Elena Brondolo, MPH, MBA, EdD, Director, Future of Healthcare Residency, The Roux Institute

Elena Brondolo, MPH, MBA, EdD, is the Director of the Future of Healthcare Residency at The Roux Institute, Northeastern University. Her mission is to fast-track healthcare’s future by empowering early-stage health tech innovators. With over a decade of healthcare experience, Elena fuses her passions for healthcare innovation, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Her expertise spans experiential learning, change management, and program development.

Before joining The Roux Institute, Elena dedicated over four years to MaineHealth, initially in clinical implementation and later as a leader in innovation education and funding programs. She revamped program curricula, guided clinicians and researchers in commercializing their ideas, and fortified the innovation foundation of the health system. Preceding her time at MaineHealth, Elena spent four years at Columbia University Medical Center/New York Presbyterian, focusing on patient flow, behavioral medicine research, and organizational development. During her tenure, she co-founded a consulting company offering evidence-based leadership and organizational development support for academic medical research groups.

Elena’s people-first approach to program development and partnerships is rooted in her background in Organizational Psychology. She holds an MBA and MPH concentrating in entrepreneurship, change management, and health policy, and recently earned her EdD in Learning, Leadership, and Innovation from Northeastern University. Her doctoral research explored strategies for catalyzing healthcare innovation during the pandemic, translating these strategies into action through experiential learning for large systems.

Kate Howell, Director of Workforce Partnerships, Educate Maine

Kate Howell has worked in Human Resources and leadership roles throughout her career. Prior to joining Educate Maine, Kate was HR Generalist at a biotech company in Portland focusing on recruitment, career development, and university relations. She led the national university relations program and brings a wealth of knowledge in the area of internship programming and university partnerships. Before moving to Maine, Kate worked in New York City and Washington, DC across a variety of industries and non-profit organizations. Kate holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from Syracuse University and a SCP certification from the Society for Human Resources Management.

Basant Paradis, Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist, R&D, IDEXX

Originally from southern Georgia, Basant obtained her BS in Chemistry from Georgia Southern University in 1998. She then joined International Paper’s Chemical Products Division, Arizona Chemical (now Kraton Polymers) in Savannah, Georgia where she worked in new product development. She left to attend the University of Maine where she obtained her MS in Chemical Engineering in 2001. Upon graduation, she joined Georgia Pacific Corporation in Old Town, Maine where she worked as a Process Engineer and supported process development initiatives. She left corporate America to be an entrepreneur owning several different types of businesses. She also taught Chemistry at the collegiate level for 4 years. In 2016, she joined F-O-R-T-U-N-E Personnel Consultants of Bangor as the Director of Recruiting, Specialty Chemicals. Her recruiting focus was working with chemical, biotech, and paper companies finding research and development scientists and engineers. In August of 2021, she joined IDEXX as a Senior Talent Acquisition Specialist where she finds scientists and engineers for the Innovation Team. She truly enjoys working with candidate to help them find the best fit within the organization, and she equally enjoys working with hiring managers to find the best fit candidates for their teams. She currently lives in Old Town, Maine with her husband, Mark, their two children, Andre and Olivia, their two 2 dogs, May and Abby, their cat, Piper, and their two juvenile red-foot tortoises, Scarlett and Bowser.

Bryan Bozsik, Senior Director of Quality, Covetrus

Bryan Bozsik is an experienced quality aDurante and regulatory affairs leader with over 15 years of expertise in the in vitro diagnostic, medical device, analytical testing laboratory, and pharmacy compounding industries. He has successfully led organizational quality systems through growth and merger, and guided companies through complex regulatory changes. Bryan has held leadership roles in large multinational companies including Abbott Laboratories, Alere, and Covetrus, where he currently is Sr. Director of Quality.

Jess Davis-Knowlton, PhD, Senior Research Scientist, BBI Solutions

Currently working as a Senior Research Scientist at BBI, Portland, Jess Davis-Knowlton has had a circuitous route to biotech industry. Her path has skirted med school, danced with Drosophila courtship, traversed a cross-state graduate program, moonlighted with Microbiology instruction, and touched down as part of a team building new antibody products.

Tom Snyder, CEO and Co-Founder, Medtech Startup

Tom is a medical device leader, startup founder and mentor. He has led product development and commercialization teams at large and small companies (3M, ACIST Medical and Lighthouse Imaging). As the CEO of Lighthouse Imaging, Tom built a high performing team, improved financial performance and positioned the company for acquisition. He is currently active in the medical device startup space and enjoys the challenge of turning concepts into successful products.