Astera Institute

Seemay Chou is a scientist who co-founded and serves as CEO of Arcadia Science and chairs The Navigation Fund. She earned a PhD in Molecular Cell Biology from UC Berkeley and was previously a Pew Scholar and an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UC San Francisco.

Cody Phillips is a cofounder and Director of the Stellar Development Foundation (Stellar.org), an organization focused on decentralized financial systems. He is currently the founder of Vast and works as a programmer developing open, decentralized technologies.

Jed McCaleb is Director of Stellar.org and founder of Vast. He cofounded the Stellar Development Foundation to address gaps in global financial infrastructure through decentralized systems designed for broader economic access.

Dileep George is an entrepreneur, scientist, and engineer focused on AI, robotics, and neuroscience. He co-founded Numenta, where he co-developed the theory of Hierarchical Temporal Memory with Jeff Hawkins, and later Vicarious, an AI-for-robotics company (acquired by Alphabet) that built neuroscience-inspired models for vision, mapping, and concept learning. He holds an MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and a B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from IIT Bombay.

Doris Tsao serves as Chief Scientist for Neuro at Astera. She previously was a professor in the Neuroscience Department at UC Berkeley and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, with research on the anatomy and coding principles of the primate face-processing system and its role in a broader map of object space. Her work includes a topological theory of how object representations arise in the visual system, and she focuses on studying perception and consciousness through large-scale causal manipulation of neural circuits.

Eli Dourado leads strategic investments at the Astera Institute. He previously held roles at the Abundance Institute, the Center for Growth and Opportunity, Boom Supersonic, and the Mercatus Center, and has worked on the cargo airship industry and supersonic aviation standards at ICAO. He holds a PhD in economics from George Mason University and has written for the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Prachee Avasthi holds a PhD in neuroscience and was previously Associate Professor of Biochemistry & Cell Biology at Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine. She is co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Arcadia Science, and has held leadership roles including president of the ASAPbio Board of Directors and director and chair of the board at eLife. At Astera she leads efforts to develop approaches and tools focused on open science.

CEO of Radial with extensive experience scaling scientific innovation across academic research, industrial R&D, and venture capital. Previously an Investing Partner at a16z Bio + Health, and held roles as R&D Scientist and Business Development leader at Amgen. She has a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and a B.S. from MIT.