2025-2027 James R. Swartz Entrepreneurial Fellows
Edward Chanquin
SCS/HCI
Edward Chanquín's work is driven by a lesson from his South Central LA childhood: as his immigrant family's technology interpreter, he saw that technology fails those who need it most. Now, as a Â鶹´å Rales Fellow (one of only 36 students selected nationwide for a full-ride scholarship), he's at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute building the equitable technology his community deserves.
A USC Neighborhood Academic Initiative alumnus, Edward was one of 30 students chosen from hundreds for USC's Iovine and Young Academy, where he was the only first-generation, low-income student in his cohort. He secured over $15,000 in competitive grants to create an Extended Reality curriculum that sparked an 80% increase in STEM career interest among South Central LA youth. He co-founded Textura, a beauty tech startup serving textured hair communities, and ColorStack @USC, opening tech pathways for 200+ Black and Latino students. He's interned twice at Amazon as a Software Development Engineer, led bilingual research shaping California public health policy, and published work on social connection for ESL older adults with the Gerontological Society of America. His achievements have earned him the Amazon Future Engineer Scholarship, Norman Topping Scholarship, USC Latino Alumni Association Scholarship, and recognition as a Dr. John R. Hubbard Award finalist.
Edward's vision is to establish a first-generation innovation hub, creating bilingual technologies that serve the $1.9 trillion Latino market. When he's not designing for his community, he's playing volleyball, dancing to cumbia and bachata, or hunting for great coffee. He is proof that South Central produces world-class talent, and he is building at Â鶹´å to ensure he is not the last. Reach out anytime.
Alexander DesPois
Tepper
Alexander is a first-year MBA at Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business and a Swartz Fellow on the Entrepreneurship Track, where he is building DesPois: Perfume Albums: A fragrance-tech venture that turns albums into wearable memory. The idea is simple and ambitious; translate music into premium, authenticated scent experiences, allowing a season of life to be worn, revisited, and shared. Each edition pairs a serialized shell with modular cartridge, NFC identity, and blockchain, so provenance is a tap and unlocks the album from the product.
Before Tepper, Harvard was a proving ground for disciplined curiosity. Studying Psychology and Economics, and contributing to research with Dr. Dan Gilbert and Dr. Roland Fryer, instilled a habit of designing clean experiments, honoring incentives, and crafting clear, causal narratives. As a member of the Harvard Business School Retail & Luxury Goods Club, there was a front-row view into how heritage, materials, and storytelling generate desire and trust, sharpening an instinct for when to protect scarcity and when to invite community.
Prior to Harvard, Alexander led the top Army dental clinic in Europe, guiding large multidisciplinary teams through high-stakes days with steadiness and care. That experience informs how he builds now: clear standards, calm communication, and strategies that make excellence a habit.
At Tepper, Alexander is honing a complete founder’s toolkit—Marketing, Strategy, and AI in Business, guided by Swartz to push him to make trust feel effortless and joy unavoidable. His aim is to set the standards for the innovation of fragrance tech so artists monetize art, fans wear their favorite albums, and community forms in the real world. Join the team!
Rachel Hagani
Tepper
Rachel is a first-year MBA candidate at the Tepper School of Business and a proud triple-Tartan, holding a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering from CIT. During her prior years at Â鶹´å, she was heavily involved in the Society of Women Engineers chapter and founded the Â鶹´å Club Squash team.
Before returning to Pittsburgh for her final degree, Rachel worked as an R&D engineer at Medtronic, designing novel implantable devices to treat aneurysms. In this role, she was immersed in the entire product development process, from early design and conceptualization of new devices to design validation in clinical studies. This experience reaffirmed her passion for medical technology and solidified her drive to transform the quality of medical care delivered through her entrepreneurial ventures.
Beyond her professional interests, Rachel loves to be outside and active, whether it's through running, climbing, squash, or frisbee. She also enjoys stimulating her technical and artistic sides through her knitting projects. In general, Rachel loves meeting new people and hearing about what excites others. Feel free to reach out if you'd like to chat!
