Contacts

Lead Organizers

Co-Chair

Zeid Barakat

MBA 2008

Zeid Barakat is a 2nd year student at MIT Sloan School of Management, and a candidate of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation program. Prior to Sloan, he worked at Altus Pharmaceuticals, as an Associate Scientist and Head of Analytical Development. Here, he coordinated contract studies, interacted with the FDA, managed contract alliances, and coordinated a successful $50M financing round. Zeid studied biochemistry and completed the coursework for a Masters in Biotechnology (thesis underway).

Zeid has developed several business plans, including those of Aura Biosciences, an emerging nano-sized drug delivery company (Rice Business Plan Competition Finalist), and of Nucleon, a provider of nuclear pharmaceutical agents. Zeid interned at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Zeid enjoys chess, tennis, and losing to his fellow BioMedical Business Club co-presidents in squash.

Co-Chair

Brian Newkirk

MBA 2008 & SM 2009

Brian is in his second of three years in the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Enterprise Program, and will be completing his MBA at MIT Sloan this June while continuing with a Master's in Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard Medical School next year. Brian spent last summer working in Genzyme Oncology's Business Development group, and will intern this coming summer at McKinsey & Company in London. Prior to Sloan, Brian worked in politics and policy in Washington, D.C., most recently as an aide to U.S. Congressman Jim Cooper representing Nashville, Tennessee.

Aside from amateur political punditry, Brian enjoys hiking with friends, writing songs for acoustic guitar, cooking hearty New England cuisine, learning to play squash, and diagnosing himself with every rare disease discussed in his coursework.

CO-CHAIR

Adam Weinstein

MBA 2008 & SM 2009

Adam is a second year student enrolled in the Biomedical Enterprise Program, a joint MBA/MS at MIT Sloan School of Management and Harvard-MIT Division of Health, Sciences and Technology. Prior to MIT Sloan, he spent five years as a software engineer and architect for Cardinal Health. Adam spent last summer as a consulting intern with Health Advances, and will be spending this coming summer with athenaHealth. He graduated from Brandeis University in 2001 with a concentration Computer Science.

When not working on ways to annoy doctors with yet another EMR, Adam enjoys squash, guitar and the occasional sprint triathlon.

Panel Leads

Charity Akpala

MBA 2009

Dr. Charity Akpala is a first-year MBA student at MIT Sloan. Prior to Sloan, Charity worked in various roles as a consultant for the World Bank, Accenture and as a general physician for 4 years in Africa. Charity’s interest in healthcare began at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos where she completed her medical degree. She later earned an Masters in Public Health at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore where she co-authored and published a peer-reviewed paper for a US federal agency. She is currently a member of the MIT Sloan’s Biomedical Business Club.

Hadas Artzi

MBA & MS 2009

Hadas is a first year fellow in MIT Sloan’s Leaders for Manufacturing program, where she is pursuing a MBA and a Master of Science in Biological Engineering. Prior to Sloan, Hadas spent two years as a project engineer at Novetide Ltd. (subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceuticals), an Israeli biopharmaceutical company. In that role, Hadas helped to develop methods for scaling up the output of laboratory equipment, and took part in designing a state of the art manufacturing facility. Hadas also led team of five engineers towards improving the safety and output of large-scale manufacturing systems. Hadas holds a BSc in Biotechnology Engineering from the Ben-Gurion University in Israel.

Eric Cheung

MBA 2008

I have experience as an engineering consultant and Martial Arts and fitness instructor. I interned at the EMC Corporation performing market research for new market opportunities by industry and market need, and devised a new marketing strategy for developing software. In addition, this past summer, I worked with a medical devices start-up in China in procuring investment and refining operational logistics and market entry strategies. I hold a BE in Mechanical Engineering from The Cooper Union and am a member of the 2008 Sloan MBA class.

Tamara Conant

MBA & MS 2009

Tamara is a first year student in MIT Sloan’s Leaders for Manufacturing program, where she is pursuing a MBA and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering. Prior to Sloan, Tamara spent five years as an officer in the United States Navy, most recently as the Reactor Laboratories Division Officer on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. In that role, she supervised operations in a nuclear power plant and managed thirty technicians who performed water chemistry analyses, radiological health monitoring, and radiological waste tracking. Tamara holds Bachelor degrees in Electrical Engineering and French from Seattle University and a Master of Engineering Management from Old Dominion University. Transitioning into the biotechnology industry, she is excited for her upcoming internship at Novartis Biologics.

Atul Gupta

MBA 2009

 

Andrew Koert

MBA 2009

 

Heather Pichette

MBA 2009

Heather is a first-year MBA student at MIT Sloan and a co-president of the Biomedical Business Club. Prior to MIT Sloan, Heather spent 4 ½ years at Medtronic’s Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management Division as a Field Clinical Engineer managing pre-market clinical studies. Before starting at Medtronic, Heather worked as a biomedical engineer at General Electric’s Global Research Center. For her summer internship, she plans to work at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, working on operations projects. In 2001, she graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute with a BS in biomedical engineering.

Clayton Poppe

MBA 2009

 

Debbie Schapira

MBA 2009

 

Kristi Skorija

MBA 2009

Kristi acquired her bachelors of science in biology from Oakand University and is currently an MIT spring 2009 Sloan MBA candidate. After graduating from college, she worked for two years at Massachusetts General Hospital and for three at CVPath, a third party medical device evaluation service. At MGH she performed research on the vitamin D receptor under the guidance of a principal investigator. The majority of her time at CVPath was spend doing pathologic evaluation of stents and other cardiovascular medical devices for preclinical data collection and FDA approval.

Steve Yerid

MBA 2009

 

Hosts and Volunteers

Members of the MIT Sloan BioMedical Business Club

The MIT Sloan BioMedical Business Club is a student-run organization that promotes leadership and involvement in the life science industries comprised of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices and healthcare. We are a forum for ideas and actions linking students, scientists, and professionals from leading universities, businesses, and non-profit organizations.

Advisors

Ken Morse Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center

Jose Pacheco Program Manager , MIT Entrepreneurship Center