Fellows
Susan Anderson, President and CEO of Cannonball Capital Inc.
Susan Anderson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Cannonball Capital Inc., which is an active institutional investor in venture companies, private and public equities, and commercial real estate. After practicing corporate and commercial law for ten years, she and a cofounder started DirectCash Payments Inc., a publicly traded financial services company in 1997. DirectCash Payments grew organically and through acquisitions to be the second largest ATM company in the world until its sale to Cardtronics in January 2017 for over $600M. Susan cofounded DC Bank, a Schedule 1 chartered financial institution and is the Chair of the Board. She is on the President’s Council at the University of Alberta and is a director of Revalesio Corporation. In 2010, she received an alumni honour award from the University of Alberta. She was also honoured as one of the “most powerful women” in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network in 2010. The recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Prairies Region) award in 2005, Susan graduated with distinction with a commerce degree from the University of Calgary in 1984 and in 1988 obtained a law degree from the University of Alberta.
Francois Nader, Chairman of Acceleron Pharma, President & CEO of NPS Pharma
Francois Nader, MD, is currently the chairman of Acceleron Pharma and a leading value builder in the biopharma industry. He was President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of NPS Pharma from 2008 to 2015, when the company was acquired by Shire for $5.2B. During his tenure as CEO Dr. Nader transformed NPS Pharma into a leading global biotechnology company focused on delivering innovative therapies to patients with rare diseases. He was recognized as the Ernst and Young National Life Science Entrepreneur of the Year® in 2013. Dr. Nader currently serves as chairman of the board of directors of Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ: XLRN) and board director of Advanced Accelerator Applications (NASDAQ: AAAP), Clementia Pharmaceuticals and ArRETT Neurosciences.
Sashi Reddi, Founder of AppLabs, FXLabs Studios, and EZPower Systems
Sashi Reddi is a successful technology entrepreneur, business leader, and an active angel investor. Sashi runs a seed stage venture fund, SRI Capital, which is typically the first institutional investor in various technology and media start-ups. SRI currently has over 20 investments, spread evenly between India and the US. He is also a member of the investment team at Gabriel Investments.
Previously, Sashi was the founder and CEO of AppLabs, the world’s largest independent software testing company. CSC acquired AppLabs in September 2011. A serial entrepreneur, Sashi has started three other companies prior to AppLabs. These were EZPower Systems (web content management pioneer acquired by DocuCorp, and eventually a part of Oracle), iCoop (group purchasing dotcom), and FXLabs (leading Indian game developer acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment).
Sashi is the founding president of TiE Philadelphia. He also serves on the advisory board of Wharton Entrepreneurship, as well as on the board of T-Hub, India’s largest incubator for start-ups. Sashi was appointed by the US State Department to the board of US India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) that grants money to social impact startups. Sashi runs a charitable organization, SRI Trust, that supports the educational and overall development needs of 650 children in 3 schools in Hyderabad, India. He received his BTech in Computer Science from the IIT Delhi, an MS in Computer Science from NYU, and later a PhD from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
David Tisch, Managing Partner BoxGroup and Co-Founder Spring
David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, an NYC-based angel capital firm that has invested in over 200 seed-stage startups, including Flatiron Health, Blue Apron, Stripe, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Flexport, Classpass, Vine, Handy and more. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Spring, a mobile app enabling the world’s best brands to sell directly to consumers. David is Head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech, where he teaches two graduate classes. He is the co-founder of TechStars NYC and serves on the board of New York Public Radio and Hudson River Park, and previously Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology.
Susan Anderson is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Cannonball Capital Inc., which is an active institutional investor in venture companies, private and public equities, and commercial real estate. After practicing corporate and commercial law for ten years, she and a cofounder started DirectCash Payments Inc., a publicly traded financial services company in 1997. DirectCash Payments grew organically and through acquisitions to be the second largest ATM company in the world until its sale to Cardtronics in January 2017 for over $600M. Susan cofounded DC Bank, a Schedule 1 chartered financial institution and is the Chair of the Board. She is on the President’s Council at the University of Alberta and is a director of Revalesio Corporation. In 2010, she received an alumni honour award from the University of Alberta. She was also honoured as one of the “most powerful women” in Canada by the Women’s Executive Network in 2010. The recipient of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (Prairies Region) award in 2005, Susan graduated with distinction with a commerce degree from the University of Calgary in 1984 and in 1988 obtained a law degree from the University of Alberta.
Francois Nader, MD, is currently the chairman of Acceleron Pharma and a leading value builder in the biopharma industry. He was President, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director of NPS Pharma from 2008 to 2015, when the company was acquired by Shire for $5.2B. During his tenure as CEO Dr. Nader transformed NPS Pharma into a leading global biotechnology company focused on delivering innovative therapies to patients with rare diseases. He was recognized as the Ernst and Young National Life Science Entrepreneur of the Year® in 2013. Dr. Nader currently serves as chairman of the board of directors of Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ: XLRN) and board director of Advanced Accelerator Applications (NASDAQ: AAAP), Clementia Pharmaceuticals and ArRETT Neurosciences.
