Spotlight on Women in Health Ventures

We are thrilled to have Dr. Kameron Matthews on the podcast today. She is the Chief Health Officer at Cityblock Health, where she leads the clinical strategy and operations for a rapidly growing company that provides innovative, personalized, and accessible care to individuals and communities with complex health and social needs. She has over 15 years of experience as a board-certified family physician, a health policy expert, and a mentor to aspiring and practicing health professionals from diverse backgrounds. She aims to transform health care delivery and outcomes for underserved populations by leveraging innovative operations, data, technology, and human-centered design. In addition to working at Cityblock health, she co-founded and directs Tour for Diversity in Medicine, a national initiative that educates and inspires future physicians, dentists, and pharmacists of color, and serve as a Health Innovators Fellow at the Aspen Institute, a prestigious program that fosters entrepreneurial and values-driven leadership in health care. She was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the highest honor in the field, and served as a senior executive at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, where she oversaw the largest integrated healthcare network in the country in the Office of Community Care and later served as Chief Health Officer of the health system. She is passionate about advancing health equity, quality, and innovation, and empowering the next generation of health care leaders. She received her JD from the University of Chicago Law School and her MD from Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Mireille Kamariza is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at UCLA and co-founder and CEO of OliLux Biosciences, a company dedicated to providing low- cost, portable and reliable diagnostic devices in low-resource settings. She is a chemical biologist with expertise building diagnostics tools against infectious organisms. With a background in chemical biology and infectious disease research, she researches new tools to selectively probe molecular activity of live cells, in real-time, with versatile applications in research and medicine.

She was previously a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows working with Prof. Pardis Sabeti at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. There, she worked on developing CRISPR-Cas13 assays to detect bloodborne viruses such as Ebolavirus, Lassa virus, Yellow Fever virus, and many others. 

Prior to her appointment at Harvard, she completed her doctoral studies in Biology at Stanford University where she developed a new diagnostic technology for the rapid and simple detection of tuberculosis at the point-of-care. This project was awarded a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to test their diagnostic devices in places with high levels of disease. In addition, her work was translated into what is now OliLux Biosciences. 

Dr. Kamariza has received numerous awards, including being named as one of Chemical & Engineering News's Talented 12 in 2020 and Endpt’s 20 under 40 in 2023. In December 2022, Nature Medicine named Dr. Kamariza as one of 11 early-career researchers to watch. 

We are so excited to invite Naama Stauber Breckler, a software engineer and a product manager turned healthcare entrepreneur who has founded 3 prior companies and has now started Better Health. Better Health is a healthcare company providing a digital care solution that bundles peer support, education, and delivery of medical supplies to patient’s homes. Through her work, Naama aims to tackle gaps in the quality of care for people with chronic conditions. Naama received an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of business and an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from The Academic College of Tel Aviv.

Dr. Lyndsey Harper is an enthusiastic and passionate women's health advocate, a Board Certified Ob/Gyn, Associate Professor of Ob/Gyn for Texas A&M COM, a Fellow of The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health. Dr. Harper is the founder and CEO of Rosy, an award-winning women’s health technology company that connects women who have sexual health concerns with hope, community, and research-backed solutions. She has been named Forbes Top 53 Women Disrupting Healthcare, People Newspapers’ 20 Under 40, a Top Innovator in North Texas for 2020 and a DBJ Top Woman in Tech.

Priyanka Jain has always been passionate about leveraging data to improve outcomes for women. She is co-founder and CEO of Evvy, a company focusing on closing the gender health gap by discovering female-specific biomarkers, starting with the vaginal microbiome. Evvy has the metagenomic sequencing  vaginal health test and offers care based on the discoveries to diagnose, treat, and predict risk for complex health conditions in the female body. Prior to Evvy, Priyanka worked as Head of Product at Pymetrics, where she focused on building algorithms to make hiring more fair, efficient, and transparent. She is also a spokesperson for the United Nations Foundation’s Girl Up Campaign, Chair of the Acumen Fund’s Junior Council, and on the Innovation Board for the XPrize Foundation. She received her B.S. from Stanford University where she was a Mayfield Fellow and President of Stanford Women in Business.

Rachel Trobman is founder and CEO of Upside Health, a digital health company transforming the way chronic pain is assessed and treated through remote physiologic monitoring, therapeutic monitoring, and behavioral health integration. Prior to Upside, she worked in news production and content development, working for NY1, the New York Times and NBC News. During our conversation, Rachel details her path to founding Upside Health and what the pain management market looks like. Her advice to aspiring healthcare entrepreneurs: find a problem - not the solution - that you're obsessed with.

Dr. Hillit Meidar-Alfi is founder and CEO of Spatially Health, a tech start-up in spatial analytics and location-based services to analyze the relationship between communities and health care outcomes. The platform’s proprietary models leverage location intelligence and spatial analytics that go beyond ZIP codes and provide granular patient insights at the hyper-local level. Spatially helps identify and quantify SDOH risks at the individual level, guiding decision makers on where and how to allocate resources to maximize positive impact and promote equity. Hillit is a trained architect with experience working in housing, urban planning and design, and health care. She received a Master of City Planning and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and Bachelor of Architecture from Carnegie Mellon University.

Dr. Sheila Gujrathi is a physician-executive with a deep track record in translational science and drug development. She currently sits on the board for Ventyx Biosciences, IMMPACT Bio, ADARx Pharmaceuticals, and Janux Therapeutics and is prior Venture Advisor at OrbiMed and prior chair of Turning Point Therapeutics. She is co-founder and former CEO of Gossamer Bio, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, acquiring, developing and commercializing therapeutics in the disease areas of immunology, inflammation and oncology. Prior to Gossamer Bio, Dr. Gujrathi served as Chief Medical Officer of Receptos, which was acquired by Celgene in 2015. Prior to Receptos, Dr. Gujrathi was Vice President of the Global Clinical Development Group in Immunology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she led clinical development and supported numerous global regulatory filings and approvals for Orencia® and Nulojix®. Prior to Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dr. Gujrathi held roles in the immunology, tissue growth and repair clinical development groups at Genentech.

We are very excited to welcome Linda Kim to the podcast. She is a practicing Harvard-trained psychiatrist and therapist with extensive executive healthcare leadership experience. Linda is the co-founder and CEO at Moon Mental Health and Founder of LuvLuk. Moon Mental Health is a holistic experience of mental health care for women and their loved ones, by women, serving women throughout their lifespans. Dr. Kim graduated from the University of Chicago and received her Doctor of Medicine from Tufts University School of Medicine. She then completed her adult psychiatry residency at Harvard Medical School, and joined Kaiser Permanente serving thousands of patients and families. She became Chief of Psychiatry and then Regional Director and Chair of Chiefs of Mental Health and Chemical Dependency for the entire Northern California region, overseeing a population of over 4 million members. In 2020, she build her own group practice, Moon Mental health, focusing on Women’s mental health and additional coursework through the American Society of Reproductive Medicine.

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month and this week we are very excited to welcome Margaret Melville to the podcast. Margaret is a Board Certified Patient Advocate and Founder and CEO of Lasa Health, a digital health platform for patients with chronic conditions, starting with endometriosis. She previously worked for USAID's Global Health Center for Innovation and Impact and has a Masters in Business Administration from INSEAD. Margaret started this company because of her own journey with endometriosis and celiac disease. During this episode, we discuss endometriosis and how Lasa Health is using technology to support patients with complex chronic conditions.