Tufts New Ventures Competition
2026 Judges and Screeners
Finals Judges
Kobla Asamoah
Senior Director, Accelerator Operations, Caminus Ventures
Karen Cassel
President and CEO, MedicAlert
John Cuming
Fmr. Pres. Cuming Microwave Corp.
Robin John
CEO & Co-Founder, Eventide Asset Management
Andy Merken
Partner and Co-chair, Life Sciences, Burns & Levinson LLP
Jean Pham
Co-founder & CEO, Cellens
Catherine Popper
Early Stage Investor, Advisor and Board Director, Launchpad Venture Group
Elisabeth Tsilikounas
Business & Operations Strategic Consultant
Tracy Wang
Strategic Advisor for Nonprofit Executives
Alex Wulkan
Founder and COO, Estateably
Semi-finals Judges
Damla Boyer
Head of Strategy Operationalization, MilliporeSigma
Sebastian Coates
Cofounder & CEO of Tellescope, a UHC Techstars 2020 company
Luciano da Silveira Araujo
Venture Builder, beOn Claro
Alexandra Dunk
Associate Director, Entrepreneur Programs & Engagement, Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship at Babson College
Sohini Mazumdar
Founder, Erudite Co
Bob McTighe
Board Director, Acadia Center and Potencia
Hillary Sieber
Director, Wingspan Legacy Partners
Laura Taraboanta
Digital & Imaging Project Lead, Digital Medicine & Translational Imaging at Pfizer
Marvin Vilma
Managing Director, Let's Get Ready
Amanda Wang
Cofounder and CEO, Potencia
Frank Yandrisevits IV
Account Executive - International Business, ARInsights
Screeners
Ty Blitstein
Project Officer
Michelle Bornstein
Senior Product Support Manager
Judy Charamand
TrakCare GenAI Innovation Research Team Lead
Akshay Chintamaneni
NPI Value Stream Manager
Tony Cueva Bravo
Head of Business Development and Strategy, Rebill.com
Evan Dietrich
Quantitative Researcher
Zach DiMuccio
Co-founder
Katie Furey
Cofounder, Equiballot
Hadley Haselmann
Culture of Inclusion Specialist, Applied Materials
Bobby Johnson, DMD, MD
Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Resident and Co-founder of Duo Toothpaste.
Maggie Kullman
B2B Marketing Manager, Mastercard Data & Services
Sean Lee
Daniel Lewis
Co-Founder & COO at Winno
Christopher May
Mechanical Engineering Manager at Cala Systems
Saumya Mehta
CEO
Patrick Mulcahy
Business & Lab Operations, Sanofi
Andrew Murray
Co-Founder at Rezzi
Isabella Passaro Montero
COO and Co-founder, medikana
Matt Purdy
Senior Associate, Breakthrough Energy Fellows
Alfredo Ramirez
COO/CMO/Co-Founder at Prosal
Mohit Saini
Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy Graduate, The Fletcher School at Tufts University
Collins Sirmah
Cofounder, Afriprot
Paget Stanco
Principal at Gemini
Sebastian Useche
Co-founder
Devan Venkataramen
Deployment Strategist, Palantir Technologies
Ricci Prize Judges
Luca Mazzaferro
Research Scientist, Chemical Engineering PhD Candidate, Tufts University
Sofia Paschenti
Tufts Gordon Institute MSIM Graduate.
Zosia Stafford
Process Engineer at Entegris
Zoe Watson
Tufts Gordon Institute MSIM Graduate
Creative Arts Prize Judges
Anj “Fayemz” Fayemi
CEO & Co-Founder at Rivet
Josh Kapelman
EVP & Managing Director, Hilldun Corporation
Christine O’Donnell
Executive Director of ShowUp
Elana Varon
Business Writer and Editor
Small Business Prize Judges
Noah Elion
Founder and CEO, Lovd
Luke Fraser
Lecturer l Founder and CEO, Stepwise Innovation
Julia Hallman
Owner