellon Tepper School of Business.
Prior to joining Carnegie Mellon, Dave was co-founder, chairman and CEO of mSpoke, an internet content and advertising recommendation engine, that was acquired in 2010 by LinkedIn, the world’s leading professional social networking site. In 2006, Morgan Stanley’s MSCI/Barra business unit acquired mSpoke’s first business line, a quantitative investment recommendation engine. Before mSpoke, Dave was general partner of PNC Technology Investors. Earlier in his career, he co-founded three successful startup ventures, including Premier Health Exchange (acquired by Medibuy), Hawk Medical (acquired by McKesson), and Industry.Net (merged with AT&T Business Network to form Nets, Inc.).
Dave is an active board member at 4Moms, Inc., sovaSage, Inc., Shift Robotics, Inc., The Foundation for IUP, and the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Alumni Association (ex-officio, past president). He is an Advisory board member to FifthSeason, #1Cochran, Nimble.ai, Mach9 Robotics, CoPilot, Digital Dream Labs, InnovationWork’s AlphaLab, Pittsburgh Equity Partners, and 3 Points Rising VC. Dave also served as Executive-in-residence at the Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse, working with healthcare information technology startups.
Dave holds an MBA with Distinction from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in physics, Summa Cum Laude, from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Dave was a 2017 recipient of the Tepper School Alumni Award.
Rebecca Nugent - Head of the Department of Statistics & Data Science - Carnegie Mellon
Rebecca Nugent is the Stephen E. and Joyce Fienberg Professor of Statistics & Data Science and Head of the Carnegie Mellon Department of Statistics & Data Science. She received her PhD in Statistics from the University of Washington, her M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University, and her B.A. in Mathematics, Statistics, and Spanish from Rice University. Dr. Nugent is currently on the leadership team for the NSF AI Institute for Societal Decision Making and has expertise in designing and implementing data science/AI professional development programs for business leaders in industries including health care, finance, automotive/manufacturing, and life sciences. She was the faculty co-Director of the Moderna AI Academy and the Founding Director of the Statistics & Data Science Corporate Capstone program, an experiential learning initiative that engages faculty and students with data science problems in industry, non-profits, and government organizations. She has won several national and university teaching awards including the American Statistical Association Waller Award for Innovation in Statistics Education and serves as one of the co-editors of the Springer Texts in Statistics. She recently served as the co-chair for the National Academy of Sciences study on Improving Defense Acquisition Workforce Capability in Data Use and served on the NAS study on Envisioning the Data Science Discipline: The Undergraduate Perspective. Dr. Nugent has worked extensively in clustering and classification methodology with an emphasis on high-dimensional, big data problems and record linkage applications. Her current research focus is the development and deployment of low-barrier data analysis platforms that allow for adaptive instruction and the study of data science as a science.
Richard Clarke, Chief Analytics Office, Highmark Health
Richard Clarke is the chief analytics officer at Highmark Health, a $26 billion national health services organization that includes one of America’s largest Blue Cross Blue Shield insurers and a growing regional hospital and physician network. Highmark Health’s 50,000+ employees serve millions of customers nationwide through Highmark Inc., Allegheny Health Network, HM Insurance Group, United Concordia Dental, enGen, and Helion.
As chief analytics officer, Dr. Clarke focuses on delivering innovative data and analytic solutions that fulfill Highmark Health’s Living Health strategy – improving health outcomes through proactive, personalized, and simpler solutions for patients and clinicians. Dr. Clarke is at the forefront of artificial intelligence and data strategy in health care and works closely with Highmark Health’s strategic partner, Google Cloud, to develop the next generation of solutions to address key issues such as interoperability, whole-person care, and the administrative burden of healthcare delivery and financing.
Dr. Clarke also serves on the board of Blue Health Intelligence (BHI), an analytic insights company that leverages the BCBSA association’s combined data to turn healthcare data into value-driven insights and solutions. He is also on the advisory board for the Block Center for Technology and Society at Carnegie Mellon University and for the Responsible Data Science at the University of Pittsburgh. He also serves as an industry representative on the FDA’s Digital Health Advisory Committee.
Dr. Clarke initially trained as a neuroscientist and biophysicist. Since moving out of academia, his experience includes large-scale data/analytic transformations, building and scaling advanced analytic products, and building and managing data science teams. Dr. Clarke is passionate about delivering business impact through advanced analytics, growing leaders that connect analytics to business priorities, and building diverse teams.
Prior to arriving at Highmark Health in 2016, Dr. Clarke served in a leadership role at McKinsey & Company. Dr. Clarke holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from Allegheny College and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Center for Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh.
Based in the Pittsburgh area, Dr. Clarke and his wife, Shauna, have two children. When not at work, Dr. Clarke enjoys golfing, fishing, and reading fantasy novels.
Christopher Martin, Senior Director, Responsible AI, BNY
Christopher currently serves a member of the leadership team of the BNY AI Hub. As part of the bank’s global AI Hub effort, Chris is focused on leveraging AI to develop and deploy innovative solutions across the enterprise. He leads governance efforts within the Hub, working to ensure the responsible application of AI at BNY. Chris is also responsible for driving collaborations with top-tier academic institutions, working with leading scholars to shape the future of AI in financial services.