Forty Cornell MBA students and graduate business students, together with PhD candidates and postdoctoral fellows from across Cornell University and its Tri-Institutional partners, have joined the fifth cohort of Cornell’s Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows program, an interdisciplinary entrepreneurship and translation program offered by the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business.
The Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows program helps to prepare the next wave of startup leaders to launch, scale, and operate life science ventures within New York state. The program provides students with the entrepreneurial mindset, training, and judgment to aid them in developing and leading new life-science ventures.
The program’s unique structure pairs graduate business students with doctoral researchers across Cornell’s campuses, inclusive of Cornell’s Tri-Institutional partners, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and The Rockefeller University, to collaborate on real-world startup design and derisking.
“This is our largest cohort ever, and it reflects a growing interest in the role of commercialization and entrepreneurship in delivering the benefits of academic research to patients, families, clinicians, consumers, and the public that funds so much of this research. These fellows are sharpening the skills to lead that translation from discovery to impact”, said LSTIF program director Gregory Ray, PhD ’14.
Throughout the academic year, business and research participants will be matched to form teams and participate in workshops covering various topics designed to lay a foundation for startup creation. They will also complete the Life Science Entrepreneurship in Practice course as part of the program.
“I hope to gain the entrepreneurial judgment to translate healthcare problems into viable, scalable solutions, and also learn from my peers the cross-disciplinary perspective to do it well” says Yewon Kee, MHA ‘27. “Working alongside others of different backgrounds will push me to think more about scientific and clinical validity, while the business formation framework will sharpen how I evaluate opportunity and early-stage ideas. I hope to bridge clinical insight and market knowledge, a skill I believe is essential for anyone who wants to build in health innovation.”
Savita Sastry, PhD candidate in Molecular Nutrition, says “through the Life Sciences Technology Innovation Program, I hope to build a community of mentors and peers who think about translating scientific discoveries in a different way than me. While my research has given me a strong scientific foundation, I want to gain practical tools in entrepreneurship, product development, and commercialization that will help me turn ideas into something that I can touch and not just envision. I am looking forward to learning from people who have successfully navigated this path and learning how to be resilient through the process. Most importantly, I hope the program will help me see entrepreneurship not as something reserved for others, but as a path that I can confidently pursue myself.”
Meet the Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows
Meet the professional students who are 2026-27 Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows:
- Jason Arisa, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Priscilla Baez, EMBA/MS Healthcare Leadership ‘27 (Weill Cornell Medicine)
- Jonathon Bellows, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Ying Xin Cheh, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Nader Daoud, EMBA/MS Healthcare Leadership ‘27 (Johnson School, Weill Cornell Medicine)
- Charles Doebbler, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- James Andrew Duty, EMBA/MS Healthcare Leadership ‘27 (Weill Cornell Medicine)
- Rhea Iyer, EMBA/MS Healthcare Leadership ‘27 (Weill Cornell Medicine)
- Shruti Kaul, EMBA/MS Healthcare Leadership ‘27 (Weill Cornell Medicine)
- Yewon Kee, MHA ‘27 (College of Human Ecology)
- Thomas Keller, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Naima Kim, EMBA/MS Healthcare Leadership ‘27 (Weill Cornell Medicine)
- Luca Medeiros Mosena, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Leah Nakaima, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Taesu Park, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Sarinda Rangseesorranan, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Michael Seskin, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
- Cherry Than, MBA ‘27 (Johnson School, SC Johnson College)
Meet the researchers who make up the 2026-27 Life Sciences Innovation Fellows cohort:
- Sai Pratyush Akula, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering (Cornell Duffield Engineering)
- Adewale Babatunde, PhD candidate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (Cornell Duffield Engineering)
- Jacob Belding, Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemical Engineering (Cornell Duffield Engineering)
- Yiting Cao, PhD candidate in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Yuanhuang Chen, PhD candidate in Chemical Biology, Signal Transduction, and Melanocyte Biology (The Rockefeller University)
- Nicole DelGaudio, PhD candidate in Cancer Metabolism/Mitochondrial Metabolism (The Rockefeller University)
- Mauricio Guerra, PhD candidate in Food Science (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Dayun Hwang, PhD candidate in Chemistry and Chemical Biology (College of Arts and Sciences)
- Isaac Lamptey, PhD candidate in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology (College of Arts and Sciences)
- Joseph Lee, PhD candidate in Biological and Environmental Engineering (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Ruoxin Li, Postdoctoral Fellow in Biomedical Engineering (Cornell Duffield Engineering)
- Yang Liu, PhD candidate in Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Olufolake Majekodunmi, PhD candidate in Pharmacology, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences (Weill Cornell)
- John Nguyen, PhD candidate in Computational Biology (Weill Cornell)
- Quang Pham, PhD candidate in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences)
- Chloe Purello, PhD candidate in Molecular Nutrition (College of Human Ecology)
- Shiseido Robinson, PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering (Cornell Duffield Engineering)
- Savita Sastry, PhD candidate in Molecular Nutrition (College of Human Ecology)
- Joshua Wong, PhD candidate in Chemistry and Chemical Biology (College of Arts and Sciences)
- Raquelle Yu, PhD candidate in The David Rockefeller Graduate Program in Bioscience (The Rockefeller University)
- Jordan Zehr, Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioinformatics, Molecular Evolution, and Antimicrobial Resistance (Cornell University)
- Skye Zhao, PhD candidate in Molecular Pharmacology (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center)
Managed by the Center for Regional Economic Advancement, the Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows program is primarily funded by the SC Johnson College and the Johnson School.
Life Sciences Technology Innovation Fellows will earn a certificate from the Johnson School upon successfully completing the program, which generally takes two to three semesters. Applications for next year’s cohort will open in November on the Life Sciences Innovation Fellows program webpage.
