Who we are

Gary is co-founder and senior advisor at Humatics; he served as company president for four years. He has 30-plus years of experience as a corporate executive, lawyer, and intellectual property strategist.

Before co-founding Humatics, Gary had worked with leading technology companies focusing on early-stage and advanced research and development and has held significant positions at paradigm-changing organizations, including Genetics Institute, Genzyme Transgenics, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Foundation Medicine.

From 2006-2008, Gary was the Joe and Vi Jacobs Visiting Professor of Biotechnology Law and Ethics at the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont, California. Gary studied at Washington University in St. Louis (AB), Columbia Law School (JD) and the Boston University School of Public Health (MPH), where he is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board and chairman of idea hub’s Advisory Board.

Cris joined Sanofi Ventures as Partner, Global Head of Digital Investments in 2020. His 15+ year track record consists of building and launching emerging technologies, startups and innovation platforms for some of the largest organizations in the world.

Prior to Sanofi, Cris was a founding team member of J&J Innovation and Global Head of Digital Innovation since 2013. He held chief digital and data responsibilities, driving strategy and external tech collaborations throughout J&J’s Innovation Centers, JLABS incubators and JJDC corporate ventures across the Pharmaceutical, Consumer and Medical Device businesses.

With entrepreneurial DNA, Cris is most notably known for his role in the innovation economy since Co-Founding Ultra Light Startups, the oldest and largest startup-investor pitch accelerator in Boston and New York City with additional chapters in Silicon Valley and London. ULS accelerated 700+ bootstrapping startups with 26% having gone on to raise angel/venture funding, leading to several large-scale acquisitions by companies such as Apple, Trip Advisor and Singapore Telecom.

Cris holds a Master of Science in Computer Information Systems from Boston University and a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Suffolk University. In 2016, Cris was named among the Top 50 Global Influencers in Digital Health by Onalytica. He is a recipient of multiple further healthcare innovation awards, including 40 under 40 Innovator by the Boston Business Journal in 2015, and Top 40 Healthcare Transformer by MM&M Magazine in 2019.

Cris currently serves on the board of Click Therapeutics as well as the advisory boards of the American Telemedicine Association, SXSW Health, MassBio Connect, Voice by Amazon Alexa and idea hub at the Boston University School of Public Health.

Dr. England enjoyed a national and inter-national career as a child psychiatrist upon getting her degree from the Boston University School of Medicine. She was the first commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services, associate dean and director of the Lucius N. Littauer Master in Public Administration Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, VP of Prudential, and president of the Washington Business Group on Health.

An expert on health care and mental health parity, Dr. England chaired the IOM committee on parental depression and its effect on children and other family members. She continues to serve on Mrs. Rosalynn Carter’s Task Force on Mental Health at the Carter Center, and is a past member of the IOM board of directors on children and families. Most recently, she chaired the IOM Committee on Developing Evidence-based Standards for Psychosocial Interventions of Mental and Substance Use Disorders.

As president of Regis College for 10 years, she oversaw transformative change by taking the historic undergraduate women’s college into coeducation, and building its graduate programs, notably health care professions.

Dr. England is board member for NSF International that tests and certifies products to verify they meet public health and safety standards. She also serves on the board of directors of 180 Health Partners, focusing on opioid-addicted mothers and their babies. Dr. England is currently chairing the search committee for Associate Dean of Practice.

Dr. Susan Garfield has been in the Life Science industry for almost twenty years, twelve of which she has spent in a professional consulting capacity on the market access needs of clients. Currently, Dr. Garfield heads the Commercial Market Excellence function within the Life Science advisory commercial practice at Ernst & Young.

Dr. Garfield specializes in helping life science companies optimize the value propositions of their innovations and maximize launch opportunities. Previous to Ernst & Young, Garfield was the Executive Vice President; Healthcare Consulting Services at GfK, where she led their US Market Access practice which spanned pharma, biotech, medical device, diagnostic and specialty pharma clients.

