Jackie Eagle
Carolyn Li
Carolyn is the Chief Operating Officer at VEGAMOUR, where she oversees the Ecommerce, Finance, Operations and Analytics functions. VEGAMOUR is redefining the “Hair Care” category by developing a comprehensive, science-driven approach to visibly improve hair wellness, density, volume and shine without harmful side-effects. VEGAMOUR is committed to creating clean, sustainable, plant-based products that have a positive impact on people’s lives and the planet we all share.
Prior to joining VEGAMOUR, Carolyn held various marketing and strategy roles at Saks Fifth Avenue/ Hudson’s Bay Company, Calvin Klein and the Boston Consulting Group. Carolyn has a Master of Business Administration from The Wharton School and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of North Carolina.
Hayley Peri
Hayley Peri contributes a 360 degrees outlook to the Beauty Industry with almost 20 years of experience spanning professional use, retail, brand, formulations, manufacturing, and sales and marketing.
Her niche in specialty chemicals and R&D successfully launched Clean Beauty solutions with global Forbes Fortune top chemical companies and established innovations in the U.S. market.
She is most well-known on the West Coast as a technical educator to shift traditional formulations to consumer-friendly preservation systems and natural alternatives to controversial ingredients.
Currently, her expertise focuses on sustainability, ingredient highlights, innovation, and community to align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Her daily mission is to connect brands with ingredient manufacturers doing good for people and the planet to create change one product at a time.
She is an ingredient storyteller, thought leader, and B2B influencer with a vision to create a conscious community within the Beauty Industry. The community consists of product creators, brands, service providers, and non-profits. A portion of proceeds from the community fund sustainable initiatives such as research for the Upcycled Food Association, ending child labor with the Responsible Mica Initiative, education for girls through beauty with Power Beauty Living, and biodiversity conservation in Sumatra, Indonesia with the Batu Kapal Conservation.
Hayley is a sustainability visionary with a strong belief that together the Beauty Industry community can be the solution to create positive change for the well-being of people and the planet, one day at a time.
Alex Capano
Matthew Henn
Matthew Henn is the Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Seres Therapeutics. He has over 20 years of combined research experience in microbial ecology, genomics and bioinformatics that spans both environmental and human disease applications. He has been involved in the discovery and clinical development of multiple microbiome therapeutics including all of Seres’ product candidates and has authored over 65 peer-reviewed publications. His research has focused on microbial physiology and the functional role of microbes in both environmental and human disease applications, and on the development of genomic and functional tools to study microbial systems. Prior to helping launch Seres in 2012, he was the Director of Viral Genomics and Assistant Director of the Genome Sequencing Center for Infectious Diseases at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He has served on various NIH working groups on antimicrobial resistance and microbiome research, as a scientific advisor for NIH’s Viral Pathogen Bioinformatics Resource Center, and as an ad-hoc reviewer and editor of various peer-reviewed journals. He currently serves on the scientific advisory board of Growcentia, Inc., an agricultural microbiome company. Dr. Henn earned his B.S. in ecology and evolutionary sciences from the University of New Hampshire and his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a NASA Earth Systems Sciences Fellow, and trained as an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at Duke University.
Gokul Swaminathan
Gokul Swaminathan received his Ph.D. degree in microbiology & immunology from Drexel University. At Drexel, he uncovered the interplay between innate immune receptors, non-coding RNAs, HIV-1 infection. For his post-doctoral work, Dr. Swaminathan joined Merck Research Laboratories and trained at the vaccines division at Merck & Co. Inc, West Point, PA. After 2 years of post-doc work, he accepted a senior scientist position within the same group at Merck, West Point. While at Merck WP, Gokul was focused on uncovering the mode-of-action of novel lipid nanoparticle (LNP) based vaccine formulations in the context of viral infections and immuno-oncology. In 2016, Gokul transitioned into a new role at the new Merck Exploratory Science Center (ESC) in Cambridge, MA, where he is currently a principal scientist in the investigational biology group. At the Cambridge ESC, he leads innovative clinical & pre-clinical programs aimed at understanding the influence of the microbiome on the host immune system.
Erick Pierstaff
Erick Pierstaff joined the NSF as Program Director in November 2019. Prior to NSF, he was Chief of Operations and led Research and Development at O-Ray Pharma, where he focused on integrating biology and biomedical engineering for the goal of drug development and sustained drug delivery for the treatment of hearing loss and other ear disorders. During his time working at early stage companies, he helped secure both Angel investment and non-dilutive funding in the form of licensing and co-development deals. Additionally, he served as Principal Investigator on several Phase I, II and IIB SBIR grants from the National Institutes of Health and NSF. His research interests have focused on the intersection of the biotic and abiotic, spanning molecular and cell biology, materials science, gene therapy, nanomaterials and drug delivery. Erik has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in Biology from Emory University.
Colleen Cutliffe
Susan Nicholson
