April 3, 2025
5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
MIT: Koch Institute Luria Auditorium & Galleries
Launching your own path as a ChemE
Members of our ChemE community share how their training equipped them for diverse careers as leaders at startups in biotech and climate tech.
Moderated by Bhargavi Chevva Class of 2009, SB, 10B.
Schedule:
- 5:00 PM–6:00 PM Alumni panel on entrepreneurship
- 6:00 PM–7:00 PM All community networking reception
Panelists:
- Sophie Bai Founder and CEO at A.I. Biosciences, Inc. | 2014, SB 10E
- Francesco Benedetti Co-Founder and CEO at Osmoses | 2019, Postdoc 10
- Tassos Gianakakos Co-founder, CEO, and Chair at Kardigan |1994, SB 10
- Paige Omura Head of Business Operations at Lydian | 2017, SB 10
About our Alumni:
Bhargavi Chevva
Bhargavi is a business development and strategy executive focused on growing climate-tech startups. Most recently at ReMo Energy as SVP Business Development and Strategy, she led commercialization of distributed green ammonia facilities. Before ReMo, she was an investor at Breakthrough Energy Ventures for 5 years across two $1B funds, investing across the climate spectrum. She also worked for Genentech/Roche’s manufacturing division CFO and at ExxonMobil as a downstream process engineer. She has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Sophie Bai
Sophie Bai is the Founder and CEO of B.A.I. Biosciences, a Boston based biotech company in medical and cosmetic dermatology. Sophie has invented, co-invented, and patented multiple proprietary molecules to provide cures and treatment for Atopic Dermatitis (eczema), skin cancer, and skin aging. Prior to founding B.A.I. Biosciences, Inc., Sophie was a healthcare and life sciences investor at Bain Capital Private Equity, and a management consultant at Boston Consulting Group advising pharmaceutical and beauty companies. Sophie received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her Master of Business Administration from Harvard Business School. She was elected as the Blavatnik Fellow in Life Sciences Entrepreneurship at Harvard University shortly after founding B.A.I.. Sophie is a member of the American Academy of Dermatology.
Francesco Benedetti
Dr. Francesco Benedetti is a Co-Founder and serves as CEO at Osmoses, a venture backed technology company commercializing solutions for industrial gas separations. Benedetti earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of Bologna, Italy, and worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research focused on developing structure/property relationships for new glassy polymer membranes for gas separations, with particular emphasis on evaluating the effect of mixed-gas permeation & competitive sorption on transport. He received the MIT Energy Fellowship, the Activate Fellowship, & was an NSF I-Corps Entrepreneurial Lead.
Paige Omura
Paige Omura is Head of Business Operations at Lydian, a Boston-based startup developing high-efficiency, low-cost reactor systems to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from waste CO2. She has spent her career across startup operations and VC, previously at Y Combinator, Rhapsody Venture Partners, and Poly6 Technologies, an aerospace materials and manufacturing startup that spun out of MIT.
Tassos Gianakakos
Tassos is a driven executive and entrepreneur with a passion for taking on the world’s most challenging health problems. He’s a values-based leader who has built and developed extraordinary teams to improve health outcomes for society. He has more than 20 years of deep industry experience and a proven record of successfully building innovative, science- based companies in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Kardigan, Tassos served as chief executive officer of cardiovascular drug development company MyoKardia, which was acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb for $13.1 billion in 2020. He also co-founded cardiovascular technology and connected care company Prolaio, where he currently holds the role of chair and chief executive officer. Since starting his career in vaccine development at Merck & Co. more than two decades ago, Tassos has played an instrumental role in the startup of multiple biotechnology companies focused on creating game-changing therapies. Tassos earned his bachelor’s degree in engineering and economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a graduate degree in biotechnology at Northwestern University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.