Sashi Reddi is a successful technology entrepreneur, business leader, and an active angel investor. Sashi runs a seed stage venture fund, SRI Capital, which is typically the first institutional investor in various technology and media start-ups. SRI currently has over 20 investments, spread evenly between India and the US. He is also a member of the investment team at Gabriel Investments.
Previously, Sashi was the founder and CEO of AppLabs, the world’s largest independent software testing company. CSC acquired AppLabs in September 2011. A serial entrepreneur, Sashi has started three other companies prior to AppLabs. These were EZPower Systems (web content management pioneer acquired by DocuCorp, and eventually a part of Oracle), iCoop (group purchasing dotcom), and FXLabs (leading Indian game developer acquired by Foundation 9 Entertainment).
Sashi is the founding president of TiE Philadelphia. He also serves on the advisory board of Wharton Entrepreneurship, as well as on the board of T-Hub, India’s largest incubator for start-ups. Sashi was appointed by the US State Department to the board of US India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) that grants money to social impact startups. Sashi runs a charitable organization, SRI Trust, that supports the educational and overall development needs of 650 children in 3 schools in Hyderabad, India. He received his BTech in Computer Science from the IIT Delhi, an MS in Computer Science from NYU, and later a PhD from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, an NYC-based angel capital firm that has invested in over 200 seed-stage startups, including Flatiron Health, Blue Apron, Stripe, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Flexport, Classpass, Vine, Handy and more. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Spring, a mobile app enabling the world’s best brands to sell directly to consumers. David is Head of Startup Studio at Cornell Tech, where he teaches two graduate classes. He is the co-founder of TechStars NYC and serves on the board of New York Public Radio and Hudson River Park, and previously Mayor Bloomberg’s Advisory Council on Technology.
Associates
Kathleen DeRose joined New York University Stern School of Business as a Clinical Associate Professor of Finance in September 2017, after having been an Executive-in-Residence and visiting professor at the School since 2016. Professor DeRose serves on the board of Evolute AG, a Swiss wealth technology company. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA). Her primary areas of interest include FinTech, entrepreneurial finance, asset and wealth management, portfolio management, lotteries in financial decision-making and as public goods funding mechanisms, and China’s political economy. She leads several FinTech initiatives at Stern and is a long-term FinTech angel investor. Before joining NYU Stern, Professor DeRose was Global Head of Investment Process and subsequently Head of Strategy and Solutions at Credit Suisse, a founding partner and head of Portfolio Management and Research at a New York hedge fund, a Managing Director and head of large capitalization portfolio management at Bessemer Trust and a Managing Director and portfolio manager at Deutsche Bank (successor to Zurich Insurance and Scudder Stevens and Clark).
Kanu Gulati, Principal, Khosla Ventures
Kanu Gulati is a principal at Khosla Ventures, leading the firm’s investments in data, ML/AI, computer vision, and robotic applications. She has over 10 years of operating experience as an engineer, scientist, and strategist. She owned Intel’s multicore algorithms research roadmap and developed advanced parallel CAD solutions. She was employee #2 at MapD (hardware-accelerated data visualization) and has held core engineering roles at Nascentric (fast-circuit simulation tool, acquired by Cadence) and Atrenta (predictive analytics for design verification, acquired by Synopsys), among other startups. As an early-stage investor, Kanu has led deals in high-performance computing (HPC), distributed systems, and ML-enabled systems at Intel Capital and Zetta Venture Partners and developed the latter’s thesis on industrial analytics, security/encryption, probabilistic and approximate computing, and hardware acceleration.
Kanu has coauthored three books, a book chapter, 35+ peer-reviewed publications with 450+ citations, and one US patent on HPC and hardware acceleration. She has PhD and master’s degrees from Texas A&M University and an undergraduate degree from Delhi College of Engineering, all in computer engineering. She completed her MBA at Harvard Business School.
Karin Klein, Founding Partner at Bloomberg Beta
Karin Klein leads East Coast investing activities for Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage VC that invests in startups making work better, with a focus on machine intelligence. Karin serves on the board of directors for Paramount Group (NYSE: PGRE), Harvey Mudd College, and L’Oreal’s Women in Digital. Prior to launching Bloomberg Beta, she led new initiatives at Bloomberg and oversaw Softbank’s venture team that reviewed new investments. She also was the cofounder and president of an educational training business for children and currently enjoys volunteering as a mentor with TechStars and the New York City Economic Development Corporation. She has been recognized by the Techweek100, Silicon Alley 100, Crain’s Women to Watch in New York Tech, and New York Business Journal’s “Women of Influence.” Karin has an MBA from The Wharton School and is a summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the Annenberg School of Communications and The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Scientists
Luis Cabral, Chief EconomistA native of Portugal, Luís Cabral is a graduate of Stanford University (PhD, Economics, 1989.) He taught at the London Business School, Berkeley, Yale, NYU and IESE. He is currently the Paganelli-Bull Professor of Economics and International Business, as well as Chair of the Economics Department, both at NYU's Stern School of Business.
