UC Berkeley Skydeck

Caroline Winnett is the Executive Director of UC Berkeley SkyDeck, the university's startup accelerator and incubator operated as a partnership between the Haas School of Business, the College of Engineering, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. SkyDeck invests $200,000 in each cohort company and provides mentorship, resources, and access to UC Berkeley's network of over 700 advisors and accredited investors. The program has supported more than 140 startups in residence and maintains a Gold Tier rating from the Seed Rankings Project.

David Schaffer is the Hubbard Howe Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where his research applies engineering principles to problems in cell biology and bioengineering. His laboratory works in stem cell biology and gene therapy, studying signal transduction and gene regulation networks that govern stem cell behavior. He also works on developing viral vectors to improve gene delivery vehicles for therapeutic applications, including stem cell-based therapies.

Advisor; co-founder of Guitar Hero.

Kara Sammet is the founder and habit change coach at Consistency Squad, where she leads group and private programs that help professionals build active lifestyle habits and maintain them over time. She has decades of experience in applied research and product strategy, and applies principles of neuroscience and behavioral science to habit formation. Sammet also speaks with longevity-focused medical practices, corporate teams, and professional groups on the science of habit formation and sustainable behavior change.

Ken Goldberg holds the William S. Floyd Jr. Distinguished Chair in Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and chairs the steering committee of the Berkeley AI Research (BAIR) Lab. He co-founded Ambi Robotics, where he serves as Chief Scientist, and co-founded Jacobi Robotics. His research areas include robotics, automation, medical robotics, fog robotics, and art.

Simon Ru is a Venture Partner at Gold House Venture, a $50M social impact venture fund that invests in Asian founders and has backed more than 50 companies, including ChowBus, Weee!, and Corgi. He previously held early product roles at eBay and PayPal, and founded and sold two startups to Fortune 100 companies. His background includes building two-sided marketplaces and fintech platforms.

UC Berkeley EECS professor associated with Cadence and Synopsys, serving on the SkyDeck Strategy Council.

Aleksander Kuczek is an entrepreneur based in Barcelona who was born in Poland and spent time in the United States. He has founded and sold two software startups, taught entrepreneurship, and led the growth of Contabo from a local server provider into a tier 1 cloud company. He is an HBS alumnus and serves as a UC Berkeley SkyDeck Ambassador.

Allen Yang is Executive Director of the FHL Vive Center for Enhanced Reality at UC Berkeley, working in areas including computer vision, image processing, augmented reality, pattern recognition, robotics, and sensor networks. He has published more than 100 technical papers and holds more than 20 US patents or applications, including face recognition algorithms developed at UC Berkeley and real-time gesture recognition algorithms for ARM-based wearable platforms developed at Atheer. Yang earned his PhD in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has managed federally funded multi-university research projects.

Armando Fox is a Computer Science Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, where he also serves as Faculty Advisor for Digital Learning Strategy and Campus Equity Officer. His current work focuses on software engineering education and research, education technology, and online education. His earlier research addressed the application of statistical machine learning to large software systems, including datacenter-scale Internet applications, as well as software dependability, mobile and ubiquitous computing, and Internet services.

Balu Masti is a technology strategist and ecosystem builder with over three decades of experience across the United States, Silicon Valley, and India, currently serving as India Ambassador and Advisor at UC Berkeley SkyDeck and Director of International Collaborations at RV University, Bangalore. He advises accelerators including CMU's Schwartz Center, AI @ Wharton, and Rutgers–Camden, and through HUM Consulting Services provides fractional CTO and advisory support to DeepTech ventures in areas such as AI/ML, data platforms, IoT, embedded systems, and SaaS. His earlier career included nearly two decades at Qualcomm and Intel and the co-founding of a DeepTech startup focused on energy optimization; he is also a Carnatic Veena artist and certified yoga teacher.

Ciaran Quinn is the founder of VEO2 and serves as an advisor and seed investor. He works as a Key Advisor to Ochy through Berkeley SkyDeck, and has held roles including chairman, board member, mentor, and angel investor. His areas of focus include strategy, business development, digital media, SaaS, and distribution, with experience spanning sports and OTT sectors.

Cole Harry is the Japan Program Manager at Berkeley SkyDeck, where the work involves connecting Japanese founders to Silicon Valley. Harry has experience in university partnerships, business development, and research and industry collaborations, with a focus on US-UK academic and economic relations.

