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National Security
Entrepreneurs-in-Residence

The National Security Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (NS-EIR) was launched in May 2022 to expand the current Entrepreneur in Residence Program to entrepreneurs with National Security experience. Each participant was selected based on their experience in the National Security sector, professional network, technical expertise, and current leadership role in the commercial sector.  The benefit for UC San Diego is the ability to tap into this cadre of professionals versed in both the National Security and commercial sectors.

During the year, each NS-EIR will develop close ties with our inventors, entrepreneurs, students, and staff from our innovation and commercialization team to further develop our most impactful technologies. We hope to identify dual-technology opportunities that may be appropriate for startups or new business products and involvement is typically oriented to a range of activities including, but not limited to:

  • Providing guidance to faculty, student entrepreneurs, and accelerators to foster startup formation
  • Engaging with UC San Diego inventors to share commercial and industry development perspectives
  • Speaking on campus about  areas of expertise through lectures, workshops, panel discussions, or  departmental presentations

Check out news corresponding to the National Security Entrepreneurs in Residence program.

2022 NS-EIR Profiles- Cohort 1

 

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Phaly Pichota

Phaly is a CEO/Co-founder of Cibus Health, a nutritition focused, tech platofrm for caregivers and clinicians to support patients recovering from post-clinical settings. Currently USAF Reserve Major in healthcare management.

 

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Ellen M. Chang

Ellen is head of H4X Labs, a division of BMNT. In this position, she leads this mission driven/dual-use accelerator that works with government and corporate partners to solve key challenges, often around building up national competitiveness. It has launched initiatives such as Hacking for Allies and has worked with SBIR programs, coalescing partners to come together to accelerate solutions to challenges in these domains. Ellen is also a space domain investor and enthusiast, and runs Syndicate 708, a Deep tech investment syndicate. She has invested in and supported over twenty space-domain startups and actively advises while also conducting research and speaking about the space sector. Prior to BMNT, Ellen was VP Operations/Commercial Products for Cognitive Medical Systems, a Healthcare IT company that serviced the Veterans Administration. In this role, she led the finance, contracting and services delivery of this $15M company. She led the accounting function ensuring the company passed a GAAP audit on an annual basis and laid in operational processes to improve the development of market entry strategies for the clinical decision support system that Cognitive is developing. Ellen started her career as an officer in the U.S. Navy where she served as an intelligence officer. She later joined JP Morgan where, as a banker, she worked with the aerospace team, and, for a short period, in a pilot group that facilitated investing in start-ups. Amidst the dot-com era, Ellen founded a start-up in the aviation industry where the team focused on building a B2B aviation part sourcing and brokerage focused on business jets. On the heels of the dot-com-bust, Ellen was recalled into the Navy to support Desert Storm II. Following this recall, she jointed Northrop Grumman. During her 12 years at Northrop Grumman, she held positions as a systems engineer and program manager. Her work included design and development of autonomous systems ranging from the Global Hawk to the Unmanned Carrier-based unmanned aerial system.

 

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Ian M. Cameron

Ian is an operational and strategic leader for early stage technology startups. He currently leads operations for Treeswift, a startup which uses drones to map forests. He previously served as a Marine Infantry officer with operational deployments to the South Pacific and Afghanistan.

 

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Paul L. Wynns

Paul Wynns has worked in aviation and aerospace his entire career. His experience spans military to startup to the world’s largest aerospace company, where he and his industry teams were awarded patents for their prototyping work. Paul's academic background includes a MS in Aero / Astro from Stanford University, and a BS in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy. He recently completed an MBA at the UC San Diego Rady School of Management and is currently enrolled as a Ph.D. student there. His research applies principles from psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral economics to design problems in defense and emerging advanced aerial mobility (AAM) industries. Paul is the co-founder of Flex Air, a flight school that will deploy the world's first all-electric training aircraft. Former Navy F-18 Pilot.

 

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Daniel L. Murphy

With a diverse 30+ year professional background spanning military operations, military and healthcare recruitment/staffing, Federal and state government contracting, home healthcare operations, and software Product Management, Daniel is both adept and comfortable in new and challenging environments. In 2018 he leveraged this professional experience to Co-Found healthAlign, a benefit management company for insurance plans. The company has since been acquired and was recently noted as one of the "Top 5 AgeTech companies to watch for 2022". Former US Army Sergant Major.

 

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Marcos A. Ruvalcaba

Marcos Ruvalcaba currently Bunker Labs Veteran in Residence and SCORE Mentor. A retired USMC intelligence officer with more than 22 years of service providing leadership, operational planning to crisis and contingency readiness. He is well versed in joint, operational, and tactical doctrine in intelligence, planning, operations, exercises, assessments, and readiness. He has effectively led multiple-sized unilateral and multinational teams in support of real-world missions and high-level exercises.

 

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Michael A. Moreno

Michael Moreno covers Space and National Security on the Worldwide Public Sector VC and Startups team at AWS. He advises startups primarily on go to market and fundraising strategy. Mike co-founded two startups in Dubai and has advised investors in space, defense, digital health, sustainability, cybersecurity, and adjacent markets. He also co-founded and leads the AWS Space Accelerator. Mike worked previously at Viasat, where he led qualitative market intelligence & strategy. Prior to working in tech, Mike served for over a decade in the US Government. He was as an Operations Officer in the Central Intelligence Agency, and has held positions in the Department of Defense and Department of State, as well as managing training at the FBI Academy. Mike has an MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, a Master’s in International Affairs from Columbia University, and a BA in Organizational Studies from Pitzer College.

