As CEO and co-founder of EpiBone, I lead the team that brought the first stem-cell engineered living bone into human clinical trials. We grow anatomically precise bone and cartilage from a patient's own stem cells — skeletons that heal because they were alive before they were implanted. Along the way we've raised $50 million, built a state-of-the-art cGMP facility, and assembled one of the most creative teams in regenerative medicine.

I came to biology through electricity. I started my career engineering telecom networks at Avaya Labs, then followed a Fulbright to Rome to work on an electronic nose that could "smell" lung cancer. That led to a master's in bioelectrical engineering at MIT and a PhD at Columbia, where I used electrical signals to coax heart cells into beating in unison — and discovered that cells, like circuits, carry signals we can learn to speak. I later added an MBA in healthcare entrepreneurship from Columbia, because the lab bench alone can't carry a discovery to a patient.

That journey — from electrons to cells to companies — is what I bring to the stage. As a TED Senior Fellow and keynote speaker, I've shared the science of growing the human body with audiences at TED, the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Milken Institute, the White House, and Fortune 500 companies around the world. I'm the co-author of Super Cells: Building with Biology, and my work has been featured by Netflix, NPR, Bloomberg, WIRED, and Fast Company.

Beyond EpiBone, I serve on the Board of Visitors of Columbia Engineering and the Tissue Engineering Advisory Group of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, and I'm a longtime advocate for diversity in STEM — because the future of biology should be built by everyone it will touch.