Instructors

Jack Gill, PhD

Jack Gill is a 35-year veteran of Silicon Valley and Boston and has founded and financed dozens of successful companies in the instrumentation, computer, telecom, and medical industries. He co-founded Vanguard Ventures in 1981. Vanguard’s first five funds invested $155 million in 103 startups which generated more than $1 billion return to investors. Successes include Aldus, AFC, Ciena, EndoSonics, Indigo Medical, Mycogen, Digital Microwave, Tut Systems, Cobalt Networks, Digital Island, Network Appliance and Hansen Medical. Dr. Gill joined the Harvard Medical School faculty in 2000. He teaches entrepreneur courses at Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Rice. Jack was on the boards of the National Academies, Project HOPE, the Horatio Alger Association and MD Anderson. He is a former Trustee of Indiana University & member of the Executive council of the Texas ETF. Jack was a 1999 winner of the Horatio Alger Award.

Paul Cherukuri, PhD

Paul Cherukuri earned his PhD in Chemistry under the supervision of Nobel Laureate Richard E. Smalley and R. Bruce Weisman at Rice University and has a 15+ year history in academia and industry. As Executive Director of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering (IBB), Paul is responsible for the development and implementation of cross-disciplinary research and educational programs that strengthen Rice University's scientific development in biosciences and bioengineering. He serves as the key liaison between Rice University and the Texas Medical Center to support and develop collaborative research opportunities for IBB faculty and the broader Rice science/engineering community. Paul also directs an active research program in the field of scalable directed self-assembly of artificial and biological nanoscale materials (Teslaphoresis) and is a subject matter expert in nanotechnology, drug development and biomedical devices.

Will Clifton, MD

Motivated to connect more physician-entrepreneurs, Will Clifton founded enventure, a grass-roots community focused on growing and educating Houston's medical entrepreneur community. Will earned his biomedical engineering degree from USC, where he joined his first medical startup, commercializing a glucose sensor the size of a human hair. After making Houston his home in 2007, Will received his MD from Baylor College of Medicine. Will became the Sr. Director of Medical Affairs for Procyrion, designing and leading a clinical trial for a miniature heart assist pump implanted without surgery. Will has consulted for many of Houston's seed-stage startups, including MolecularMatch, NanoLinea, Anaxiom, and Nano3D. Currently, Will is Director of Medical Innovation at Rice University.

Teaching Assistants

Alem Abebe Belachew alem (at) enventure.org

Marjan Majid marjan (at) enventure.org