 

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Elliot D. Schroeder

Colonel Elliot Schroeder is the Los Angeles City Lead responsible for the region of Southern California, Nevada, and Hawaii for the 75th US Army Reserve (USAR) Innovation Command in its efforts to identify decisive technologies for the Warfighter in direct support of Army Futures Command. COL Schroeder has recently been centrally selected to command the 372nd Engineer Brigade in Fort Snelling, Minnesota. COL Schroeder is a distinguished graduate (top 10%) of the US Army War College. He is a graduate of the Advanced Operations Course, Intermediate Level Education (Command and General Staff College), the Infantry Captains Career Course, and the Engineer Officer Basic Course. He has a Master’s in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of California San Diego Rady School and a Bachelor’s of Science in Strategic History with a Systems Engineering minor from the United States Military Academy at West Point. In his civilian occupation, COL Schroeder is the CEO of Axionix LLC. A San Diego company that designs enterprise systems for defense applications. Previously, he was a Special Projects (Weapons and Payloads) Program Manager for the Army’s Gray Eagle MQ-1C unmanned aircraft system at General Atomics.

 

 

Interested in working with or becoming a more general entrepreneur-in-residence? Learn more about our Entrepreneurs-in-Residence.

 

Open Call for 2022-23 NS-EIR program (CLOSED)

Each year UC San Diego invites inquiries for the following year's National Security Entrepreneur-In-Residence program. We’re looking for enthusiastic, successful entrepreneurs to help our students and faculty develop their ideas, advise teams on the road ahead, and potentially find your next company. 

Submit Interest Form

Scope

Each year, we anticipate opportunities for 5-10 entrepreneurs beginning in March. Successful EIRs must be able to commit time, energy, and advising insight to teams within our innovation ecosystem. In practice, this can mean spending time at office hours to meet with entrepreneurs or inventors, speaking at events, serving as a judge for competitions, or lecturing for certificate or bootcamp courses. The fact is that this is an open-ended approach for EIRs with well defined outcomes - the formation of start-ups at UC San Diego.

Objectives

The EIR program is designed to accelerate new venture creation in San Diego. This is a hands-on program that partners alumni and other seasoned entrepreneurs with campus innovators to develop new startups.

EIRs have access to a portfolio of high-potential opportunities, resources, people and programs. You’ll have significant autonomy to develop commercialization strategies, consult with campus innovators, and contribute to the entrepreneurial culture. Depending on your interests, you might:

  • guide early-stage entrepreneurs and researchers
  • hold office hours
  • participate in demo days, programs and events
  • make professional connections
  • serve as a guest lecturer
  • act as an advocate for UC San Diego entrepreneurship

EIRs will be asked to report quarterly on the progress of opportunities, engagement with campus resources, and other community-building activities. You’ll also engage with fellow EIRs and campus innovation leaders as a domain expert.

Ideal Fit for EIR

We’re looking for experienced entrepreneurs who are excited about the energy on campus. Ideal candidates will be driven to identify and solve problems independently, with a demonstrated ability to work with students and/or researchers--particularly engineers, scientists and healthcare professionals. Typically, you’ve played a key role in starting one or more companies and been intimately involved in raising series A funds and beyond.

Success in this program is measured by the number of technologies evaluated, new companies formed, funds raised, teams advised, and introductions made, in addition to community engagement.

Those selected will be expected to:

  • comply with university IP and conflict-of-interest policies (you may not enter into direct fee-based arrangements with campus companies during your residency)
  • submit quarterly updates on activities
  • Agree to the expectations of the program and the innovator's agreement

EIRs are asked to sign an agreement and to acknowledge the program expectations with signature. Given the open approach and individualized structure of the program, these documents enable a freer flow of information among our EIRs, teams, faculty, and students.

As long as you are able to spend regular time on campus, San Diego residency is not required.

Tracks

  • Medical Device Technology
  • Drug or Therapeutic Development
  • Energy, Transporation & Smart Cities
  • Blue Technology (Marine, Oceans, Rivers, etc)
  • Defense: Dual-Use Technologies
  • Social Impact (Education, Political Science & the Arts)
  • Software Engineering and Applications
  • Life Sciences (Biome, Biologics, Food & Nutriceuticals)
  • Pitch, Media & Product Development
  • Agriculture & Environmental
  • Other - as needs and fit appropriate

Resources

You’ll also receive an initial campus orientation, access to licensing staff and invention portfolios, and introductions to university resources, entrepreneurs, and researchers. Other perks include free access to special events, invitations to private industry/university functions, and inclusion on university-wide committees for advancing the development of the innovation ecosystem.

We find that many entrepreneurs don’t want a lot of hand-holding, but we’ll be here to make your life easier however we can! This also includes a special permit addition for your purchased parking pass that allows greater access to campus on official university business.

Selection Criteria

We value all experience but prioritize substantial entrepreneurial experience, relevant industry knowledge, ability to communicate, leadership, and understanding of university systems and culture. If you have not already, please fill out the interest from or copy and paste this link: 
https://forms.gle/Z8kSkZswMdymdkzm6.

 

 

How to Inquire

Expressions of interest are always invited. To help us understand your background, we welcome hearing about past company successes, fundraising, and any experience with mentoring or education as it relates to National Security.

We’ll follow up with select candidates. For questions, please contact eirprogram@ucsd.edu.

Schedule an Appointment

EIRs enjoy meeting UC San Diego inventors and learning about technologies at all stages of development. Faculty, researchers, postdocs, students, and staff are invited to schedule introductory conversations. For questions about the program, or to schedule a meeting, contact eirprogram@ucsd.edu.