OFFICERS
Yuting Zeng
President
Yuting is a Ph.D. student in the Theberge Lab in the department of Chemistry. Her research involves using open microfluidic tools to establish disease models in vitro and study the effect of cellular signaling. Before UW, Yuting received a B.S. in Chemistry at the Renmin University of China, where she worked on water-sensitive nanoparticles for the chemical ablation of tumors. Yuting also studied at UC San Diego for her junior year, where she worked as an undergraduate researcher under Dr. Satchin Panda at Salk Institute. Yuting is interested in alternative science careers and biotechnology commercialization. In her free time, she enjoys traveling, kayaking, photography, and caffeine drinks.
Zhiying (Sabrina) Xie
Career Fair Coordinator
Sabrina is a Ph.D. student in the department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. Her research involves angiographic algorithms development for optical imaging systems. Sabrina received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington in Molecular and Cellular Biology. Sabrina is interested in filling the gap between research and commercialization from interdisciplinary fields. Her expertise is in commercialization strategy development and marketing research. Sabrina enjoys riding motorcycles, bouldering, sailing, and fishing.
Cody Birkland
VP of Development
Cody is a first-year masters student at UW, studying electrical engineering with an emphasis on mechatronics. He is researching applications of high-intensity focused ultrasound at the APL Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound under Dr. Tom Matula. Prior to his graduate studies, he worked as a high voltage electrician and hypersonics lab automation engineer. He applies his technical background at his startup, Ultropia, which is using ultrasound to make laundry appliances more efficient and accessible. He’s building his business out of CoMotion’s Hardware Incubator and has secured seed funding through many national business plan competitions and grants. In his role at SEBA, he aims to support students in navigating the business world and empower those who are setting out to build their own ventures.
Xinyue (Clover) Chen
VP of Networking
Clover is a master’s student in the department of Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy. Her research interests involve targeted long-acting drug delivery system of cancer combination therapies and pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics modeling. During her undergraduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, she held the position of organizing academic events for the Edinburgh Immunology Society. During her spare time, she enjoys making music, traveling, boxing, and hiking.
Theresa Chen
VP of Relations
Theresa is a Molecular and Cellular Biology PhD student in the Cherry Lab at Seattle Children's Research Institute. Her research involves using single-cell technologies and retinal organoids to determine the role of disease-associated enhancers on retinal disease and development. Before UW, Theresa received a BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, where she worked on developing small-diameter vascular grafts for coronary artery disease. She also worked at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard for three years before coming to UW, where she developed high-throughput pooled assays for functional screenings of genetically diverse neuronal populations. Theresa is passionate about community outreach and diversity in STEM and healthcare and is interested in venture capital investing, technology commercialization, and business development. In her free time, Theresa enjoys tidepooling, backpacking, playing tennis, sailing, and live music.
Ethan Lockhart
VP of Membership
Ethan is a PhD student in the department of Bioengineering working in the lab of Dr. Albert Folch. His current research focuses on developing microfluidic approaches to facilitate preclinical cancer drug testing on live intact tumor tissues. A long-time Seattleite and transfer student from Bellevue college, Ethan graduated with academic honors from UW with a B.S. in Bioengineering, during which he worked on a prototype commercial device to study skeletal muscle hypertrophy in vitro. In addition to his research, Ethan participates in the Washington Innovation Network (WIN) Mentorship Program learning to build a company around a patented device with his advisor. In SEBA, he aims to cultivate effective skills for using business and entrepreneurship to perform bench-to-bedside research by connecting students to engaging opportunities. Ethan enjoys paddle-boarding, coffee (mochas), movie theaters, and surfing among many other treasures in life.
LeAnn Le
VP of Operations
LeAnn is a Molecular Engineering Ph.D. student advised by Dr. Alshakim Nelson in the Department of Chemistry. Her research focuses on designing and characterizing 3D-printable Engineered Living Materials (ELMs) to provide sustainable bio-hybrid alternatives. Prior to UW, LeAnn received a B.S. in Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UCLA where she utilized cryo-EM techniques to understand host-viral fusion in Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV). Alongside her research, she was heavily involved in outreach projects to provide professional development and internship opportunities for students from historically marginalized communities. With her interdisciplinary background and desire to improve STEM accessibility, LeAnn aims to increase the impact and reach of SEBA across campus and beyond. Outside of the lab, she enjoys eating good food, reorganizing her Spotify playlists, playing volleyball, and climbing.
Sarah Malik
VP of Finance
Sarah is a PhD candidate in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Washington. She works in the Hull-Meichle Lab, her current research entails investigating the paracrine signals within the pancreas that contributes to the progression of Cystic Fibrosis-related diabetes. Sarah was previously a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the National Institutes of Health in NIDDK. During her fellowship, she pursued a Master of Science in Law with a specialization of Intellectual Property Law at the Francis King Carey School of Law at the University of Maryland. Sarah is very passionate about translational biomedical research. While not in the lab, she enjoys hiking, cooking and floral design.
Zelia Lai
VP of Marketing
Zelia is a first-year MS student at the University of Washington, specializing in Human Centered Design and Engineering. As a freelance UX designer, she helps small local businesses revamp their websites, utilizing her expertise in user experience and user-centered design methods. With previous experience as a personal assistant to the Consul General of Portugal and as a Guest Relations Assistant Manager at Four Seasons Hotel, Zelia is committed to bridging the gap between academia and professional working environments, particularly in supporting students in securing their first job. In her leisure time, she enjoys editing YouTube videos, hiking, and indulging in culinary delights.
