2025 Neurotech Leaders Forum

Edward Chang, M.D., Professor of Neurological Surgery, University of California, San Francisco

Edward Chang is a neurosurgeon-scientist who has made fundamental discoveries on the neural coding of speech in the human brain. Chang has provided the first detailed functional blueprints of cortical areas for speech perception and production. Overcoming the limitations of previous imaging studies, Chang pioneered high-resolution direct cortical recordings in humans and applied advanced computational approaches to understand how speech is computed at the level of basic phonetic elements.  His seminal contributions catalyzed an entire field of human intracranial neuroscience, accelerated novel neurotechnologies, and led to the first successful ‘speech neuroprosthesis’ to restore communication after paralysis.

J. Thomas Mortimer, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University

J. Thomas (Tom) Mortimer was born in 1939 and spent his formative years in the Texas Panhandle. A highlight of his preteen years was a 1951 summer job at Palo Duro Canyon State Park, which his friend Joe Macrander had helped him secure. He graduated in 1957 from Amarillo High School’s vocational program as an automobile mechanic and worked in Buick and Chrysler-Plymouth dealerships. In 1959, he enrolled at Texas Technological College, where he was deeply influenced by Professor Russel Seacat, and earned a BSEE in 1964. In 1965, Mortimer completed his M.S. in Engineering in James B. Reswick’s lab at Case Institute of Technology. That same year, he began learning to perform animal surgeries in C. Norman Shealy’s lab at Western Reserve University. After a year of drifting without a clear Ph.D. project, Mortimer was pointedly directed by Reswick to pursue Shealy’s concept for pain suppression, inspired by the 1965 Melzack and Wall paper proposing the gate control theory of pain. By 1967, Mortimer had designed, built, and tested two dorsal column stimulator devices, which Shealy implanted in patients at Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, WI. During his time in Reswick’s lab, Mortimer was also inspired by Lojze Vodovnik of Ljubljana, whose passion for electrically activating the nervous system made a lasting impression. From 1968 to 1969, Mortimer conducted postdoctoral research at Chalmers Tekniska Högskola in Gothenburg, Sweden, where he came to recognize the promise of a career that combined electrical engineering with animal experimentation. In 1969, Mortimer joined the faculty of the Biomedical Engineering Department at Case Western Reserve University, launching a research program aimed at restoring function to people with spinal cord injuries—like his childhood friend Joe, who had sustained such an injury in 1955. Strongly influenced by Karl Frank and Terry Hambrecht’s Neural Prostheses Program at NINDS, he founded the Applied Neural Control Laboratory at Case, where he mentored 44 MS and Ph.D. students. These students and postdocs remained a profound influence throughout his academic life. Upon retiring in 2002, Mortimer created ANCtoolkit.com, an online repository for the knowledge he had acquired over the course of his career. The repository has been as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate level courses.

James Cavuoto, Editor and Publisher, Neurotech Reports

James Cavuoto is editor and publisher of Neurotech Business Report and the founder of Neurotech Reports. He is the lead author of "The Market for Neurotechnology," and "The Market for Bioelectronic Medicine," two market research reports published by Neurotech Reports. Cavuoto was the founder of Micro Publishing Press, Inc., a publishing company that helped pioneer the market for electronic publishing, digital imaging, and computer graphics. He holds a degree in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University, where he studied under pioneers in the field of functional electrical stimulation. He has also studied human factors engineering at University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Cavuoto spent three years as a member of the technical staff at Hughes Aircraft Company in Los Angeles, where he worked on simulation, training, and publication products produced for the U.S. Department of Defense. Cavuoto was an adjunct professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and the author of eight books on computer graphics, electronic publishing, and digital imaging. He is a member of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. He has authored a chapter in the textbook Neuromodulation (Elsevier, 2009), as well as articles in Neuromodulation, Journal of Neural Engineering, Medical Device Daily, IEEE Spectrum, MX magazine, and the International Journal of Medical Marketing. He is coauthor, with Jennifer French, of Bionic Pioneers: Brave Neurotech Users Blaze the Trail to New Therapies (Neurotech Press, 2014).

Jeremy Koff, Senior Consulting Editor, Neurotech Reports

Mr. Koff is senior consulting editor for Neurotech Reports and president of Colibri Partners Inc., a strategic and marketing consulting firm with a primary focus in the medical device sector. The company offers services related to market and risk analysis, clinical and technology assessments, business plan development, business/financial modeling, and market research. Mr. Koff has nearly 20 years of global experience in the medical device industry with companies including Advanced Bionics Corp., Boston Scientific, MiniMed Inc., Bioness Inc, and many others. His business plans have attracted tens of millions in start-up capital. Mr. Koff holds a Bachelor's degree in biology from Middlebury College, a Masters of Public Affairs from Indiana University, and an MBA from UCLA. He is an active classically-trained musician, supporter of the arts, and is a board member of the Fender Music Foundation.