Working across all major markets, Dr. Garfield helps clients to navigate complex healthcare systems and optimize launch planning by understanding systems and incentives. By mentoring team members, Dr. Garfield is helping to develop the next generation of consulting leaders at Ernst & Young. She is also a regular speaker and published writer on the future of commercial life sciences. In addition, she sits on several boards, including Boston University School of Public Health and Temple Shir Tikva, along with several other service roles.

Dr. Garfield holds a Doctor of Public Health from Boston University, a Master of Science Health Policy and Management from Harvard University, a Master of Science in Population Development from London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Arts in English and Women’s Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Bob is a health tech entrepreneur who develops and delivers new technologies to improve health care.  Bob led product development for Amwell for hundreds of health system clients and millions of users, culminating in the company’s successful IPO in 2020. Prior to joining Amwell, Bob was a founding member of Digital Cognition Technologies where he managed design and development of new products that use digital signals to detect cognitive impairment. Bob started his career in management consulting with Opera Solutions, has experience as a health policy analyst with the New England Journal of Medicine, and has worked closely throughout his career with non-profit organizations like the American Diabetes Association in the U.S. and abroad. He is a member of the Alumni Council for Boston University and serves as the Chair of the Alumni Leadership Council for the School of Public Health. Bob earned his BS in Health Science and MPH in Health Management and Policy both from Boston University.

Travis McCready has over 25 years of experience leading public, private, and nonprofit ventures that advance economic, community and public policy goals. A lawyer by training, Travis recently began building a boutique health care and health tech advisory practice based in Boston, MA, working with start-up and scale-up clients to transform health care delivery and drive economic impact in the US.

Travis has held key executive leadership positions at numerous institutions across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, including President & CEO of the $1.6 billion life sciences funding agency Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, VP of Programs & Community Investments at the Boston Foundation, Executive Director of the Kendall Square Association, and COO & CFO of the Massachusetts Convention Center Authority.

Travis is the co-chair of the Academic Institute Advisory Board at Atrius Health, the largest independent physician-led healthcare organization in the Northeast. He also serves on the boards of business accelerators MassChallenge and Lever, the Conservation Law Foundation, and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. He has served on the Economic Development Planning Council under two governors, and has been appointed to serve on statewide initiatives ranging from the arts to advanced manufacturing. He is passionate about growing the innovation economy in second- and third-tier cities across the US, and developing a new system to deliver better, more cost-efficient and compassionate health care to seniors 65+.

A native of Brooklyn, NY, Travis received his B.A. from Yale University, and J.D. from the University of Iowa.

Edward Melia has more than 25 years’ experience spanning global business management, strategy consulting, entrepreneurship, venture capital, private equity and mergers & acquisitions. In his career, Edward has focused on disruptive innovation with specific sector proficiency in life sciences and technology.

Edward currently serves as Managing Director of Evolution Global Growth Partners. He and his associates provide advisory services to improve the health, growth and profitability of private and public life science companies. The Evolution team helps client companies expand revenues, increase profit, and enhance enterprise value via new product development and launch, expansion into new global markets, and strategic mergers and acquisitions.

In addition to his leadership role at Evolution GGP, Edward sits on various boards at private sector life science companies and is active in supporting and driving innovation and discovery as an early stage investor and with major science and research institutions.

Azin leads the Innovation team at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Her team is responsible for building a culture of continuous corporate innovation. Their strategy is to generate and implement new ideas, build internal and external connections, support all business units as innovators, and build a culture to nurture creative people. The Vertex Innovation team has launched successful innovation tournaments and partners with business units to integrate innovative ideas into the core business.

Azin’s passion is to create intersections and to explore possibilities where art, culture, literature and technology meet science. In addition to her role as a strategic planner, she hosts a popular event known as T@3 (tea at three), where she invites creative minds, dreamers, and thinkers to mingle and exchange ideas with Vertex employees over a cup of tea.

Azin is a biophysicist by training and prior to taking on her current role she was responsible for starting a biophysics lab at Vertex to help drive drug discovery projects across diverse therapeutic areas. She has trained numerous scientists along the way and helped college interns build successful careers.

