MIT Startup Exchange is convening its 11th installment of Demo Day on Wednesday, December 6 (12 PM – 1:15 PM ET). The event will feature lightning talks and Q&A, followed by breakout rooms.
This event is for ILP members. You can confirm your company's ILP membership here: https://ilp.mit.edu/search/members.
Ariadna Rodenstein is a Program Manager at MIT Startup Exchange. She joined MIT Corporate Relations as an Events Leader in September 2019 and is responsible for designing and executing startup events, including content development, coaching and hosting, and logistics. Ms. Rodenstein works closely with the Industrial Liaison Program (ILP) in promoting collaboration and partnerships between MIT-connected startups and industry, as well as with other areas around the MIT innovation ecosystem and beyond.
Prior to working for MIT Corporate Relations, she worked for over a decade at Credit Suisse Group in New York and London, in a few different roles in event management and as Director of Client Strategy. Ms. Rodenstein has combined her experience in the private sector with work at non-profits as a Consultant and Development Director at New York Immigration Coalition, Immigrant Defense Project, and Americas Society/Council of the Americas. She also served as an Officer on the Board of Directors of the Riverside Clay Tennis Association in New York for several years. Additionally, she earned her B.A. in Political Science and Communications from New York University, with coursework at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey in Mexico City, and her M.A. in Sociology from the City University of New York.
John Greenfield joined Josh and Daniel in 2023 to scale Noya’s commercial organization and help fulfill its ultimate mission: to restore our planet’s balance by removing carbon from our atmosphere. He brings 12+ years of progressive deep tech x climate and venture operating experience, including a wide range of commercial and operational responsibilities at Everactive (Industrial IoT and Renewable Energy). He has earned the trust of founders, investors, partners, and engineers, has driven product-market fit and scaled organizations from both “0 to 1” and “1 to n.” Along the way, he has helped raise more than $125M from top-tier VCs and CVCs –including NEA, Blue Bear Capital, In-Q-Tel, ABB, and Ericsson. John holds a B.A. in Environmental Economics from Colgate University and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia (Darden).
Stwart Peña Feliz is the co-founder and CEO of MacroCycle Technologies, the venture creating circular plastics with zero carbon emissions. An engineer by training from Cornell University, Stwart started his career as process engineer at ExxonMobil. While at Exxon, Stwart was responsible for the technology that first recycled plastics, a project he was involved in rolling out. After this experience, he pivoted into entrepreneurship, working as a senior process engineer and VP of business development at a hydrogen startup. He left this company to then embark on his MBA at MIT Sloan, where he met his co-founder for MacroCycle. After graduating in 2023, Stwart has been working full time on commercializing this technology, with the goal of creating a cleaner world for everyone.
Bio coming soon.
Dr. Williams is a European Board of Medical Genetics (EBMG) Board Certified Clinical Laboratory Geneticist (ErCLG) and is currently American Board of Medical Genetics & Genomics (ABMGG) board eligible. In addition, she is a United Kingdom Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) registered Clinical Scientist (Genomics) and holds categorical certifications (Cytogenetics, Molecular Biology) from the American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP). A Pathology and Laboratory Medicine healthcare executive, she serves as the Vice President, Clinical Genomics Operations & Chief of Staff at Cache DNA in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA.
She completed an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME)/ABMGG fellowship at the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and an Executive Master of Business Administration (Healthcare) at Yale School of Management. Dr. Williams's expertise includes transitioning laboratories to the ISO15189 medical laboratories standard to demonstrate the quality and reliability of their service, advocacy, and government affairs for health equity in genomic medicine, mentoring women in science & biotechnology, and standards for utilizing genomic data. Dr. Williams focuses on the collaborative open sharing and standardization for the classification of variants to determine clinical significance, addressing emerging issues in access to genomic testing, and supporting Laboratory Genomic Professionals' recognition, certification, and global awareness.
Leveraging her two decades of experience in clinical laboratory medicine and pathology, she is leading operations at Cache DNA focused on commercializing a patented storage system developed at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which maintains the quality and integrity of nucleic acids long term without requiring energy—enabling timely retrieval of biospecimens. Focused on personalized medicine and genomics institutions that struggle to scale operations with increasingly high volumes of genomic samples, Cache technology eliminates refrigeration, reduces footprint, and replaces complex robotic automation with targeted retrieval. Since joining the company in January 2023, she and the Cache DNA team have led the company to engage and advance partnerships to support several academic medical centers globally, a growing number of diagnostic labs and biobanks, and commercial partners and life science tools companies enabling researchers to drive new insights and discoveries, ultimately improving health outcomes for all.
Bringing over 20 years of global healthcare product scaling expertise, Hesham Younis leads Verbal's commercial and scale-up strategy. With a Ph.D. in biomechanics from MIT and a background as a former McKinsey consultant, he drives innovation in digital health, digital therapeutics, and hospital-to-home care. Notable achievements include launching Profusa's Lumee® Oxygen platform, co-founding Philips' Hospital-to-Home Emerging Markets division, and catalyzing impactful health solutions. In his free time, Younis leads the digital health track of the MIT Club of Northern California, and hosts monthly speaker and conference events that bring together MIT alums in the Bay area with the community. A travel enthusiast and culture explorer, Younis resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his family.
Chris Mannion is the co-founder and CEO of Recruit Copilot. This breakthrough talent intelligence platform unlocks untapped talent pools to help companies accelerate hiring. From military aerospace engineering to e-commerce supply chain operations, Chris' eclectic background enabled him to build a new recruiting operations capability at Wayfair in 2019. Bringing together a team of 40 recruiters, analysts, and product managers, Chris led the transformation of the 400+ global recruiting team. Drawing upon years of operational expertise and knowledge, he is now spearheading the launch of a revolutionary product to transform the recruiting industry. Hailing from the UK, Chris was the first in his family to attend college and learned the value of strategic career planning early on. He worked his way through various jobs to pay for school, including delivering newspapers and flipping burgers at McDonald's. Chris earned a scholarship from the Royal Navy to study aerospace engineering at the University of Liverpool and joined the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm after graduation. His career path has been meandering, including earning an M.Sc. in Guided Weapons Systems from Cranfield University and an M.B.A. from MIT Sloan.
Kai Narita is an innovator and engineer leading the 3D printing technology development. He has a Ph.D. in Materials Science from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and received his master’s in Engineering and bachelor’s degree from the Tokyo Institute of Technology.