Anusriya Rahman Ornie
VP of Undergraduate Affairs
Ornie is a third-year undergraduate Bioengineering student at UW, specializing in Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine. She conducts research in the Mendenhall Lab, studying cell-to-cell variation in gene expression. As an international student from Bangladesh, she actively engages in leadership training. Currently undergoing training at the WERISE Leadership Academy, she held positions as the Representative for Willow Hall at the ASUW Senate and prosthetics team in Bioengineers without Borders (BWB). Ornie aims to combine business skills with engineering and sciences through SEBA. In her free time, she enjoys exploring cafes, reading, movies and TV, and seeking new adventures.
Fred Yeboah
President Emeritus
Fred is a Ph.D. student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program, working in the lab of Dr. Jessica Young. His research focuses on using induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) as a model to study Alzheimer’s Disease and other age-related disease mechanisms. Fred received his bachelor's degree from Alabama State University with honors and was awarded the 2015 George H. Andrew Student of the Year Award. Receiving a prestigious research fellowship from Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Fred spent two years conducting research after college before coming to UW. Fred is interested in technology commercialization, business strategy, and entrepreneurship. Fred enjoys swimming and playing soccer during his leisure hours.
ADVISORY BOARD
Will Canestaro
Dr. Will Canestaro is a venture capitalist, health economist and meta-epidemiologist with a demonstrated history of working in the biotechnology industry. He manages the Foundation's biotech and engineering VC investment portfolio. Through WRF, Dr. Canestaro has made 25 investments in 19 Washington-based companies. Dr. Canestaro also teaches courses at the UW School of Business and School of Pharmacy on Health Innovation and Meta-Analytic methods, respectively. Dr. Canestaro earned his doctorate from the University of Washington's School of Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program. He received an M. Sc. in medical anthropology from Oxford University and an A.B. in medical sociology from Dartmouth College.
Brad Roberts
Brad Roberts is Senior Vice President and co-head of the Innovation Group at Xinova. Brad is responsible for managing Xinova’s technical staff, its worldwide network of inventors, innovators, and commercializers, sets portfolio strategy, and liaises with each client’s technical team. Brad was responsible for starting Xinova’s operations in Israel. He joined Xinova's predecessor in 2010 as Technical Assistant to the Fund’s Executive VP, helping to implement and optimize programs in global invention sourcing.
Brad has a PhD from the University of Washington’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering in the synthesis and characterization of transition-metal-doped-oxide semiconductors for use in spin-based electronics. While at UW, Brad also completed a Technology Entrepreneurship Certificate at the Foster School of Business and earned a Washington Research Foundation Capital Gates Foundation Fellowship in Technology Commercialization. As President of the UW Science and Engineering Business Association, he facilitated programs to introduce technical students to the world of entrepreneurship and venture capital.
As an undergraduate, Brad was president of a ski touring club, co-founded a student-run engineering consulting business to utilize on-campus characterization tools, and established the campus chapter of the Alpha Sigma Mu materials engineering honor society. Undergraduate internships included both the Hardware Engineering and Product Design groups at Apple, as well as Software Engineering group at Qualcomm. He is currently a member of the Engineering Advisory Board at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly).
Brad and his wife, who were married while on a school-building trek in Nepal, have since helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for additional schools and infrastructure repairs in earthquake-damaged Nepali villages.
Amy Sallin
Amy Sallin is director of the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship in the UW’s Foster School of Business. With over 18 years in higher education, her background includes academic marketing, fundraising, relationship building, and program development, both at UW and Portland State University. Amy discovered her passion for entrepreneurship during a stint in Silicon Valley in the early 1980s, and has channeled that interest into helping students grow into entrepreneurs and change-makers. She’s been working with student entrepreneurs and the Seattle startup community for over seven years.
Jeff Chamberlain
Jeff Chamberlain works in Business Development at Seattle-based Pacific Biomarkers, supporting the biotech, pharma, and diagnostic industries in the development of their drug or diagnostic products. Prior to Pacific Biomarkers, Dr. Chamberlain worked for Zwitter Technology as Project Leader and Manager of Business Development, working toward the commercialization of a polymeric coating technology with applications in many fields including medicine, medical devices, and marine coatings.
Dr. Chamberlain earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he leveraged multiple biosensing modalities to study bacterial binding and biomolecular interaction analysis. He concurrently obtained the Technology Entrepreneurship Certificate from the UW Foster School of Business and served as president of the UW Science & Engineering Business Association (SEBA). He is a frequent volunteer in the Seattle life sciences business community, primarily through his involvement with the industry trade association, Life Science Washington.
Christina Chan
Christina Chan is a corporate attorney with a focus on mergers & acquisitions, equity financings and other significant business transactions. She has significant experience managing deals in the health care and health tech industry. Christina also has extensive experience counseling technology companies in a variety of transactions including sell-side, buy-side, joint ventures, strategic investments, and equity financings.
Dan Ratner
Passionate about improving the student experience, Dan is uniquely qualified to assume this leadership position. Dan is strategic, thoughtful, and skilled in moving impactful programs forward within the university. Through his roles in faculty governance and administration, he has been focused on addressing matters of diversity, equity, and access in university admissions policy and practice.
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Dan will lead the college’s academic programs and initiatives to support student success. Dan will manage Academic Affairs’ strategic planning, student-oriented educational processes, implementation of ABET processes, and educational innovation as we continue to shift from a two-year to a four-year academic experience. He will work closely with key stakeholders both within and outside the UW, such as Washington’s unique network of 34 community and technical colleges.