VentureForward Mentors

Mark is a co-founder, advisor, and the former chief product and AI officer at Heartbeat Health, the nation's largest virtual cardiovascular provider. He has two decades of experience as a health technologist and founder, including at BeClose, a company that developed novel IoT devices and artificial intelligence to promote independent living. BeClose merged with Alarm.com in 2014, where Mark led product, platforms, and health innovations through the company's 2015 initial public offering. 

He is a highly cited researcher and inventor, an Adjunct Associate Professor at The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, a Venture Partner at NextGen Venture Partners, and an angel investor, board member, and advisor to numerous organizations. 

As a student, Mark co-founded the eSociety to foster entrepreneurship across Grounds; and as an alumnus, he served on the SEAS Entrepreneurship Advisory Board. Mark completed his BS and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia, specializing in the research, design, and development of clinical wearables and digital biomarkers for movement disorders.

Amanda Pollard is an associate at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where she advises technology and life sciencescompanies at all stages of growth. She also represents financial and strategic investors in equity investments in high-growth companies.

Amanda’s practice focuses on corporate and securities law, including company formation, founder and employee equity issuances, corporate governance, venture capital financings, secondary sale transactions, initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and other strategic transactions. Amanda leverages her experience in the firm’s London office to advise U.S., UK and European companies and investors on cross-border transactions.

Dr. Smith is a scientific lead at HelixNano, where she is dedicated to applying mRNA-based technologies to global health and climate-related challenges. She leads a team focused on integrating computational and metagenomic tools for the design of multivalent vaccines. Over the last two years, her primary efforts focused on the development of a pan-family/pan-genus mRNA-base vaccine to target methanogenic organisms in ruminants and prevent evolutionary escape in these systems. Dr. Smith has held prior roles focused on the swift commercialization of biomedical innovations with the Coulter Translational Research Foundation and her previous venture, PhageFlag, focused on bacteriophage-based assays. Dr. Smith completed her PhD at MIT, specializing in synthetic biology and biomaterials, with a focus on interfacing bioengineered cellular behavior with computational design and 3D printing platforms. Prior to this, Dr. Smith completed her BS in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia ('13).