Dr. Rubin works with bio and med tech companies to hit valuation inflection points, achieve strategic goals and prepare for product launch. Leading a ventures team at NIH, her focus is on ensuring investment readiness of SBIR companies. Dr. Rubin has previously held corporate leadership roles in global clinical strategy and medical affairs at Medtronic, plc, was Chief Scientific Officer of BioFortis, Inc. (acquired by Quintiles-Quest JV) and CSA Medical, Inc., is President of life sciences business development advisory firm Innovative BioStrategies, LLC, and a venture partner at FundRx. She has over 25 products in the marketplace garnering 9 figure sales revenue, was instrumental in multiple M&As, partnerships & collaborations, and advises over 50 CEOs in preparation for seed to series B financing each year. Ethel has held board seats at tech incubators and numerous business Advisory boards.  Dr. Rubin earned a PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from the University of Rochester School of Medicine & Dentistry and a certificate in corporate governance for Board of Directors service from The George Washington University School of Business.

Norm Marcus is a Venture Partner with Sanderling Ventures and has more than 35 years experience in biomedical research, life science investing and the clinical practice of orthopaedic surgery, where he specialized in the biologic treatment of musculoskeletal disease.

Prior to joining Sanderling, he was a founder of Cartilix, a consultant to Zimmer-Biomet,  and a founder of 1812 Ventures.

Dr. Marcus received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins and his M.D. from Stanford. He currently teaches at Johns Hopkins.

Mr. Calvin is a 25-year veteran within the diagnostics, drug development and biotechnology industries. In his role as MaxCyte’s EVP of Global Commercial Operations, he is responsible for leading the Company’s marketing function to define product strategy and drive growth of its drug discovery and cell therapy business. Mr. Calvin was most recently Co-founder and President of AsedaSciences, a company with an integrated technology platform to predict in vivo toxicity risk in early-stage drug discovery. Previously, he has held various leadership positions at companies ranging from large corporations to start-ups, such as Accuvein, Beckman Coulter, Qiagen, Digene, AGENIX, and Abbott Laboratories. He has a Bachelor’s degree from Curtin Institute of Technology in Perth, Western Australia.

Sara joined NEA’s healthcare team in 2009 and focuses on investments in biopharmaceutical companies. She serves on the boards of Centrexion, Complexa, Cydan, Imara, and Tiburio. She previously served on the boards of Vtesse (acquired by Sucampo), Mersana (MRSN) and Therachon and as a board observer for Loxo Oncology (LOXO, acquired by Lilly), Tesaro (TSRO, acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), Ziarco (acquired by Novartis), Omthera (OMTH, acquired by AstraZeneca), Clementia (CMTA, to be acquired by Ipsen), Epizyme (EPZM), Nightstar (NITE), Millendo (MLND) and Zyngenia.  She has also been involved in other NEA investments such as Prosensa (RNA, acquired by BioMarin), Metacrine, and 3-V Biosciences. She also serves on the board of BioHealth Innovation Management. She was selected three times as one of GrowthCap’s Top 40 Under 40 Growth Investors. Prior to joining NEA, Sara was an Associate with Merrill Lynch’s Global Healthcare Group, where she advised biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies on numerous mergers, acquisitions and financing transactions. Previously, she worked as an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley. She has conducted basic science research in mammalian cardiac development and clinical research in age-related macular degeneration. Sara concurrently earned her MD (cum laude) and MBA from Yale University, where she was a Yale MBA Scholar. She received her AB (magna cum laude) in Biology from Harvard University.

Kolaleh Eskandanian, PhD, MBA, PMP is Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer at Children’s National Health System, reporting to hospital’s Executive Vice President, Physician-In-Chief and Chief Academic Officer. In this capacity, she oversees the Office of Innovation and Technology Commercialization, the Sheikh Zayed Institute’s R&D operations, and has a leadership role in the development of the Children’s National Research and Innovation Campus at Walter Reed (2020).

She is also the executive director of the FDA-funded National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI), focused on accelerating the path to market for pediatric devices. Kolaleh works with a large network of small and large businesses, nonprofits and government agencies—addressing the unmet medical needs of children. She is the producer of an annual innovation competition that supports small businesses who demonstrate the ability to address a significant medical need in the pediatric space. Dr. Eskandanian’s expertise includes the full spectrum of product development activities, having held management positions at Accenture, a global management consulting firm, where she directed major product launches for clients. Dr. Eskandanian is the co-PI on the FDA-funded Global Pediatric Clinical Trials Network grant and the CTSI-CN lead of the Orphan Product Accelerator.

Dr. Eskandanian’s own innovations are in the market space, used by millions. She is the lead inventor of the first-ever adverse event reporting system, initially deployed in a research academic environment. This technology and its derivatives have now been in the market for over 10 years. She has had leadership roles in the development of the first web-based trouble entry management system for a Fortune 100 company in the telecommunications sector. She has been a key contributor in securing over $40 million in government funding for two large research enterprises.