Cabral's research is focused on the dynamics of firm competition, both from the antitrust and from the strategy perspectives. His research topics include networks and network effects; corporate reputation; and a focus on media and entertainment industries. In addition to numerous journal articles, he is the author of Introduction to Industrial Organization, a textbook translated and adopted by universities in dozens of countries worldwide. He consulted with a variety of organizations (firms, universities, governments, tax and law enforcement agencies, even sports teams) on a variety of economics issues. He was a leading expert witness in the Airbus-Boeing WTO disputes. From 2004-2009, he was a member of European Commission President Barroso's Group of Economic Policy Analysis.
Dr. Paul M. Horn is the Senior Vice Provost for Research and Senior Vice Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship at the Tandon School of Engineering. Prior to his NYU position, he was Senior Vice President of the IBM Corporation and Executive Director of Research. Under his leadership, IBM Research produced an unmatched string of technological breakthroughs, including the chess-playing supercomputer Deep Blue, the world's first copper chip, the giant magneto-resistive head (GMR), strained silicon (a discovery that allows chips to run up to 35 percent faster), and BlueGene, the world’s fastest supercomputer that brought computing leadership back to the United States. Since 2016, Dr. Horn serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Bud Mishra, Chief Scientist
Professor Bud Mishra is an educator, an inventor as well as a mentor to technologists, entrepreneurs and scientists. Prof. Mishra founded the NYU/Courant Bioinformatics Group, a multidisciplinary group working on research at the interface of computer science, applied mathematics, biology, biomedicine and bio/nano-technologies as well as Tandon-Online program on Bioinformatics Engineering. He has industrial experience in Computer and Data Science (aiNexusLab, ATTAP, behold.ai, brainiad, Genesis Media, Pypestream, and Tartan Laboratories), Finance (Instadat, Pattern Recognition Fund and Tudor Investment), Robotics and Bio- and Nanotechnologies (Abraxis, Bioarrays, InSilico, MRTech, OpGen and Seqster).
Prof. Mishra’s pioneering work includes: first application of model checking to hardware verification; first robotics technologies for grasping, reactive grippers and work holding; first single molecule genotype/haplotype mapping technology (Optical Mapping); first analysis of copy number variants with a segmentation algorithm, first whole-genome haplotype assembly technology (SUTTA), first clinical-genomic variant/base calling technology (TotalRecaller), first single molecule single cell nanomapping technology, etc.
He is currently a professor of computer science and mathematics at NYU’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, professor of engineering at NYUs Tandon School of engineering, professor of human genetics at MSSM Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, visiting scholar in quantitative biology at CSHL Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and a professor of cell biology at NYU SoM School of Medicine. Prof. Mishra has a degree in Science from Utkal University, in Electronics and Communication Engineering from IIT, Kharagpur, and MS and PhD degrees in Computer Science from CarnegieMellon University. He is a fellow of IEEE, ACM and AAAS, a fellow of National Academy of Inventors (NAI), a Distinguished Alumnus of IIT (Kharagpur), and a NYSTAR Distinguished Professor
Ken Perlin, Chief Scientist
Ken Perlin, a professor in the Department of Computer Science at New York University, directs the NYU Games for Learning Institute, and a participating faculty member in the NYU Media and Games Network (MAGNET). He was also founding director of the Media Research Laboratory and director of the NYU Center for Advanced Technology. His research interests include graphics, animation, augmented and mixed reality, user interfaces, science education and multimedia. He received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his noise and turbulence procedural texturing techniques, also called Perlin noise, which are widely used in feature films and television, as well as the 2008 ACM/SIGGRAPH Computer Graphics Achievement Award, the TrapCode award for achievement in computer graphics research, the NYC Mayor's award for excellence in Science and Technology and the Sokol award for outstanding Science faculty at NYU, and a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation. He is a serial entrepreneur, helping create multitouch- and VR-focused ventures like TouchCo, Holojam, and Tactonic Technologies.
Preeti Raghavan, Lab Scientist
Dr. Raghavan is the Vice Chair for Research and an Associate Professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. She is also Director of the Division of Motor Recovery Research. In her clinical practice, she treats patients recovering from stroke and traumatic brain injuries, as well as people with neurological conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and brachial plexus injuries. She has launched a startup called Mirrored Motion Works that helps stroke patients regain functionality of limbs damaged by the stroke.
Robert Schneider, Chief Scientist
Dr. Robert Schneider is the Albert B. Sabin Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Pathogenesis at NYU School of Medicine, an Associate Director of the NYU Cancer Institute, Director of Translational Cancer Research, and Co-director of the Breast Cancer Research Program at NYU School of Medicine. His team’s research is focused on advanced breast cancer genetics, gene regulation by ionizing radiation, and the regulation of the inflammatory response in cytokine mRNAs connected to cancer development and progression. He is also the Associate Dean of Biomedical Innovation and Commercialization, leading several science-and-tech-focused efforts such as BioLabs@NYULangone, a large-scale biotech “incubator” designed to house up to 35 startups working to turn laboratory discoveries into profitable businesses. He has also helped start five biopharmaceutical companies that have advanced projects from target validation to clinical testing.