The Team

Shaun Patel is a neuroscientist, entrepreneur, and investor. Shaun is the co-founder & CEO of REACT Neuro, a digital health company leveraging virtual reality and machine learning to reimagine the way we assess and treat brain health, from the comfort of your home. Shaun is also the founding General Partner of DRADS Capital, a Boston and British Columbia based venture capital fund focused on disruptive technologies in healthcare, energy, and technology. Prior to this, Shaun was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where he pioneered some of the earliest studies reading and writing the neural code in awake-and-behaving human subjects undergoing deep brain stimulation surgery. Shaun has graduate degrees in medical sciences, neuroscience, and machine learning from Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School. In his spare time, Shaun is a pilot and avid aviation enthusiast — cruising around New England at 5,000 ft.

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, Co-Director of the McCance Center for Brain Health, Co-Director of the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, and Vice-Chair of Neurology (Research), at Massachusetts General Hospital, and the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Tanzi co-discovered the first three Alzheimer’s disease genes, including the amyloid precursor protein (APP) and directs the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Alzheimer’s Genome Project, which identified the first innate immune-related Alzheimer’s gene, CD33. He is also developing drugs and natural products for treating and preventing AD using human brain organoid and 3D neural-glial culture models. Dr. Tanzi has published over 600 papers, received numerous awards, and is a New York Times bestselling author. In his spare time, he plays keyboards for Joe Perry, Aerosmith and other musicians.

Rajan is the Founding Managing Partner of DRADS Capital. He is a dynamic entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience, having successfully created numerous global ventures. Under the leadership of Rajan Pillay, DRADS Capital Fund Inc. has invested in companies that are currently valued at over USD $1 billion. Rajan acts as the Director and

Co-Founder of ReactNeuro Inc. (Boston), Strategic Business Consultant with AZ Therapeutics (Boston), and International Business Advisory Board Member of Rokit Healthcare Inc. (South Korea). Prior to DRADS Capital, Rajan was the former SVP of Pepsi Bottling Franchise Group.

Dr. Brian Nahed is a neurosurgeon specializing in Brain Tumors, Brain Mapping and Novel Intraoperative Technology and Imaging. He is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at the Massachusetts General and Harvard Medical School. His clinical focus is on brain tumors of the eloquent cortex (language and motor areas of the brain) which require awake surgery, language and motor mapping, and subcortical stimulation. As the Director of the MGH Neurosurgery Residency Program, he has developed a novel and innovative neurosurgical curriculum. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the CNS/AANS Executive Committee For Brain Tumors. He is Co-Chair of the CNS Leadership Institute and leads an annual course of leadership training. He is an active member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Council State Neurological Societies.

Dr. Nahed is a neurotrauma consultant for the National Football League (NFL) and has expertise in the evaluation of sports neurosurgery and brain health. He is a co-founder and chief medical advisor for REACT Neuro.

Tony J. Simon Ph.D. became REACT’s Chief Science Translation Officer after a 35-year academic career. From 2000-2022 Tony built an NIH-funded translational cognitive neuroscience research program. He started that at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia/U.Penn and then spent 17 years as Associate Professor and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Davis School of Medicine. Tony served as Associate Director of the UC Davis MIND Institute. He was also Founding Associate Director of the UCD MIND Institute Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, one of only 15 such NIH-Funded Centers in the US. Tony is internationally known for his work on neurocognitive impairments and psychiatric symptoms in people with neurogenetic conditions, especially chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome, originally known as DiGeorge syndrome.

Tony’s non-stop mission to translate cutting edge science into revolutionary treatments led to his founding of Cognivive, a UC Davis-backed neurotherapeutics company. Cognivive developed personalized, self-adapting prescription digital therapeutics, delivered as long-form virtual reality games. They are designed to improve neurocognitive and neuromotor functioning in a range of conditions resulting from atypical brain development, brain injury and neurodegeneration.

Dr. Ettenhofer is a neuropsychologist, clinical scientist, educator, and brain health innovator. His work is focused on developing novel scientific approaches for tracking and improving brain function. He has directed numerous studies of cognition, eye movements, and human performance in traumatic brain injury (TBI), Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and normal aging in military, veteran and civilian healthcare settings. Dr. Ettenhofer is the lead inventor of the patented RETINA technology, a key component of the REACT Neuro platform that unobtrusively measure eye movements, pupil responses, and body movements during cognitively challenging VR tasks to provide quick and accurate assessments of brain health and mental performance. Currently, he serves as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and Senior Research Neuropsychologist for the Defense Health Agency Traumatic Brain Injury Center of Excellence (TBICoE) at Naval Medical Center San Diego (NMCSD).

