GirlTechTalk Podcast

Co-Founder and CEO of Qvin, Sara Naseri shares her journey from inventing a novel chemical compound to prevent skin cancer at age 17, attending medical school, to building her second startup. She reveals how her passion for women’s health and preventative care led her to scientifically prove that menstrual blood can be used as an accurate, non-invasive sample to screen for underdiagnosed diseases in women, including cervical cancer.

Since 2014, Sara has been developing a menstrual pad (called the Q-pad) that can collect blood to monitor existing health issues, screen for other diseases, and close the gender data gap in healthcare. However, Sara’s entrepreneurship journey began at the young age of 17, when she developed a chemical compound that provides protection against 99.99% of all UV radiation for skin cancer prevention. Currently, she is also a Visiting Scholar Scientist at Stanford University School of Medicine.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

Co-Founder and CEO of Pando Bioscience, Will Cao shares her journey from switching majors from mechanical engineering to bioengineering during her Ph.D., working in the industry, to building her startup. She reveals insights into her daily life as an entrepreneur/scientist and what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur in the growing biotech ecosystem.

At Pando Bioscience, Will is building a synthetic biology platform that expands the understanding of human diseases with a multi-dimensional platform combining high-throughput protein-protein interaction detection and AI-powered analysis to uncover a patients’ genotype-phenotype relationship and discover protein-protein interaction targeting drugs. She earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. Previously, she served as a Senior Design Engineer at Ginko Bioworks.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

Healthcare Innovation Leader and Head of Roche Molecular Labs, Cindy Perettie, reveals her journey from being a scientist studying Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors unaware of how her discoveries would reach patients to a leader who has brought several impactful healthcare products from a hypothesis to a commercialized product. She shares insights into products that have been successful as well as products that have been unsuccessful due to technical barriers. Listen if you are interested in learning the key steps when developing a novel healthcare product.

As the Head of Roche Molecular Labs, Cindy leads a team focused on developing products for various diagnostic needs, including infectious disease, genomic sequencing, and blood screening. Previously, she served as the Senior Vice President of Global Oncology Product Strategy at Roche Oncology, where she led one of the largest global oncology portfolios in the industry. She was the CEO of Foundation Medicine, a company using genomic profiling to inform personalized cancer care for each patient, and now serves as the Chairman of the Board.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

Visionary Leader and Chief Scientific Officer of Genome Canada, Catalina Lopez-Correa shares the tangible impact of genomics research on global problems including COVID-19 and climate change. She also reveals her journey as an immigrant woman in science, shares her advice for aspiring scientists, and discusses the interdisciplinary opportunities for young innovators to get involved with genomics.

Catalina’s career in research and innovation extends 20 years in seven different countries with experience in many biotech, pharmaceutical, and non-profit organizations. Her work at Genome Canada consists of advancing the use and application of genomics in various sectors to solve some of the largest global challenges. She is also a public speaker and advocate for diversity and inclusion in genomics and science.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

Space Advocate and Chief Operating Officer of Space Foundation, Shelli Brunswick shares how the exponentially growing space industry is benefiting our everyday lives. In this episode, she reveals how space development is addressing the United Nations SDGs, how space technology and exploration is tackling climate change, and how you can develop your career in the space economy.

Shelli started her career in the space economy as a space acquisition and program management leader and congressional liaison for the U.S. Air Force. Now, she is the Chief Operating Officer of Space Foundation, a mentor for the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs Space4Women Network, and a mentor for the Global Policy, Diplomacy, and Sustainability Fellowship program. Shelli is an advocate for space technology innovation and entrepreneurship and a role model for women in space. She was selected for the 2021 Global Technology Leadership Award and 2020 Diversity and Inclusion Officer and Role Model of the Year Award by WomenTech Network.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

A Professional Mad Scientist, Entrepreneur, and Theoretical Neuroscientist, Dr. Vivienne Ming invests her money and time into solving complex problems with radical solutions. In this episode, Vivienne reveals the importance of solving and telling the meaningful stories of science, the neuroscience behind trust and bias, and the potential for neuroprosthetics to maximize humanity's collective intelligence.

Vivienne received her Ph.D. in Psychology and Theoretical Neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University. Throughout her career, she has founded six startups and been chief scientist at two others. Currently, she is the Founder and Executive Chair of Socos Labs, an incubator that brings new, meaningful ideas to solve world problems. She works on a multitude of side projects, including designing AI systems to treat her son’s diabetes, predicting manic episodes in bipolar sufferers, and reuniting orphan refugees with extended family members, while being a mother of two kids. She was recognized as one of “10 Women to Watch in Tech” by Inc. Magazine and one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2017.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

Named by SME as one of 20 women globally making their mark in robotics and automation in 2021, Dr. Sue Keay goes in-depth on how scaling robots can be the key to solving the world's biggest problems like coral bleaching and biodiversity loss. Dr. Sue Keay shares insightful knowledge of the potential of robotics vision, biorobotics, and evolutionary robotics. 

Sue studied Earth Sciences at the Australian National University where she received her Ph.D. in isotope geochemistry. She was the research director of cyber-physical systems with CSIRO’s Data 61, where her work focused on bringing together the digital and physical worlds through research in micro-sensing, signal processing, communication systems, distributed sensor systems, robotics, networks, and smart vision. She led the development of Australia's first robotics roadmap, highlighting how advances in robotics will impact every sector of the Australian economy. She serves on the advisory board of Women in Robotics, the Australian Space Agency, and Women in AI. Now, Sue is the Robotics Technology Lead at OZ Minerals and an Adjunct Professor at the Queensland University of Technology.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.

After developing a passion for epidemiology at a young age, Nita Madhav started research into various epidemics, including HIV, AIDS, and food-borne diseases. Nita has decades of experience in infectious disease modelling, data science, and epidemiological preparedness research. One of her various research projects include co-authoring a chapter for epidemic preparedness for the World Bank.

Nita received her bachelor’s of Science in ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale University and Masters of Science in Public Health in epidemiology at Emory University.

Before joining Metabiota, Nita spent 10 years at AIR Worldwide as the Principle Scientist conducting life and health risk research. Currently, Nita is the CEO of Metabiota, a company that leverages big data and AI to make the world more resilient to epidemics.

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GirlTechTalk is hosted by Sophia Tang and produced by GirlTechBoss, a 501(c)3 non-profit with the mission to create opportunities for young female and non-binary identifying individuals to learn, grow, and discover their passion for STEM and entrepreneurship through makeathons, workshops, conferences, and more. Learn about our initiatives at: girltechboss.com.