Prior to joining Children’s National, Dr. Eskandanian held positions with Intelsat, Accenture and Georgetown University. Her background is in mechanical engineering with a PhD in operations science and an MBA from American University Kogod School of Business.

José joined AstraZeneca in January 2019 as EVP, R&D Oncology and is responsible for Oncology R&D from discovery through to late-stage development. Prior to this he served as the Physician-in-Chief at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College from 2012 to September 2018. Under his leadership, MSK became the leader in early-phase clinical trials for cancer therapies and diagnostic genetic sequencing.

José is an international thought leader for innovation in cancer care and clinical research, and his research and clinical achievements have led to the approval of a number of life-saving cancer therapies, and to the creation of a number of biopharmaceutical companies.

Prior to joining MSK, José was Chief of the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Associate Director at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was also the Chairman of Medical Oncology and Founding Director of the Vall d‘Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona, Spain. As a recent past President of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), he worked collaboratively with the AACR Board of Directors and the AACR membership to further the mission to cure cancer through research.

José is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, and an elected Fellow of the AACR Academy. He is a past President of the European Society for Medical Oncology, where he was recently awarded their Lifetime Achievement Award, and a past member of the Board of Directors for the American Society of Clinical Oncology and AACR.

Tami Howie focuses her practice in the area of corporate law. She advises technology, life science and medical device companies in emerging growth and venture capital, private equity, securities offerings, venture capital, joint venture transactions and M&A matters.

Prior to returning to DLA Piper, she was CEO of the Maryland Technology Council, the state’s largest technology trade association supporting biotechnology and innovation in the state of Maryland. In this capacity, she was the lead voice in Annapolis helping to promote legislation to make Maryland the most innovative state in the country. She has worked to increase research and development, tax credits, investor tax credits and worked to prevent legislation that would make it harder to do business in Maryland. Over the past 20 years Tami has helped technology companies grow in the Mid-Atlantic region and nationwide from start up to public companies and beyond.

Tami has been involved with the successful exits of over 150 companies and has represented technology companies, investors, SBICs and underwriters such as JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

She has served on several organizational boards including most recently the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland and as counsel in her early career for the Mid-Atlantic Venture Association. In addition, she has served the tech community by participating as a speaker, committee chair or legal advisor for both the DC Tech Council and Tech Counsel of Maryland. Tami has been named one of America’s Top Lawyers and has received the Young Gun Award from the Washington Business Journal.

Brian P. Darmody, JD, Chief Executive Officer, Association of University Research Parks (AURP)

Brian Darmody was announced AURP CEO in February 2019. In this new role Brian will lead AURP into new initiatives including expanding membership, international partnerships and funding in order to build out additional member benefits.  Over the course of the year, Brian will be winding down his activities at UMD where he currently serves as Associate Vice President (AVP) of Corporate Engagement at the University of Maryland (UMD). At UMD, Brian is responsible for developing the overall university strategy for corporate relationships, as well as the development of projects and policies to support these initiatives centrally and through the colleges and schools on campus of the University of Maryland.

Previously, he was the University’s AVP for Corporate and Foundation Relations in the Division of University Relations, AVP for Research and Economic Development, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Technology Development, Director of State and Federal Relations in the President’s Office and has served in the university’s legal counsel office. He serves on national and state boards, including: Fraunhofer USA, the Maryland Economic Development Association, and the Maryland Tech Council.

He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Baltimore and he received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Joel S. Marcus is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments (NYSE:ARE), an urban office REIT uniquely focused on collaborative life science and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations. Mr. Marcus co-founded Alexandria in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in seed capital and has led its growth into an S&P 500 company with an approximately $18 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return of nearly 1,350% since the company’s IPO in 1997. In 1996, Mr. Marcus founded the company’s venture investments arm, Alexandria Venture Investments, to provide strategic investment capital to innovative life science and technology entities developing breakthrough therapies and technologies. Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of several organizations, including Accelerator Corporation and AgTech Accelerator Corporation, for which he was an original architect and co-founder, Applied Therapeutics, Atara Biotherapeutics, Boragen, Intra-Cellular Therapies, MeiraGTx Limited, Yumanity Therapeutics; Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), Friends of Cancer Research, The Scripps Research Institute; the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the Navy SEAL Foundation, the Partnership for New York City, and Robin Hood Foundation.

Jack A. Khattar is the founder of Supernus Pharmaceuticals and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer and Director since 2005. From 1999 to 2005, Mr. Khattar served in various positions, including Board Member, President, and CEO of Shire Laboratories Inc., the drug delivery subsidiary of Shire plc. Prior to that, Mr. Khattar served as an Executive Officer and the Chairman of the Management Committee at CIMA, a drug delivery company that is currently a division of Cephalon. At CIMA, he was also responsible for business development, including the licensing of CIMA’s technologies, corporate alliances, and strategic planning.

Prior to joining CIMA in 1995, Mr. Khattar held several marketing and business development positions at Merck & Co., Novartis, Playtex, and Kodak in various locations, including the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. He is currently a director of Rockville Economic Development Inc. Mr. Khattar earned his degrees in marketing, with a BBA from American University of Beirut and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.