VentureForward Mentors
Our Mentors
Jay Chadha
Jay is a recent graduate of UVA Engineering (SEAS ‘24), where he studied Computer Science and Data Science. He is the former CTO of DoorList, a venture-backed event management startup founded at UVA. DoorList was a part of the Neo accelerator program in 2023 and raised a $3 million seed round with participation from Felton Group, Neo, Scott Forstall, Ari Steinberg, Vinodh Bhat, and more. He led product and software development for over a year and a half and helped grow the team to 10 employees. Currently, Jay works as a Software Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Mark Hanson
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.
Rachel Soo Hoo Smith
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).
I am passionate about developing functional interfaces between biological and human-made materials and processes. I possess broad capabilities in Microbiology, Molecular Biology, and Fabrication Tech, with +9-yrs experience leading hands-on experimental research and working in highly creative, multidisciplinary teams to produce new technologies. I get my energy by exciting others about design and revving people up about the potency of their own ideas. Fascinated with the idea of medical objects as an interface between biology and function, I take great joy in having helped launch UVa’s annual Medical Hackathon program and founding and managing many more organizations to convey innovative thinking and problem-solving to a wide spectrum of audiences.