Gary Wilkerson is a tenured professor at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where he has taught in the Graduate Athletic Training Education Program since 1999. He has received degrees from Eastern Kentucky University (1978), the University of Arizona (1979), and the University of Kentucky (1989). Clinical expertise acquired in a wide variety of practice settings has guided his research endeavors, which were initially focused on management of chronic ankle instability. His work gradually transitioned to a broader interest in predictive modeling of elevated risk for lower extremity injury. His most recent research has been focused on development of clinical methods for identification of individuals who possess subtle perceptual-motor performance deficiencies that increase susceptibility to both sport-related concussion and musculoskeletal injury. The findings of his research have been published in numerous peer-reviewed sports medicine journals, with more than 2000 citations of his work by other authors. He was among the first scholars in his discipline to be designated as a Fellow of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association when the honor was created in 2008. He was inducted into the Southeast Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame in 2010 and the National Athletic Trainers’ Association Hall of Fame in 2016. The Research and Education Foundation of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association awarded him its Medal for Distinguished Research in 2019.

Lenore Herget DPT, SCS, MEd, CSCS, is a Senior Physical Therapist, Board Certified Sports Clinical Specialist, Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, Certified Clinical Instructor and Certified Emergency Medical Responder at the MGH Sports Medicine Center. She is a member of the New England Patriots Medical Staff and serves as the Concussion Rehabilitation Consultant to the Boston Bruins, Boston Red Sox, New England Revolution, Boston Celtics, Home Base Program and the MGH Sports Concussion Clinic.

Dr Herget’s practice includes rehabilitating athletes who have sustained a sports concussion, most specifically evaluating and treating high school through professional level athletes with concussions and assisting in their safe return to play. Her research has focused on management of athletes with post-concussion syndrome and the efficacy of pre-season and post-season visuo-vestibular testing to aid in return to play decision making, differentiating between concussion and cervicogenic symptom presentation, alternative exercise testing protocols, atypical mTBI presentations and considerations in the military population. She has lectured nationally on the topics of concussion and the non-acute management of athletes with post-concussive syndrome.

Dave Icke is a strategic business leader with strong technology and digital health expertise and a record of product innovation, commercialization and market growth. An engineer and MBA with strong cross-functional expertise, Dave has a history of building high-tech businesses that combine sensors and data analytics to transform customer and patient outcomes. He’s adept at driving product discovery, crafting go-to-market strategies, and delivering successful partner relationships that bring commercial success. He thrives in corporate and entrepreneurial environments, bringing focus among world-class engineers, doctors and scientists.
Dave currently leads Digital Health Product for Humana, a leading health plan and care delivery company for seniors, where his team focuses on virtual care. Prior to joining Humana in 2019, Dave led the Digital Health Business Unit at Becton Dickinson (BD), where he built a team in Boston to focus on consumer-centric digital solutions outside the hospital, including chronic disease management. Besides REACT, Dave advises Takeda’s Digital Venture fund, and served as a consultant and advisor to multiple private and public companies (such as Qualcomm, Flex, Profusa, and Twine Health) to launch new initiatives in digital health.

Recently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world’s leaders on exponentially growing technologies. As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 25 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is cofounder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company. Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of three books: LIFE FORCE, Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from the MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Ramesh Raskar is an Associate Professor at MIT Media Lab and directs the Camera Culture research group. His focus is on AI and Imaging for health and sustainability. He received the Lemelson Award (2016), ACM SIGGRAPH Achievement Award (2017), DARPA Young Faculty Award (2009), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2009), TR100 Award from MIT Technology Review (2004) and Global Indus Technovator Award (2003). He has worked on special research projects at Google, Apple and Facebook and co-founded/advised several companies

John Brownstein, Ph.D is Professor of Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School and is the Chief Innovation Officer of Boston Children’s Hospital. He also directs the Computational Epidemiology Lab and the Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator both at Boston Children’s. He was trained as an epidemiologist at Yale University. He has been at the forefront of the development and application of data mining and citizen science to public health. His efforts are in use by millions each year including the CDC, WHO, DHS, DOD, HHS, and EU, and has been recognized by the National Library of Congress and the Smithsonian. He was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and the Lagrange Prize for international achievements in complexity sciences and an Emmy for his contributions to medical reporting during the covid-19 pandemic. Dr. Brownstein is co-founder of digital health companies Epidemico and Circulation and an ABC Medical News Contributor. He has authored over 300 peer-reviewed articles on epidemiology and public health.

Esther graduated from Georgetown University in May 2022 Phi Beta Kappa with a B.S. in Neurobiology. She began working with REACT Neuro in March 2019, and has served on the product team and later as an advisor. Previously, Esther worked with Will Ventures and the Sports Innovation Lab. Esther has volunteered with the Concussion Legacy Foundation and Boston Children’s Hospital for years, demonstrating her passion for brain health and safer sports. Esther will return to Boston this summer to work in the growth equity industry.

Dr. Felicia Hsu is an Investor at BOLD Capital Partners and Entrepreneur in Residence to Peter H. Diamandis. Felicia was an Internal Medicine Physician at UCLA and studied Biomedical Engineering at MIT before obtaining her Medical Degree at Harvard Medical School. She has worked on several bioengineering projects from nanoparticle drug delivery vehicles of siRNA for pancreatic cancer, to melanoma detection devices, to clinical decision support algorithms for medical triage. A prolific writer, having published a fictional novella, supported the writing of LIFEFORCE by Peter Diamandis and Tony Robbins, and is in the process of publishing her own memoir.