2023 Women’s Entrepreneurship Symposium, part three: Technology and funding

Andrea Armani is currently the Ray Irani Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Southern California. She previously held administrative positions in the Viterbi School of Engineering, including Vice Dean of New Initiatives and director of the nanofabrication facility. Her research focuses on the development of new optical materials for integrated photonics, with applications in quantum communications and healthcare.

Dr. Armani received her bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Chicago and her Ph.D. in applied physics, with a minor in biology, from the California Institute of Technology. She has received several awards, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In addition, her dedication to mentoring the next generation of scientists and engineers has been recognized with the USC Mellon Mentoring Award and the Hanna Reisler Award for Mentoring. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Cristine Gollayan is a Senior Manager for Sony's Global Information Security Department. She is also the current Chair for STEM For Her, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing girls in middle and high school to the STEM field and ensure they have successful careers in this arena. As the immediate past President for Women in Technology, Cristine has dedicated her efforts to empowering her peers and women in the community while forging a path for the next generation of female leaders. 

Ms. Joann J. Hill is presently serving as the Chief of the Office of Business Development for the United States Department of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA). She has served at MBDA for two decades. As federal program officer, she leads the nationwide network of 75 MBDA Business Centers and a host of programs and initiatives, including export centers, advanced manufacturing centers, federal procurement centers, the Enterprising Women of Color initiative, the Equity Multiplier, Entrepreneurship for the Formerly Incarcerated, Minority Serving Colleges and Universities, and American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian programs. She is responsible for strategies, programs, and initiatives that support the growth and global competitiveness of women and minority-owned businesses in the areas of contracts, financing, and domestic and global supply chains. These programs resulted in $8 billion in awarded transactions for MBDA clients in fiscal year 2020.

Additionally, Ms. Hill has served as Acting National Field Director for the U.S. Commercial Service (CS), the trade promotion arm of the U.S. Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration (ITA). In this role, she had oversight of 106 U.S. Export Assistance Centers (USEAC). She provided strategic direction and communication of strategy and priorities to all staff in the U.S. field.

Ms. Hill also served as Senior Policy Advisor on the ITA Federal and State Export Promotion Strategic Plan, and she has worked with the ITA Trade Promotion Coordinating Committee, SelectUSA, and CS field and headquarters staff on various export promotion and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) initiatives over the past two decades.

Prior to joining MBDA, Ms. Hill worked in the areas of operations management, banking, and finance.

Ms. Hill holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Benedict College; a Master of Business Administration degree from Emory University, Goizueta Business School; and is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government Senior Executive Fellows Program.

Dr. Lizy Kurian John holds the Truchard Foundation Chair in Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at The University of Texas (UT) at Austin. Her research is in the areas of computer architecture, multicore processors, memory systems, performance evaluation and benchmarking, workload characterization, and reconfigurable computing. Professor John's research has been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Semiconductor Research Consortium (SRC), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Lockheed Martin, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Arm, Oracle, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Freescale, Dell, Samsung, Texas Instruments, etc. She is a recipient of the NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award; UT Austin Engineering Foundation Faculty Award; Halliburton, Brown and Root Engineering Foundation Young Faculty Award; University of Texas Alumni Association Teaching Award; and The Pennsylvania State University Outstanding Engineering Alumnus Award.  

Lizy John holds 15 U. S. patents and has published four books, 16 book chapters, 300+ refereed journal and conference publications, and more than 50 workshop papers. Professor John is the Editor-in-Chief of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Micro, and has served in the editorial boards of IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Transactions on VLSI,  IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing, IEEE Computer Architecture Letters, and the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Transactions on Architectures and Code Optimization. She is an IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, and Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).

Lynne Laube is an Operating Partner with Valor Venture Capital. Previously, Mrs. Laube was the chief executive officer and co-founder of Cardlytics, a business recognized as one of the country’s fastest growing technology companies by Deloitte Fast 500 and Inc. 5000.

In February 2018, Lynne took Cardlytics public on the Nasdaq, making Cardlytics the first tech IPO of the year. From 2008 through 2017, Lynne secured more than $200 million in capital from leading investors and scaled the company to become the dominant global leader in purchase history-based analytics. In 2016, Lynne was named one of the top 10 venture-backed female founders by Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur 360. In 2012 and 2013, Lynne was a finalist for E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Lynne has tremendous passion around helping women excel in the workplace and has led a number of development and mentoring initiatives. At Cardlytics, she launched Women of Cardlytics, a program that provides education and mentorship to help women grow their careers. 

Before founding Cardlytics, Lynne held multiple executive positions with Capital One from 1994 until 2008. Lynne began her career at Bank One. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for NerdWallet and Endeavor, a global organization of, by, and for entrepreneurs.

