Kate Bechtel, PhD, is currently Senior Director, Advanced Sensing at Rockley Photonics where she leads next-generation product development. Prior to joining Rockley in mid 2021, she was Biophotonics Fellow at Triple Ring Technologies, an engineering services firm, where she worked since completing her postdoc in 2007 at MIT in the Spectroscopy Laboratory. Her PhD was in Chemistry, with optical instrumentation focus, at Stanford. Kate’s expertise is in developing biophotonic devices for the medical and wellness markets. She is application-focused and technology agnostic, addressing user needs with cutting-edge advances and algorithm development. She takes products from early phase concept ideation through prototype development, feasibility assessment, clinical studies, regulatory submissions, and transfer to manufacturing.

Yakir Levin, MD, PhD is a board-certified dermatologist and physician scientist at the Massachusetts General Hospital., where he practices laser, cosmetic, and medical dermatology. He completed his PhD in electrical engineering as well as his MD at Stanford University. After completion of his dermatology residency at Boston University, where he served as chief resident, he completed a two-year clinical and research fellowship in laser and cosmetic dermatology at MGH. He is currently instructor at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Dermatology faculty at MGH. Dr. Levin’s research endeavors to improve the quality of life of children with highly impactful birthmarks, and to use light to treat and prevent infectious disease. This has led to several publications as well as industry collaborations. He has been awarded 3 patents for technologies that have arisen from his work. His clinical subspecialty at MGH includes cosmetic treatment of adults at the Dermatology Laser and Cosmetic Center, as well as laser and device-based treatment of children with developmentally significant birthmarks. Dr. Levin is also co-chair of the Virtual Magic Wand program, a year-long course for physicians that teaches the process of innovation.

Dr. Gloria E. Hoefler is VP of Engineering Research at Pacific Biosciences and leads research efforts in photonic integration for DNA sensing. She holds Ph.D., M.S. and B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She worked at 3M, HP/Agilent Technologies, Corning and Infinera in roles spanning R&D to high-volume manufacturing of optoelectronic and photonic integrated circuits and devices. Gloria is a Fellow of Optica (formerly OSA) and SPIE and serves as Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Semiconductor Manufacturing. She co-authored over 80 peer-reviewed papers and holds several patents in the field of optoelectronics.

Werner is a professor of biophysics at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main. He has over 30 years of experience with spectroscopy. He is also an expert in analyzing and detecting molecules like glucose. Werner invented DiaMonTech’s technology and is one of the co-founders.

Adam Wax has been on the faculty of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University since 2002. In 2006, Dr. Wax founded Oncoscope, Inc. to commercialize early cancer detection technology developed in his laboratory and in 2014, founded Lumedica, Inc. to develop low cost OCT systems. He is a fellow of Optica, SPIE, and AIMBE and is inventor on 20 US patents. He currently serves as the Editor-in-chief of the SPIE journal, Optical Engineering. His research interests are in the use of light scattering and interferometry to probe the biophysical properties of cells for both diagnosis of disease and fundamental cell biology studies.

Joana Paiva (PhD) is the inventor of 6 patents, a scientist with over 30 publications, an Assistant Auxiliar Professor in Physics at the University of Porto, and a Photonics and Biomedical Engineer specialising in Biophysics, Artificial Intelligence, and Software. She is also the inventor and founder of the technology and of the startup iLoF - intelligent Lab on Fiber, Limited, having raised approximately 8 M Eur. She is an award-winning AI enthusiast and a regular lecturer and presenter at photonics conferences in the US and Europe. She is currently co-founder and Chief Data Officer at Halitus GmbH and was nominated as a 30 Under 30 personality in Europe in the Science & Healthcare category by Forbes, as a Future Leader by LLYC, finalist of the Woman Leadership & Entrepreneurship Award by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) in 2020, winner of the 2021 Women Entrepreneurship Award by Católica Lisbon School of Business & Economics, and shortlisted for “CTO of the Year” and “Entrepreneur of the Year” in the “Women in IT Awards, UK edition 2022”.

Sven Jungmann is a physician-turned-entrepreneur who dedicated most of his career to digital health innovation. He is currently co-founder and CEO of Halitus GmbH. Prior to that, he was one of four partners at FoundersLane, a venture builder, which recently got acquired. He advises European and US American pharmaceutical and MedTech companies as well as VC investors on healthcare innovation. And he has cofounded and leads an education gamification company for medical studies and sits on the advisory board of Wellster, a telemedicine company. Sven holds additional postgraduate degrees from the Universities of Oxford (Public Policy), Cambridge (Entrepreneurship), and London (Public Health). He was listed among Germany’s top 100 smartest innovators by Handelsblatt, a major German business magazine.