Azin is a passionate advocate of environmental conservation and the arts in Boston and sits on the board of the Boston Ballet and the Conservation Law Foundation.

Azin earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins University and followed it with a postdoctoral fellowship at Dana Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School.

Philip Reilly joined Third Rock Ventures in 2008. He focuses on creating and building companies that develop breakthrough therapies for orphan genetic diseases. He is passionate about working with patient groups, and helping to unite those suffering from rare diseases in order to foster a support network and potentially improve patient outcomes. He has served on the boards of Edimer Pharmaceuticals and Lotus Tissue Repari, Inc.

In 2010, Reilly helped to found bluebird bio Inc., a gene therapy company; and from 2010 to 2012, he served as its chief medical officer. More recently, Reilly has been a founder of Voyager Therapeutics and Fulcrum Therapeutics, a company that focuses on gene regulation.

Prior to joining Third Rock Ventures, Reilly was CEO and Chairman of the board of Interleukin Genetics, Inc. He was also the Executive Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center for Mental Retardation, Inc., and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. Reilly has served twice as president of the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics. He served on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Human Genetics. He is founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics.

Reilly was a trustee of Cornell University from 2006 to 2014. He also serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council of the Boston University School of Public Health. He is the author of seven books about human genetics and more than 100 articles, many about public policy issues in genetics. Reilly holds an MD from Yale University, a JD from Columbia University, and an AB from Cornell University.

Michael Taylor previously worked at Aon and served as a strategist and thought leader to Fortune 500 clients both employer and provider. He led a Delivery Transformation Team within Aon designed to create and offer business solutions for employers and providers as they navigate the changing landscape of health care delivery under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Prior to Joining Aon, Taylor was a Senior Vice President at OptumHealth where he evaluated growth strategies and emerging healthcare trends and aligned them with the current and future strategic needs of the major healthcare stakeholders. Before that he was a Principal at Towers Perrin where he headed up the Global Healthcare Practice, the Health and Welfare Specialty Practice, and was a member of the Health and Welfare Leadership Group. He also served as Director of Managed Care at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company and has more than 13 years of hospital and HMO operational experience.

Taylor has taught at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, St. John’s University and Queens College in New York City, and the University of Southern California. Most recently he taught a professional development course at BUSPH. Taylor has been a faculty member of multiple AHIP educational sessions and has made numerous presentations at conferences and business meetings. He was a member of the board of Minuteman Health, a non-profit health insurance plan operating in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. He currently serves as an expert panel member for Leavitt Partners and is on the board of the King’s College London Business School.

Taylor earned a Master of Arts in Healthcare Administration from Stony Brook, a Master of Science in Biochemistry from Stony Brook, and Bachelor of Science in Molecular Biology from King’s College in London.

Sandro Galea, a physician, epidemiologist, and author, is dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He previously held academic and leadership positions at Columbia University, the University of Michigan, and the New York Academy of Medicine.

He has published extensively in the peer-reviewed literature and is a regular contributor to a range of public media, about the social causes of health, mental health, and the consequences of trauma. He has been listed as one of the most widely cited scholars in the social sciences. He is chair of the board of the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health and past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and of the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Galea has received several lifetime achievement awards. Galea holds a medical degree from the University of Toronto, graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Glasgow.

Michael McClean is the Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Advancement and a Professor of Environmental Health at the Boston University School of Public Health. He is responsible for the strategy and implementation of the School’s sponsored research program and oversees the School’s portfolio of faculty advancement initiatives, ensuring that faculty are put in the best possible position to be successful.

McClean joined the SPH faculty in 2004 after earning a MS degree and ScD in environmental health at the Harvard School of Public Health. His research interests focus on the use of biological markers to assess environmental and occupational exposures and investigate exposure-related disease. He has overseen the exposure assessment component of many large-scale research projects, has published over 140 peer-reviewed journal articles, and directs two NIEHS training programs. Currently, he is investigating an epidemic of chronic kidney disease among Central American workers, as well as the long-term neurological consequences of exposure to head impacts.