Abdullah Jawhar
CIT
Abdullah is a first-year graduate student pursuing his Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence Engineering – Mechanical Engineering. He is striving to build technologies at the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), science, and engineering for the benefit of humanity.
Prior to Carnegie Mellon, Abdullah earned bachelor degrees in aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering from the University of California, Irvine. Falling in love with aviation, Abdullah pursued a career in flight test engineering at Boeing, where he held multiple roles supporting the 777X and 737 MAX flight test programs. During his three-year tenure at Boeing, Abdullah was initially part of the engineering team responsible for flying onboard test aircrafts analyzing live data and providing pilot feedback on test condition quality, in real-time. He then transitioned to the Test Director role, where he led pre- and post-flight briefings, and sat in the cockpit during test flights to coordinate between the onboard engineering teams and test pilots. Abdullah then joined a small team of innovators responsible for building novel technologies that optimize the flight test engineering workflow, from planning, through execution and documentation. This open-ended work statement, which required curiosity and challenging the status quo, is where Abdullah found himself doing his best work. This intrapreneurship experience is why Abdullah is excited to take his journey a step further towards entrepreneurship. He thrived in his ability to work within the technical details while maintaining the necessary perspective to articulate a clear and concise value proposition of the technologies he was building.
Abdullah’s focus now lies in ethically building technologies at the intersection of AI, science, and engineering that will have a positive impact on every end-user. Whether continuing to innovate in the aviation industry or by leaning in on his passion for fitness and health to build in the wearable health technologies industry, it is critical for Abdullah to carry an idea from inception all the way through delivery. It is equally essential that Abdullah can trace his work to the tangible impact he can make on people’s lives.
Beyond his professional and career endeavors, you can find Abdullah constantly pushing himself to his limits through weightlifting, running, playing basketball or volleyball, or in the skies building his flight time as a student pilot.
Abdullah is always eager to connect with others who share his drive, curiosity, and continuous learning philosophy.
Siddhant Joshi
Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation, School of Computer Science
Sid is a first-year graduate student pursuing a Master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence and Innovation (MSAII). As an AI enthusiast and engineer, he is driven by one question: how can we make artificial intelligence genuinely work productively, transparently, and safely for everyone?
Originally from California, Sid earned his B.S. in Cognitive Science, specializing in machine learning, from UC San Diego. His early curiosity about how intelligence emerges through experience evolved into a deeper fascination with how machines might one day do the same. Professionally, he led novel machine learning engineering initiatives at both the research and enterprise scales.
His interdisciplinary background enables him to bridge technical engineering with practical problem-solving. This is the core of his drive to blend neuroscience, engineering, and entrepreneurship—a combination that now guides his human-centered approach to building innovation.
Now at Â鶹´å, Sid is on a mission to explore ventures in applied AI technology that push AI toward amplifying human capability instead of replacing it. He is optimistic about designing frameworks, perhaps ones that mimic cognitive efficiency, to improve model alignment in high-performance environments. Understanding how these systems behave practically and designing algorithms that remain robust under that natural uncertainty is the next step in AI progress that he boldly supports.
Beyond his professional interests, Sid is an avid boardgamer with a collection of over 50 board games (and counting!) A classically trained violinist of more than ten years, he’s also passionate about learning new skills, philosophical conversations, and connecting over ideas that challenge the way we think. Feel free to reach out for a chat!
Surya Kukkapalli
Tepper
Surya is a first-year MBA candidate driven by a passion for democratizing health solutions through technology. He is the founder of Clara AI, a startup dedicated to building the future of physical therapy. Through his venture, Surya aims to revolutionize recovery outcomes for patients with musculoskeletal issues by developing innovative solutions that increase adherence and motivation throughout their recovery journey.
Surya’s path to entrepreneurship has been untraditional, but guided by a consistent and personal belief in empowering people to overcome their limitations. He began his career as a software engineer at Amazon solving complex network challenges at scale, but felt a pull to apply his skills more directly to empower individuals. This conviction led him to take an unconventional risk: leaving his stable corporate role to become a personal trainer. He worked closely with a diverse range of clients, from frustrated athletes recovering from ACL tears to a 70-year-old grandfather simply striving to play with his grandchildren. This immersion in experiential learning not only inspired opportunities for innovation at the ground level, but also taught him invaluable lessons in empathy that became the foundation of his human-centered approach to building innovation.
