Seattle, Washington, United States
I enjoy solving hard problems across science, technology, and execution by turning obstacles into opportunities for impact. With a PhD in Neurobiology from MIT, I’ve tackled seemingly impossible challenges to advance therapies in RNA editing for genetic diseases and engineer novel CRISPR models. I carried that analytical mindset beyond the lab: founding two startups, advising companies across AI, health, and community services, and guiding early products from concept to measurable traction. I founded Datome.ai to address privacy and scalability barriers in biotech AI with federated learning and crowdsourcing, which won MIT’s AI4Impact pitch competition. Earlier, I built Torte, a SaaS platform for independent restaurants, solving operational pain points while handling everything from engineering and design to marketing. Now, I’m channeling this mix of scientific rigor, product intuition, and founder experience to overcome new challenges, whether in product strategy, scientific leadership, or venture capital.
Advised and built across AI, sports psychology, and community platforms, combining technical execution with strategic impact. Trained and stress-tested AI models for biology-focused applications, strengthening evaluation protocols and probing vulnerabilities to ensure reliability. Guided a sports-psychology startup through a full growth redesign, including website, SEO strategy, and sales funnel, delivering a 600% increase in leads and 400% MRR growth. Restructured and maintain a competition platform for the 900K-member r/vexillology community, creating a heuristic model to detect anomalous user data, optimizing performance, and managing sponsor and community relationships.
Founded Datome.ai to explore how crowdsourced biomedical annotations and federated learning could improve AI model training in biotech without compromising data ownership. Following inbound interest from winning MIT’s AI4Impact pitch competition, partnered with VCs to evaluate product–market fit, conducted customer discovery with pharma and biotech stakeholders, and designed the platform architecture.
Led two gene editing and gene therapy research projects at MIT focused on Rett and Fragile X syndromes. Developed a novel RNA editing approach to rescue nonsense mutations with potential to treat 10-15% of genetic diseases, using Rett Syndrome as a proof-of-concept model. Engineered a first-of-its-kind CRISPR mouse model of Fragile X, overcoming key technical challenges to replicate high-GC content mutations and demonstrate translational gaps in preclinical research. Secured over $1M in competitive funding, managed a team of junior researchers, and collaborated across research foundations to align scientific work with downstream impact.
Took time away from my PhD at MIT to build Torte, a solo-founded SaaS startup helping independent restaurants streamline front-of-house operations. I designed and launched the Guest POS, a mobile-first platform that consolidated ordering, payments, and analytics into a single system. Customers could split bills and filter menus collaboratively from their own devices, while restaurants gained access to group-level insights previously unavailable through traditional POS systems. Piloted in 4 restaurants. Personally led product, engineering, UX, and sales. The experience sharpened my founder intuition and technical execution—skills I now apply to evaluating product-market fit, end-user behavior, and operational edge across industries.