Lynne holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and marketing from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Business and is a graduate of Darden’s Executive Leadership program from the University of Virginia.

Dr. Silvia Mah is General Partner at Stella Impact Capital, a seed-stage venture fund that invests in diverse women founders with deep tech solutions. She is also a founding partner of Ad Astra Ventures, which aims to “get to even” for high achieving women leaders, investors, and founders. Focused on “impact with integrity”, Dr. Mah is the founder and Chairwoman of Stella Labs, an accelerator for women-owned businesses; founding member of Stella Angels, a female angel investment group; President of Stella Foundation, a national conSTELLAtion of organizations and leaders walking alongside womxn-led businesses from startup to sale and the funders who champion them; Investment Committee member of Next Wave Impact, a social impact venture fund; and an angel investor to over 130+ startups who have diverse founders on their leadership teams. Dr. Mah’s own success includes producing a globally-recognized podcast, She Invests!, which highlights the investment journeys of female angel investors and venture capitalists. She is also the inaugural Fund Manager for the San Diego Angel Conference Fund I (2019), and co-fund manager for Funds II (2020), III (2021), IV (2022),and V (2023). This angel fund works to activate regional and global capital from aspiring and existing angel investors. Dr. Mah is the current Director of Innovation at Biola University, where she also is an adjunct faculty member in the Crowell School of Business. 

Belinda Pastrana, Ph.D., has more than 35 years of experience in molecular biophysics and biochemistry, with a comprehensive understanding of protein development and characterization. Currently, she is the Chief Scientific/Technology Officer and founder of Protein Dynamic Solutions, Inc. (PDS), located in the Boston area. PDS is focused on the development and commercialization of ProteinMentor, a breakthrough platform technology that delivers an unprecedented level of understanding of Critical Quality Attributes (CQAs) to assist in pre-clinical candidate selection and enhanced speed to market, with the potential of cost reductions in manufacturing operations, while ensuring safety and efficacy of drug products for patients worldwide.

Dr. Pastrana is an I-Corps graduate and has been awarded the highly competitive National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) phase I to phase IIB series of non-dilutive funding. She holds a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Rutgers University and post-doctorate in molecular biology and pharmacology from Mayo Clinic and Foundation. Dr. Pastrana is also a tenured faculty member and inventor from the University of Puerto Rico Mayagüez campus with more than 60 peer-reviewed publications, multiple patents, and a resolved protein structure.

Dr. Pastrana has numerous awards, including the Henry Dreyfus Teacher Scholar and the Distinguished Women in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering in Puerto Rico. She has been invited to give more than 70 national and international lectures and has presented at 187 conferences. 

Sean Wilkerson works in the Office of Innovation Outreach at the USPTO creating intellectual property (IP) awareness programs and managing outreach services to independent inventors, small businesses, entrepreneurs, makers, and universities. Wilkerson previously worked as an outreach coordinator for the programs leading up to the opening of the USPTO’s Silicon Valley and Texas Regional Offices. He also spent a year as part of the New York engagement team that developed the 2015 Future of Urban Innovation Startups Summit in coordination with Columbia University and the USPTO.

From 2011–2013, he served as the program manager of the inaugural Select USA Summit, developing the program, structure, and outreach efforts of a U.S. government-wide program housed in the International Trade Administration of the U.S. Department of Commerce. As an education program analyst in the Global Intellectual Property Academy from 2008–2011, he managed international programs focused on providing IP training related to enforcement of patents, trademarks, and copyrights and the U.S. patent and trademark system. Prior to working for the federal government, he served as the Director of Events for the National Association of Homebuilders in Washington, D.C. and as the Ideas Exchange Manager for Accenture in Reston, Virginia.

Cindy Worthington is at the forefront of changing the landscape for women investors, board directors, and executive leaders. She is the strategist who connects leadership with action, seen today in her work with the How Women Lead family of organizations. She serves as Co-Chair for the How Women Lead Silicon Valley Executive Board, a non-profit at the center of the movement to disrupt antiquated, unequal systems by propelling women into even greater leadership roles. She is transforming the go-to market strategies and customer journey for the 17,000 women who are part of this effort. She also serves as an Investor Relations Advisor for How Women Invest, a for-profit venture capital firm born out of a movement to disrupt the landscape for women investors and founders.

Prior to her current roles, Cindy worked at Wells Fargo Bank for over ten years, where she consistently ranked as a top sales performer to corporate customers. She spent her first career in senior leadership roles in top Silicon Valley technology firms, including NetApp Inc., which she helped grow the company from $400 Million to $1.5 Billion. Originally from the Bay Area, Cindy believes in balancing career and family, and that you will always be relevant as long as you’re still learning and focused on giving back.