Jo Jo Platt, Senior Contributing Editor, Neurotech Reports

Jo Jo Platt brings more than 10 years experience as a neurotechnology consulant to Neurotech Reports. As the founder and president of Platt & Associates, she has helped leadership identify new opportunities, transform organizations, and build teams from the ground up. Most recently, she was a strategic development consultant for the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, where she helped identify and establish strategic partnerships in the emerging field of bioelectronic medicine and was instrumental in the launch of the Center for Bioelectronic Medicine. Previously, Jo Jo communications director for eDigital, where she managed all internal and external communications and built braand recognition through tradeshows and consumer events. Platt holds a bachelor's degree in communication and media studies from National University. She is currently the finance chair for the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Neural Engineering 2019 meeting.

Ryan Field, Ph.D., CEO, Kernel

Ryan Field is the CEO of Kernel, a neurotechnology company dedicated to building actionable insights from high-quality brain data. He previously led the Kernel Flow team and served as CTO, overseeing the concept, design, and development of the category-defining Kernel Flow brain imaging system. Ryan is an inventor with more than 20 granted US patents and a published researcher with over a decade of experience building complex sensing systems. He holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University in Electrical Engineering and previously led teams at Intel and Quanergy.

Victor Pikov, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO, Medipace, Inc.

Victor Pikov is a co-founder and CEO of Medipace Inc, a startup developing implantable neuromodulation therapies for auto-immune intestinal diseases. Victor previously worked at Galvani Bioelectronics and GlaxoSmithKline, where he oversaw development and testing of implantable pulse generators and stimulation leads for several clinical applications, including auto-immune and metabolic diseases. At the Huntington Medical Research Institutes, Victor developed neural interfaces for various chronic diseases, such as infertility, bladder paralysis, bladder spasticity/hyperreflexia, hearing and vision loss, tinnitus, obstructive sleep apnea, and obesity. At the California Institute of Technology, Victor developed optogenetic viral vectors for neuronal stimulation. Victor has several patent applications for implantable neural interfaces, closed-loop neuromodulation therapies, and non-invasive glucose measurement.

Mir Imran, Chairman & CEO, InCube Labs

Mir Imran founded InCube Labs to focus on his passion: creating medical solutions that change the standard of care in critical healthcare markets. After attending medical school, Mir began his career as a healthcare entrepreneur in the late 1970's and has founded numerous game-changing companies since those early days. Over the decades, he has become one of the leading inventors and entrepreneurs in the field. Mir now holds more than 200 issued patents and is perhaps most well known for his pioneering contributions to the first FDA-approved Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator. As an entrepreneur, Mir has founded more than 20 life sciences companies; 15 of his companies have seen "liquidity events" (IPO/Acquisition). Mir's expertise spans a wide range of clinical areas from interventional cardiology to chronic pain, obesity and CNS disorders. Mir actively collaborates with the nation's top universities on research and development including Stanford, Rutgers, Johns Hopkins, UTSW, etc. Mir also founded InCube Ventures, a life sciences venture fund, where he has led investments in a range of promising ventures. Mir sits on Boards of several life sciences companies. He holds an M.S. in bioengineering and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rutgers. He also attended CMDNJ/Rutgers Medical School.

Paul Grand, Founder and CEO,  MedTech Innovator

Paul is the founder and CEO of MedTech Innovator. He created and managed MedTech Innovator as a program within RCT Ventures from 2013 – 2016. In 2016, with the financial support of RCT and other sponsors, Paul left to run MedTech Innovator as a stand-alone company. He spent 11 years as Director and Managing Director at RCT Ventures, the investment arm of Research Corporation Technologies, Inc. Prior to RCT, Paul was co-founder and CEO of startups in the medtech, pharma, and tech sectors.

Murthy Simhambhatla, Ph.D., President and CEO, SetPoint Medical

Murthy Simhambhatla is the president and CEO of SetPoint Medical. He was formerly the president and CEO of Evolus, a medical aesthetics company with a lead biologic drug, DWP-450, which he led towards an IPO in 2018. Prior to Evolus, Dr. Simhambhatla was a senior vice president at Abbott Laboratories and president of Abbott Medical Optics, a $1B-plus global ophthalmic business focused on cataract and refractive surgery.

