Carnegie Mellon University

Vice president for research at Carnegie Mellon University serving on the RETI Governing Board to provide oversight and strategic direction.

Associate director of the Scott Institute for Energy Innovation and professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, serving as the lead investigator and director of policy for the RETI Engine.

Aaron Tainter serves as Director of Accelerator Programs at Innovation Works, where he oversees AlphaLab, a four-track accelerator program supporting early-stage startups in software, hardware, life sciences, and robotics. With nearly 20 years of experience in venture capital and innovation strategy, he manages seed-stage investments, portfolio company support, and founder recruitment while teaching startup funding and venture capital at Carnegie Mellon University as an adjunct instructor. AlphaLab portfolio companies have raised over $1.3 billion in follow-on capital and achieved more than 20 successful exits.

A Pittsburgh entrepreneur, early-stage investor, and philanthropist, Andrew was previously CTO of Premier, Inc. and cofounder/CTO of CECity. He holds an EIR role at CMU's Swartz Center and chairs the 412x972 Pittsburgh Israel Innovation initiative.

Andrew Spielberg is the CTO of MorphoAI, where he works on simulation methods, design algorithms, and digital manufacturing.

Chenxi Wang is Managing General Partner at Rain Capital, a venture fund focused on cybersecurity investments. She serves on the Board of Directors for MDU Resources, a Fortune 500 company, where she participates in the Audit and ESG committees. Wang previously held senior technology strategy positions at Intel Security and product/go-to-market roles at Silicon Valley startups Twistlock and Ciphercloud, and taught computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. She founded the Forte Group, a 501(c)(3) organization supporting women's careers in cybersecurity, and holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science.

Christine Park completed an MD/MEng at Duke University and trained in neurosurgery at the University of Washington. She is currently pursuing a PhD in computer science at Stanford while serving as founder and CEO of Lattice Health.

Founder of Illuminate Ventures, repeatedly cited by portfolio founders as a mentor and lead investor with experience as a SaaS company founder, executive, CEO, and venture investor.

Deboshree Dutta is CEO and founder of Criya, a professional branding platform powered by AI. She previously led product management at PayPal for over four years and has held product roles at Microsoft, with more than a decade of product experience overall; she holds a master's degree in computer science from Carnegie Mellon.

Deepak Pathak is Co-Founder and CEO of Skild AI and a faculty member at Carnegie Mellon University. His research addresses artificial intelligence in the areas of robotics, deep learning, and computer vision, drawing on animal cognition and biology, with a focus on developing embodied machines capable of generalizing across diverse real-world environments.

Anand previously led PwC's global AI practice and is now a professor of AI at Carnegie Mellon. He has advised enterprises and founders across the AI ecosystem, sits on several AI organization boards, and has published over 130 papers. He is an LP in Golden Sparrow.

Han Hua is a co-founder at a stealth-stage company focused on supercomputing. Previously, he was an investor at GV with a focus on AI, software, deep tech, and fintech, and earlier served as an engineer and product manager at Google working on payments, emerging markets, and blockchain technologies.

Kanishka Maheshwari is Vice President of Product Management at Circle. Previously, he founded InterPrime, a treasury management startup funded by investors including Y Combinator and Tribe Capital that was acquired by Rho in February 2022, and earlier led Product Management for Search at Salesforce, overseeing a global engineering team focused on Search, APIs, and AI/ML. He serves on the Advisory Board at Carnegie Mellon University and on the board of LedgerDomain, a decentralized identity and transaction verification platform for the healthcare supply chain.

Lake Dai is Founder & Managing Partner at Sancus Ventures, with over a decade in venture investing focused on AI startups. She previously held product and engineering roles at Alibaba, where she was an early employee and Head of Product and helped build the company's B2B marketplace, as well as at Yahoo!, Overture, and other startups. She teaches Applied AI as an adjunct professor at Carnegie Mellon University, holds an MBA from USC and a B.S. in Economics from Beijing International Studies University, and studied in Stanford's Computer Science MS program.

Lip-Bu Tan, former Cadence CEO and long‑time semiconductor operator-investor, offers chip founders systems‑level expertise from materials through applications and deep operational credibility across the U.S., Taiwan, China and Southeast Asia.

Ray Lane, former Oracle president and COO who led its 1990s turnaround and market-cap growth, brings deep operator's perspective as a hands-on partner recruiting executives, closing deals and driving change.

Rob Lee is the founder and CEO of Dragos, Inc., an industrial cybersecurity technology company. He serves on World Economic Forum subcommittees focused on cyber resilience for the oil and gas and electricity sectors, holds board positions at the International Society of Automation and the National Cryptologic Foundation, and serves as an officer in the Army National Guard leading operational technology cybersecurity efforts. Lee previously worked as a Cyber Warfare Operations Officer in the U.S. Air Force assigned to the National Security Agency and has authored or co-authored multiple SANS cybersecurity courses and certifications; he has also testified before the U.S. Senate and House on industrial critical infrastructure cyber threats.

Operating Partner focused on growth and marketing strategy. He has led product, marketing, and growth teams including as VP at Carjojo and Pinger, and co-founded CommonGenius.

Founder and CEO of Hyliion, a provider of electrified powertrain solutions for commercial transportation, which he took public in 2020. Named to Forbes '30 under 30' and holds multiple automotive device patents.

Tuomas Sandholm is Founder, President, and CEO of Strategy Robot, Inc., and holds the Angel Jordan University Professorship of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. His research spans artificial intelligence, game theory, market design, optimization, and mechanism design, with applications including kidney exchange, prediction markets, advertising systems, and automated negotiation. He has developed algorithms for equilibrium finding, multiagent systems, and computational problems across electronic commerce, auctions, and voting platforms.