When:  July 09, 2021, 07:00 PM Eastern Time

Where:

Link:  Zoom Link Removed
Meeting ID: 897 1807 1531
Passcode: 43214321

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Speaker:  Dr. Fereshteh Aalamifar

Language: Parsi/English

Synopsis:

In this presentation, Dr. Fereshteh Aalamifar will share her challenges and lessons-learned of founding a health-tech company from a raw idea and defying the odds as a first-generation woman immigrant with limited resources and no prior experience in the startup world. Even though Dr. Aalamifar lends her success to the exceptional opportunities the academia provided to her, she was frustrated by academia’s status quo of pursuing publications and personal academic achievements as a goal without trying to find a genuine life mission. This led her to decline a prestigious postdoc position and become a full-time mom to figure her way forward, after graduating from her Ph.D. studies in 2017. Interestingly, her new struggles as a mom provided her with a new mission: Bringing AI technologies to pediatric health to address unmet needs. In this talk, Dr. Aalamifar will share lessons learned on how to start a medical device company with only $1800 of one’s savings while having a full-time commitment – being a full-time mom of a newborn in her case.

 

About the Speaker: 

Dr. Fereshteh Aalamifar is the founder and CEO of PediaMetrix, a vibrant startup in Maryland aiming to revolutionize pediatric health through AI and computer vision. She founded PediaMetrix based on a personal experience as a mom in 2018. Dr. Aalamifar was recognized as the top 10 women in tech founders in the 2019 annual PitcHER™, won the most impact award in the medical imaging field at MICCAI startup Village, and was an invited member to the congress meeting on how to bring businesses to scale. She holds a Ph.D. and MSc from Johns Hopkins University, a second Master’s degree from Queen’s University, Canada, and a Bachelor’s degree from Isfahan University of Technology, Iran in Electrical & Computer Engineering. She was one of the recipients of the prestigious 2016 NIH doctoral Fellowship when she developed the first co-robotic ultrasound tomography system for prostate cancer detection which later resulted in a $270,000 grant sponsored by NIH and collaboration with industry. She is the inventor of three U.S. patents and has extensively published in medical imaging and robotics.

Under Dr. Aalamifar’s leadership, PediaMetrix grew from $0 in valuation in its founding days to multi million dollars in less than 2 years. PediaMetrix’s first product was recognized as one of the top 10 must-have apps in pediatrics at the 2018 annual gathering of American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2020, SoftSpot’s Alpha version received enormous interest from parents and pediatric providers in 8 countries, and 17 states in the US. PediaMetrix has now raised ~$1.5M and is well on its way to realize its founders’ mission to help parents and children in need.

When:  March 12, 2021, 07:00 PM Eastern Time

Where:

Link:  Zoom Link Removed
Meeting ID: 813 4575 5351
Passcode: 24682468

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Speaker:  Ali Hamidi, M.D.

Language: English

Synopsis:

These days many of the efforts are around fixing a big issue that paralyzed almost all nations. A huge number of people got affected, many lost their lives or loved ones, and businesses went under the water and as such made the world even a more unsafe place to live. But the bright side of it is the fact that science took a tremendous step and in less than 9 months vaccines were developed and made available (a process that usually takes years). In this lecture, we want to briefly review and familiarize ourselves with the different types of covid-19 vaccines that are available and compare their safety and efficacy, and finally answering a common question: should we get a vaccine at this moment, or is better off to wait?

 

About the Speaker:

Dr. Hamidi is a safety physician with extensive clinical experience, research, and medical education who has served in the clinic, academia, and industry. His fields of interest and expertise include patient safety in drug development(pharmacovigilance), especially in the field of Oncology. Dr. Hamidi’s past work and positions in Iran include private medical offices and clinics; Senior emergency physician at Shariati hospital, CCU attending physician at  Sina Heart Center; and Research physician at Royan Institute. His positions in the U.S. include Director of clinical research Excel Diagnostics and Nuclear Oncology Center, Houston, TX (2012-2018); and professor of western medicine at American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM), Houston, TX. He is currently working in the pharma industry as a Global safety physician.

Lecture Slides L111 – Ali Hamidi (PowerPoint-85MB)

Video Lecture Zoom Recording (passcode: Ecmc&m*6)

When:  Feb 5, 2021 07:00 PM Eastern Time

Where:

Link:  Zoom Link Removed
Meeting ID: 884 3636 5415
Passcode: 24682468

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Speaker:  Reza Seifabadi, PhD

Language: English

Synopsis:

Starting a technology company, specialty in a convoluted field such as healthcare in the US is challenging. Being an immigrant with little family and friends to back your venture in the early days, and spending most of your career in academia makes it even harder. In this talk, the speaker will share some lessons learned on how to start a technology startup in medical devices with limited resources both financially and intellectually and his transition from academia to a fast-paced startup.

 

About the Speaker:

Reza Seifabadi, PhD. is co-founder and chief operating officer at PediaMetrix Inc. Founded in 2018, PediaMetrix is an early-stage startup dedicated to bringing computer vision and AI to pediatric health. Before joining PediaMetrix in a full-time capacity, Dr. Seifabadi was a Research Fellow with tenure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center, in Radiology and Imaging Sciences from 2014-2019 where he developed state of the art imaging and devices for prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment as well as other interventional radiology applications. He was trained as an entrepreneur in pediatric device innovation at Children’s Hospital of Washington, DC from 2013-2014. He received his Ph.D. from Queen’s University in Canada, in 2013 and spent 3 years at Johns Hopkins University during his Ph.D. developing MRI-guided robots for prostate cancer diagnosis and treatment. He is the inventor of 7 US patents and has extensively published in medical imaging, robotics, and image-guided interventions.

 

Lecture Slides L110 – Reza Seifabadi (PDF-4M)

Video Lecture Zoom Recording (passcode: Y2sxwm?P)