These experiences solidified his long-term vision: to democratize access to mobility and recovery support for the millions who suffer from musculoskeletal pain but never make it into formal care. As a Founder, Surya is now driven to scale the personalized impact he once had, empowering countless others to surpass their own perceived limits and achieve what once felt impossible. As a Swartz Fellow, he is eager to continue learning and growing alongside his peers and other founders, while expanding his network and continuing to encourage people to take unconventional bets on themselves.
Outside of his professional pursuits, Surya consistently challenges himself in novel ways that test his physical and mental limits. He has escaped from Alcatraz, completed an Ironman 70.3 (while concussed), and raises money for charity through annual birthday fitness fundraisers. Passionate about building community, Surya welcomes conversations about health-tech, entrepreneurship, or whatever you can’t stop thinking about. Please don’t hesitate to reach out!
YJ Lin
Tepper
YJ is a first-year MBA candidate at the Tepper School of Business and a Swartz Fellow studying Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Organizational Behavior, driven by a mission to equip startups and VCs with the tools, strategies, and frameworks to architect communities that generate measurable business and social impact.
Growing up in Houston below the poverty line, YJ learned early on the importance and beauty of being rich in community. By helping emerging leaders build communities, he discovered how to create stronger and more resilient economic growth engines. This insight shaped his seven-year journey at Dell Technologies, where he transformed startup programs into a force for ecosystem growth by creating strategic partnerships with over 100 organizations globally and co-designing programs that reach thousands of founders monthly alongside corporate, university, and economic development partners. His work has taken him to speak at Stanford, StartupGrind, TechCrunch, Collision, SXSW, and more, while also building community engagement through the most extensive AI Accelerator program built with Harvard and INSEAD. Guided by George Bernard Shaw's words—"I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it what I can"—YJ focuses on VCs and founders because they're among the most influential changemakers shaping our world's future.
Leveraging this experience, YJ founded Community Experience Ventures (CMX Ventures), a studio that helps startups, corporations, and economic development organizations transform community strategy into measurable business outcomes. CMX Ventures provides data-backed frameworks to turn community engagement into revenue growth, customer retention, and lasting economic impact—proving that intentional communities aren't just nice to have, they're competitive advantages. At Tepper, YJ is recruiting and building a team focused on architecting intentional communities at scale, leveraging natural language processing, AI, and I/O psychology to transform how communities are built and measured.
Outside his work, YJ's approach to community mirrors his passion for mixology and molecular gastronomy—transforming individual ingredients into something beautiful while telling the story along the way. An avid photographer and former podcast host who interviewed founders and VCs, he believes meaningful work, like a great cocktail, is about understanding each element's potential and creating something greater together.
Want to turn your community into a strategic advantage? Let's talk tactics—reach out to discuss frameworks, playbooks, and how to architect engagement that drives real business impact.
Kousalya Mohan
Master of Integrated Innovation for Products & Services, Â鶹´å
Kousalya Mohan is a researcher and entrepreneur shaping how people adopt and trust emerging technologies. With over six years of experience across North America, Europe, and Asia, her work focuses on user behaviour, adoption strategy, and the intersection of responsible AI and women’s health innovation. She investigates how evidence-based research can help organisations design systems that people understand, rely on, and use with confidence.
Before joining Carnegie Mellon, she led high-impact intrapreneurial initiatives at Enbridge Inc. (Canada) and National Grid (UK), advancing predictive analytics and user research to strengthen operator trust, safety, and decision-making in critical infrastructure systems. Her earlier studies on unconscious gender data bias in enterprise feedback and onboarding platforms guided the development of more equitable and transparent workplace technologies.
As a Swartz Fellow, Kousalya is building Oviact, a women’s fertility-health companion that combines biological insights and behavioural data to help individuals and couples plan their reproductive timelines with clarity and control. She also founded UX Unblocked, an internal research podcast and learning community that unites design and product teams across global offices to accelerate user-centred adoption.