Kazu Okuda, M.D., Founder and CEO, Universal Brain

Kazu Okuda, is the founder and CEO of Universal Brain and is working on developing a neuroscience-based psychiatric platform to establish the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. In the psychiatry department of a university hospital, he was intensely shocked to find that the prognosis of patients varied greatly depending on the physician's skill. He founded Universal Brain to establish treatment and diagnosis based on the analysis of physiological data. At Universal Brain, he engages in developing an innovative EEG headset and algorithms to deliver better care to patients with psychiatric disorders. After graduating from medical school at the Kyushu Univesity and receiving clinical training at the University of Tokyo Hospital, he joined a medical device AI startup. He worked in the CEO/CFO's office, raising funds ($20M while in office) and driving clinical research with university hospitals. The company's product received marketing approval and reimbursement in Japan. He loves tennis, golf, traveling, cooking, and reading Goethe.

Brad Maruca, Managing Director, Medtech Strategy & Analytics, Deloitte

Brad Maruca is a Managing Director in Deloitte’s Strategy & Analytics practice focused on medtech, where he advises leaders on evidence generation, reimbursement, and market access, and data‑driven growth. He brings more than 25 years in medical technology—including 19 years in active implantable neuromodulation for chronic pain and movement disorders. Before Deloitte, Brad served as Divisional Vice President of Global Clinical Affairs at Abbott’s neuromodulation business. In that role he helped advance and globalize novel spinal cord stimulation therapies (including BurstDR), partnering with clinicians and health systems to build evidence and clinician education programs. An inventor, Brad is named on multiple U.S. patents related to neurostimulation monitoring and objective pain assessment during trial stimulation. He is a frequent speaker and author on Medtech strategy and reimbursement, with recent appearances at AdvaMed’s The MedTech Conference and contributions to industry publications.

Robert Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman and CEO, huMannity Medtec

Robert Greenberg joined huMannity (formerly Alfred Mann Foundation) in 1998, was elected Chairman of the Board of Directors in 2004 and became its Chairman and CEO in 2021. He was a co-founder and former CEO and Chairman of the Board of Second Sight Medical Products, Inc. in Los Angeles, California. Dr. Greenberg is a leader in the field of neural prosthetics—having developed and brought to market the world’s most advanced implantable neural stimulator at the time, the Argus II visual prostheses, to treat retinitis pigmentosa, a form of blindness. At Second Sight, he also oversaw the successful development and human implantation of a wireless cortical visual prosthesis, the Orion, which has the potential to treat nearly all forms of blindness and other brain diseases. Dr. Greenberg was also an Independent Director at Pulse Biosciences (NASDAQ: PLSE), a company developing therapies based on nanosecond pulsed electric field technologies for oncology and dermatology applications. He was previously a medical reviewer at the FDA’s Office of Device Evaluation. Since 2001, he has also been the Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Southern California Biomedical Council, a nonprofit trade association supporting the healthcare industry in the Greater Los Angeles region. Dr. Greenberg is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, has over 260 issued US patents and over 100 international patents, and has published over 60 articles. He received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. He has been a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and a Fellow of the IEEE.

Jason Pope, M.D., CEO, Evolve Restorative Center

Dr. Pope is the president and CEO of Evolve Restorative Center in Northern California, with offices across Sonoma county. He is the president of the California Society of Interventional Pain Physicians and serves the North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS) as an ex-officio director-at large, advocacy and policy committee co-chair, and is the annual meeting co-chair. He serves as a director at large for the International Neuromodulation Society, is the co-chair for the CME committee, the co-chair for the preconference training workshop in the biennial meeting in Sydney, Australia, and the co-chair for the young neuromodulation committee. He also is the co-founder the special interest group in neuromodulation for the American Society of Regional Anesthesia. Dr. Pope has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, while working with medical device start-up companies and established industry partners to provide strategic planning and execution for patient-centric adoption and supportive patient outcomes.

Lindsey Jardine, Vice President, Clinical, Regulatory and Quality Affairs, Adraxe Corp.

Lindsey Jardine is Vice President of Clinical, Regulatory, and Quality Affairs at Adraxe Corp., a neuromodulation company developing a minimally invasive closed-loop system for the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy. She brings more than a decade of experience guiding breakthrough Class III medical devices through complex clinical and regulatory pathways, from early feasibility through pivotal trials and global approvals. Lindsey has successfully led multiple FDA Breakthrough Designation submissions, IDE programs, and CE Marking strategies across epilepsy, cardiology, and neurostimulation technologies, contributing to more than $15 billion in aggregate company exits and IPO valuations. She is known for building high-impact clinical programs that align scientific rigor with regulatory readiness, enabling startups to accelerate development without sacrificing quality or patient safety. Beyond her work at Adraxe, Lindsey advises early-stage neurotechnology ventures, teaches clinical and regulatory strategy at biodesign workshops including Cleveland NeuroDesign, and is an active contributor to the next generation of neurotech innovation.

