Mark Crowell, RTTP, is President and Co-Founder of Arkane Innovation, an international advisory services firm (based in Ireland, the UK and the US) focused on entrepreneurship, innovation ecosystems and strategy, accelerator programs, research commercialization and spinouts, and economic development initiatives. He is also Executive Entrepreneur in Residence for the Eshelman Institute for Innovation (EII) at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Mark is a Senior Innovation Advisor to the World Bank and consults with the AAAS, the San Diego Biomedical Research Institute, the Arkansas Research Alliance, and others. Mark’s 30+ years of experience in academic innovation and translational partnerships include serving as Vice President for Innovation and Economic Development at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia; founding Executive Director of UVa Innovation at the University of Virginia; and chief technology transfer and business development officer at The Scripps Research Institute, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC State University, and Duke University.
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Mark was 2005 President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), a former Chair of BIO's Technology Transfer Committee (2009-2014), and a former member of the National Advisory Council of the Federal Laboratory Consortium (FLC).  In 2013, Mark received the Bayh-Dole Award from AUTM “in recognition of his lifetime contributions to advancing academic innovations.” In 2011, he was invited by the White House to attend President Barack Obama’s signing ceremony for the America Invents Act.

Steven Muskal, Ph.D., is the founder of Sertanty, Inc. and Chief Executive Officer of Eidogen-Sertanty, and has over 30 years of industry experience in research & development, marketing, and business development in the biopharma sector. Before establishing Sertanty, he served as Vice President of Informatics for Libraria, Inc., where he was responsible for technology development and operations.

Prior to joining Libraria, Steve served as Unit Director at the Affymax Research Institute and as a member of the Glaxo Wellcome Scientific Computing Board. At Affymax, he oversaw development of advanced technologies in parallel synthesis, lead optimization, and research computing. Steve also held various roles including Product Manager, Senior Scientist, and Applications Scientist at Molecular Design Limited (MDL Information Systems) where he led the design and development of MDL’s chemical informatics software.

Steve has a Doctorate in Biophysical Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and earned his B.Sc. in Engineering Chemistry and Computer Science from the Colorado School of Mines.

He is a fitness enthusiast, plays beach volleyball, premier amateur baseball, and is a drummer in several bands.

Aagam Shah, Ph.D., is a scientist and engineer who has invented multiple technologies and authored several peer-reviewed articles during his 10 years of research in biomedical engineering. His expertise includes medical technology development, imaging and data analytics in neuroscience and cardiovascular applications.
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Aagam completed his PhD in biomedical engineering at ETH Zurich and received his Masters’ in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. He previously worked as a Research Fellow at MIT’s EECS department. Combining his strong scientific background with a passion for venture capital, Aagam now assists promising healthcare and machine learning start-ups to grow. He is currently based in Zurich, Switzerland and works as an investment analyst at a leading venture capital fund in Europe.

Emmanuel “Manu” Smadja is an experienced management consultant turned FinTech entrepreneur. He co-founded MPOWER Financing in 2014, a company that works with investors and universities to provide an innovative and forward-looking education financing product for students from around the world.
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Manu has led MPOWER’s growth from a concept to a 50+ person company with international offices, nearly 400 university partners across the U.S. and Canada, $500M+ in loan capital, and several industry awards including American Banker’s Top FinTech to work for. Prior to co-founding MPOWER Financing, Manu spent nearly four years at McKinsey & Company as a consultant and subsequently an engagement manager serving financial services companies, development banks, and central banks across Europe, the U.S., and Africa. Manu holds an M.B.A. from INSEAD and earned an M.S. in Systems and Information engineering as well as B.S. in Computer Science & Cognitive Sciences from the University of Virginia.
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He is a member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda Fraternity, Engineers without Borders, and StartingBloc. Manu lives in Washington, D.C. When not in the office he enjoys the outdoors, especially playing soccer and kayaking. After dark, look out for him dancing Bachata or Salsa.

Sundar Subramanyam, J.D., Ph.D., is a patent attorney with more than 20 years of combined in-house and law firm experience in intellectual property (IP) portfolio development, drug patent litigation, patent strategy and life-cycle management. He brings a unique perspective to his practice by combining his technical analytical skills and extensive experience and understanding of patent law in IP matters involving complex scientific and legal issues from both a patent prosecution and litigation perspective.
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Dr. Subramanyam has extensive experience in patent prosecution, IP strategy, client IP portfolio development and management and litigation strategies and USPTO PTAB proceedings in the pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology, medical device and material science areas. He represented numerous brand pharmaceutical and generic drug companies in matters involving IP due diligence, patent analysis and technology assessment pertaining to ANDA patent litigation, patent life cycle management and IP licensing and acquisition deals.
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As a registered patent attorney, he has managed IP strategy and portfolio development, prosecuted numerous U.S. and international patent applications in the pharmaceutical and medical device areas and supervised external counsel on IP matters in-house and served as outside patent counsel for early-stage start-ups, large companies and academic institutions. Prior to his legal career, he worked as an R&D scientist in a start-up biotech company in the Boston area and co-invented proprietary patented infection resistant coatings for medical devices and healthcare products.