A design community member who actively participates in talks and panels around the world, Kousalya has travelled solo to 25 countries(and counting) and completed a solo hike to Everest Base Camp (5,364 m). She brings a global, disciplined, and empathetic perspective to advancing innovation that is both data-driven and deeply human. Reach out if you’re working in femtech, clean technology, or driving user adoption at scale.
Jona Naqo
CIT/MSSM/Â鶹´å Silicon Valley
Jona is driven by a lifelong mission to make healthcare more equitable through innovation. Born in Greece and raised in southern Albania, she witnessed early on how access to care could define outcomes, a realization that inspired her to explore how technology can bridge that gap. Motivated by the healthcare practitioners in her family, she now focuses on developing responsible AI tools that empower clinicians and expand access to high-quality care. Her current work centers on building visual healthcare AI, including a dermatology foundation model trained on clinically diverse datasets to improve early skin cancer detection.
Jona earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of the Pacific, where she founded a health education initiative for underserved high schools in California’s Central Valley. When the pandemic struck, she reimagined the program for virtual delivery, expanding its reach and deepening her commitment to scalable impact. During her undergraduate years, she also received an institutional research grant for her project on protein purification.
Before joining Carnegie Mellon, Jona worked at Abbott across the Diabetes Care and Point of Care divisions, contributing to cross-functional teams spanning R&D to commercialization. From developing diagnostic tests to supporting North American product launches, she experienced firsthand how technology and clinical innovation can meaningfully improve patient outcomes.
Beyond her professional journey, Jona is deeply committed to advancing women in STEM and youth mentorship. As Chair of the Mentorship Committee for Women in Bio’s Bay Area chapter, she leads initiatives that foster supportive networks, professional growth, and leadership development for women in science and technology. In recognition of her impact, she was awarded the organization’s Impact Scholarship for 2025. She has co-authored and peer-reviewed multiple scientific papers and frequently shares insights through talks and panels across the health tech and academic ecosystems.
At Carnegie Mellon, Jona is pursuing an M.S. in Software Management with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Product Management. She also serves as an Integrated Innovation Institute Belonging Fellow, promoting inclusion and collaboration across the Â鶹´å Silicon Valley community.
As a Swartz Fellow, Jona is eager to refine her venture strategy, collaborate across disciplines, and bring AI-driven healthcare solutions to life. She finds energy in being surrounded by bold, mission-driven peers and is guided by the belief that innovation matters most when it serves humanity.
Outside of work and school, Jona is on a journey to becoming a wine connoisseur, takes Latin dance classes, and rarely misses an art event in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Malikah Nathani
Heinz/AI
Malikah is a master’s student in the Artificial Intelligence Systems Management program at Heinz College.
She completed her bachelor’s degree in Computational Finance & Risk Management at the University of Washington. After graduating, Malikah worked as a Rotational Analyst at PGIM Private Alternatives, where she supported investment, business development, and R&D teams across global markets. She also helped drive firmwide initiatives, including launching PGIM Real Estate’s Women’s Network, which brought together hundreds of professionals across the organization.
Malikah has since explored entrepreneurial ventures at the intersection of AI, finance, and consumer technology. Following her master’s degree, she seeks to leverage her experiences in machine learning applications, strategy, and investments by launching her own startup or scaling innovative ventures. She is also passionate about supporting women in entrepreneurship, having participated in the highly selective Girls Who Invest program during her undergraduate years, and she continues to stay active in the community as a mentor and advocate.
Outside of work and school, Malikah enjoys taking dance classes, watching musicals (23 and counting), and traveling (she hopes to visit every continent). She is always eager to connect with others and always welcomes anyone reaching out for a chat!
Motolani Oladitan
CIT/MIIPS
Motolani Oladitan is a graduate student at Â鶹´å’s Integrated Innovation Institute, pursuing a Master of Integrated Innovation for Products and Services. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology with a minor in Innovation, Design, and Startups from Syracuse University.