Ekin Günaysu is Senior Manager of Program at Berkeley SkyDeck, UC Berkeley's startup accelerator, where the role involves supporting early-stage startups and managing operations with cross-functional teams. Günaysu has over eight years of experience in project management, holds a PMP certification, and has an academic background in Political Science, Business Administration, and European Studies. Prior experience includes work in international development and a 17-year career as a professional tennis player.

Elizabeth Redman Cleveland is Chief Strategist for Sustainable Growth at the City of Berkeley, where she works on city policies and programs related to economic growth. She previously led IHS Markit's Economic Strategy Solutions regional competitiveness consulting practice and launched its Sustainable Customer Solutions initiative, founded the consulting firm Cross Sector Strategies, and developed regional industry cluster strategies at the Economic Competitiveness Group. Her project experience includes economic and workforce development work across multiple US states, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Jeep Kline is a venture capital executive and UC Berkeley faculty member with over 20 years of experience in high-tech and impact investing. She has founded four venture capital funds across early-stage and growth segments and serves as a board director at high-growth companies in the US and Asia, while also advising accelerators and university innovation programs. Her background includes economics work at the World Bank, co-founding a Latin American-focused venture fund, and roles at technology companies including Intel.

Jonathan Kalibbala is a Senior Enterprise Architect focused on AI adoption at SAP, where his work covers SAP enterprise AI strategy and cloud infrastructure. He works on cloud adoption, enterprise AI enablement, and platform extensibility, leading initiatives such as cloud migrations, SaaS modernization, and transformation programs including RISE with SAP and S/4HANA Private Cloud. His background spans enterprise architecture, IT operations, cloud-native platforms, and AI/ML ecosystem integration.

Juhi Saha is the Chief Executive Officer of Partner1, where she advises CEOs and CROs on B2B partnerships, co-sell and marketplace revenue across ecosystems such as Microsoft, AWS, and GCP. She previously launched and led Microsoft's Pegasus program for VC-backed startups and served as VP of Partnerships at Clearbit ahead of its acquisition by HubSpot, following earlier roles at Intel and Qualcomm. She holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC San Diego, holds three patents, and serves as a board director and advisor to fintech, AI, and SaaS companies.

Karén Gyulbudaghyan is the Founding Partner of Strategic Value Ventures, a San Francisco-based strategic advisory firm serving global partners and startups. His career spans over 25 years across government, Big Four consulting, multinational technology companies, and World Bank and EU projects, including a role at Yahoo! where he led data center strategy and structured business incentive deals. He serves as an Ambassador, advisor, and selection committee member at UC Berkeley SkyDeck, and holds degrees in economics, mathematics, and accounting, along with a California CPA license.

Kelly Lindberg is Senior Manager of the Innovation Partner Program at Berkeley SkyDeck, where she connects international founders with the Bay Area venture ecosystem. Her background includes roles with Start2/German Accelerator, TechWomen, and the Fulbright Program, managing programs for entrepreneurs and scholars. Her work spans academia, government, and technology innovation, with a focus on helping startups access Silicon Valley resources, mentoring, and investment.

Kira Noodleman applies her competitive-athlete mindset to back founders tackling deeptech—especially robotics and smart manufacturing—translating lab-to-market and U.S.–Latin American perspectives while favoring deep technical conviction over trends.

Marc Bensadoun is a seed-stage investor and serves as Advisory Board Co-Chair at UC Berkeley's College of Letters & Science. He holds a BA in Physics from Cornell and a Ph.D. in experimental astrophysics from UC Berkeley, where he studied under 2006 Nobel Laureate George Smoot. He founded Newfield Wireless, which provided mobile network operators with modeling and optimization tools and later an enterprise big-data platform for mobile geoanalytics, and sold the company in 2013.

Richard Allen is Interim Vice Chancellor for Research at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and Director of the Seismology Lab. He additionally works as a Research Scientist at Google. His research focuses on earthquake early warning technology and the study of subduction zones, faults, and plates to understand the processes driving surface deformation.

Sibyl Chen is General Manager and Head of Program at Berkeley SkyDeck, UC Berkeley's startup accelerator. In this role, she advises and supports founders across stages of company development, from initial pitch through scaling. The accelerator works with approximately 250 startups per year.