Mudit Jain, Ph.D., Founder and General Partner, Treo Ventures

Mudit is founding General Partner of Treo Ventures, and the CEO and co-founder of NuXcel, a medical device accelerator. Mudit also co-founded and serves as Chairman of the Board of ShiraTronics, Inc., a NuXcel spin off company. Mudit brings more than two decades of medical device industry experience across company formation, R&D, business development, and venture capital, with a global perspective on healthcare based on his experiences in the U.S., Ireland, and India. Mudit has served on the boards of several medical device companies, from early to commercial growth stage, resulting in successful IPOs and M&A transactions. Most recently, as a General Partner with Synergy Life Science Partners, Mudit delivered top quartile performance. In addition to his private venture capital experiences at Treo, and Synergy Life Science Partners, Mudit also brings a strategic investment perspective based on his tenure at Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation. Prior to his investing career, Mudit held operational roles in the Cardiac Rhythm Management Division of Guidant Corporation, and played a key role in developing novel device technologies for heart failure, remote monitoring, and cardiac ablation. Mudit also played an important role in product development for start-ups like Epicor, Inc. (acquired: St. Jude Medical), and Cardiac Pathways Corporation (acquired: Boston Scientific). Mudit holds eight issued patents and has authored several peer reviewed publications. Mudit also serves on the Board of Visitors of the Graduate School at Duke University, External Advisory Board of John Hopkins University Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design, and on the Board of One Heart Health, a healthcare focused non-profit focused on providing access to pediatric populations in underprivileged geographies. Mudit graduated with a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from REC, Nagpur, India, where he was a gold medal recipient for academic achievements. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, and his M.B.A. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Daniel Powell, CEO, Spark Biomedical Inc.

Daniel Powell has more than 20 years experience developing and selling technology-based products and has served in leadership roles in upstream and downstream marketing, business development, strategic planning, and program management. Powell launched more than 18 medical device products during his career at St. Jude Medical (now Abbott) and Cyberonics (now LivaNova). He has a wide range of experience in the the neurological disorders space including movement disorders, psychiatric disorders, and epilepsy. Additionally, Powell has in-depth experience in interventional neuromodulation technology, both implanted and external, as well as other active implantable medical technology, bio monitoring, and disease management systems. Powell now leads his own startup, Spark Biomedical, and acts as an advisor for other startups in the industry.

Ludovica Labruna, Ph.D., Founder and CEO, Magnetic Tides

Ludovica Labruna, PhD, is a neuroscientist and entrepreneur focused on non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS). Following two decades of research at UC Berkeley, Dr. Labruna and her team of multidisciplinary scientists founded Magnetic Tides to develop a novel NIBS system designed for maximum efficacy and patient comfort. This project has been supported by an innovation award (EAGER) from the National Science Foundation, an SBIR grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, and the Weill Neurohub Next Great Ideas program. As CEO of Magnetic Tides, Dr. Labruna is focused on the commercialization of kTMP, a technology with the potential to transform the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders.

Andy Gotshalk, CEO Neurologic Solutions, Inc.

Andy Gotshalk is the CEO of Neurologic Solutions, Inc., a startup company dedicated to pioneering advanced analytical solutions that revolutionize the diagnosis and treatment of patients afflicted by epilepsy and a spectrum of neurological disorders. Andy is a medical device executive with over 20 years’ experience and most recently was the founder and CEO of Blackrock Neuromed. Blackrock Neuromed was an innovative EEG technology company that developed and commercialized high definition EEG and was acquired by Natus Medical Inc. in 2017. Prior to Blackrock Neuromed, he was the CEO of Blackrock Microsystems where he successfully commercialized research products in the neurophysiology market. Prior to that, Mr. Gotshalk was responsible for sales and operations for the US Surgical Division of Haemonetics Corporation.

Pawel Soluch, CEO, Spinally Medical

Pawel Soluch is CEO and Co-Founder of Spinally, a company pioneering innovative spinal cord stimulation and recording implants. With more than 20 years of experience in clinical, scientific, and entrepreneurial domains, he is an inventor of outcome-driven medical devices for diagnostics, therapy, and research. He holds eight patents, with five products on the market, one in clinical trials, and two in pre-clinical stages. Recognized for his innovations in medtech and commitment to social responsibility, he is skilled in building companies and teams, fundraising, medical device design, and navigating regulatory and clinical trial processes. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with both neurotechnology startups and major industry players, including Medtronic, Siemens, Philips, and GE.