Motolani’s work lies at the intersection of innovation, technology, and cultural identity, leveraging design thinking and behavioral insight to create inclusive, tech-enabled beauty and wellness solutions. With a deep interest in skincare innovation, she explores how data, culture, and user experience can come together to build accessible, personalized products for underrepresented consumers.
At Syracuse, Motolani’s academic and leadership experiences shaped her passion for inclusive innovation. As a Todd Rubin DEI Scholar with the Blackstone LaunchPad, she mentored student founders and led the fourth annual Afropreneurship Celebration. She later served as the Coordinator of Mentoring Programs in the Office of BIPOC Student Success, where she developed initiatives supporting women of color in higher education.
Motolani’s experience struggling to access skincare and wellness products tailored to her needs and her desire to make those products more widely available led her to found Tà Beautie (Latita Wellness LLC), a venture connecting African beauty and wellness brands to global markets. Through this work, she has developed expertise in cross-cultural brand strategy, business development, sustainability, and consumer research.
At Carnegie Mellon, Motolani serves as a Belonging Fellow for the Integrated Innovation Institute and a Graduate Peer Health Advocate for University Health Services, fostering inclusion and wellbeing across campus.
Deeply committed to representation, wellness, and ethical entrepreneurship, Motolani aims to build innovative solutions that reshape global perceptions of African entrepreneurship
Outside of her professional and academic pursuits, she enjoys working out, baking, listening to music, and exploring new restaurants.
Mehri Sadri
Heinz/Data Analytics
Mehri Sadri is an emerging data scientist and public-sector innovator pursuing her MSPPM-DA at Â鶹´å’s Heinz College, where she specializes in applying machine learning, econometrics, and predictive analytics to structural challenges in housing, homelessness, and food insecurity. Shaped by the resilience of her Iranian immigrant family, she began her civic journey at age 13 in San Diego, and has since become one of the youngest elected officials in the City of San Diego (2023-2025), using data as a vehicle for policy reform, and serving as a voice for Gen Z in local government. While earning her B.S. in Economics and Data Science at UC San Diego, she first-authored four peer-reviewed publications, including work in the Krinsk-Houston Law & Politics Initiative, exploring AI ethics, health systems optimization, and federal data governance. Alongside her research, Mehri became an award-winning news writer for The UCSD Guardian, where she covered issues at the intersection of technology, policy, and student welfare. Recognizing the need to modernize how storytelling converged on campus, she later founded the newspaper’s first multimedia department, integrating data visualizations, podcast reporting, and investigative storytelling to expand its reach and impact.
At 19 years old, she founded and incorporated sr.cag (Scripps Ranch Commerce Advocacy Group), a nonprofit-turned-startup that engineers open-source AI agents and data pipelines for microbusinesses traditionally excluded from technological infrastructure. Under her leadership, sr.cag has developed sales forecasting models, inventory optimization tools, and regulatory alert systems, securing over $30,000 in grants and multiple regional awards for her commitment to community betterment. In parallel, Mehri served at the County of San Diego full-time for three and a half years, where she built the Board of Supervisors’ first data-driven outreach division, training over 300 interns and implementing CRM, ArcGIS, and predictive analytics workflows to improve constituent services, the first workflow and department of its kind for a San Diego County elected official. At Data Science Alliance, she collaborated for two years with researchers and PhDs to deliver geospatial and forecasting models for public-sector partners such as the San Diego Food Bank and 2-1-1 as an analyst.
At Carnegie Mellon, Mehri is advancing her mission to scale public interest technology through entrepreneurship. She aims to build a dual career as a data engineer in social impact analytics while expanding sr.cag into a national platform where (student) engineers, policymakers, and community institutions co-develop machine learning tools for real-world deployment. Outside of her work, she mentors youth in Pittsburgh and San Diego, competes in hackathons and case competitions, and is a proud cat mom to a Siamese tabby. A lifelong public speaker with over a decade of experience in speech and debate, she continues to advocate for civic engagement through storytelling and mentorship. She believes that innovation in the public sector doesn’t begin with power: it begins with responsibility.
Thank you to our Swartz Center Patrons
