At ShennonBio, we believe that people are the foundation of everything. We strive to create an environment where everyone thrives professionally and personally. We value collaboration, ownership, and authenticity. We are proud of our team that embodies this culture. We hire for the same drive and character.
Our interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, and bioinformaticians sit in the same open office and work closely alongside each other. Together, we tackle the most critical challenges in immunotherapy, and seek to uncover the root causes of problems and construct solutions from 1st principles. We built it this way because we believe that problem solving is an interdisciplinary effort, and 1st principles drive the most simple and innovative solutions.
Our team
Li Sun, PhD
CEO & Founder
Kaveh Milaninia, PhD
CTO & Head of Platform
Ian Chen, PhD
Staff Platform Engineer
Nicole Lee
Platform Engineer
Kaitao Li, PhD
Principal Scientist
Sandra Nielsen, PhD
Senior Scientist
Michael Malone, PhD
Scientist
Naomi Ptak
Operations Manager
Solenn Matuska
Research Associate
Li Sun, PhD
CEO & Founder
Li has a PhD in Applied Physics from Dr David Weitz’s lab at Harvard University focusing on single cell analysis. Prior to founding ShennonBio, Li spent 5 years as a deep VC, first starting at Bessemer Venture Partners, later as a Partner at Foundation Capital, evaluating startups that employ technology innovations to solve critical global scale problems. She is passionate about inventing technologies that transform human life and turning those technologies into products that have a lasting positive impact on the world. Li also has a M.Eng in Materials Science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.Eng in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Business from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Li loves the outdoors and enjoys hiking, painting, and gardening. Li once built a rooftop vegetable garden back in Boston.
Li Sun, PhD
CEO & Founder
Kaveh Milaninia, PhD
CTO & Head of Platform
Kaveh has a PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.Sc in Materials Science from UC Berkeley. He has over a decade of experience in building life science tools. Prior to ShennonBio, Kaveh started and ran two companies in the space. Kaveh initially did the diligence on ShennonBio for one of our investors, before becoming an advisor, later CTO of the company. Kaveh loves building stuff and owns over five 3D printers in his apartment in San Francisco.
Kaveh Milaninia, PhD
CTO & Head of Platform
Ian Chen, PhD
Staff Platform Engineer
Ian has a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto, and B.A.Sc.in Nanotechnology Engineering from the University of Waterloo. In his Ph.D. work, Ian designed and fabricated microfluidic devices to simulate nano-bio interactions for cancer research. Prior to ShennonBio, Ian worked at Luna Nanotech while designing a COVID-19 diagnostic assay with the government of Canada as part of Canada’s Pandemic Response Challenge. Ian enjoys taking microscopy pictures of biological structures that he fabricates, and one of these images was briefly featured at the French Embassy to Canada. He also enjoys writing science fiction stories, two of which were featured in Medgadget’s Science Fiction Writing Competition.
Ian Chen, PhD
Staff Platform Engineer
Nicole Lee
Platform Engineer
Nicole graduated from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor's in Bioengineering and from the University of Tokyo with a Master's in Materials Engineering. During her time at Berkeley, she worked with heart-on-a-chip microfluidic devices as well as tardigrades and their cold-resistant proteins, and spent her free time in the marching band. For her Master's she focused on self-oscillating gels and changing the anisotropy of their oscillation. Nicole joined Shennon right after graduation and now works on optimizing the platform with the engineering team. She enjoys video games, board games, desserts, and cardio kickboxing in her free time.
Nicole Lee
Platform Engineer
Naomi Ptak
Operations Manager
Naomi has a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from University of Wisconsin - Madison. During her undergrad, she gained research and lab operations experience in an academic lab focused on elucidating mitochondrial protein mechanisms. Since graduating, she has worked in public health, wine fermentation, and recruiting for small biotech startups. As the operations manager at Shennon, Naomi brings her ‘jack of all trades’ mindset to help with general lab operations, recruiting, and mammalian cell culture. In her spare time, she enjoys trying new restaurants, drinking good California wine, and spending time outdoors hiking and skiing.
Naomi Ptak
Operations Manager
Kaitao Li, PhD
Principal Scientist
Kaitao graduated from the joint Georgia Tech & Emory University Biomedical Engineering PhD program and worked at Georgia Tech as a research faculty before joining ShennonBio. Kaitao’s research was mainly focused on two arms of T cell biology: T-cell antigen recognition and its regulation by cell-intrinsic and -extrinsic mechanisms, as well as the biology of immune checkpoint molecule PD-1. Kaitao enjoys hiking and classical music in his spare time.
Kaitao Li, PhD
Principal Scientist
Solenn Matuska
Research Associate
Solenn has a B.S. in Biochemistry from UC Santa Barbara. Prior to joining Shennon Bio, she worked in both biology and biochemistry labs. Solenn’s first biotechnology experience was in high school at a startup, where she constructed solid-phase synthetic cyclic peptides with high affinity for tumor cells in breast and colorectal cancers. At Shennon, Solenn supports both the immunology team and the engineering team, working on a wide range of projects from molecular sequencing to microfluidic device fabrication. Solenn enjoys reading, crocheting, and gardening in her spare time.
Solenn Matuska
Research Associate
Sandra Nielsen, PhD
Senior Scientist
Sandra has a PhD from the University of Copenhagen in the fields of molecular biology and virus discovery. She has worked with NGS since 2008 and used the technology across a broad range of applications from molecular virology, human immunology, and human genomics. Sandra spent several years at Stanford University investigating human B cell receptor (BCR) responses to pathogens as well as BCR development in early childhood. Prior to ShennonBio, Sandra worked at Invitae where she helped build a fully automated NGS specimen and library prep platform. In her spare time, Sandra enjoys cooking and baking, going on hikes with her husband and dog, Erna [RNA], and climbing.
Sandra Nielsen, PhD
Senior Scientist
Michael Malone, PhD
Scientist
Prior to joining ShennonBio, Michael did his PhD in Bioengineering from University of Pennsylvania focusing on the multi-dimensional profiling of immune cells through the lens of the immune repertoire. Prior to that, he finished his Bachelor's degree in Cell and Molecular Biology at UC Santa Cruz where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Michael also brings a wealth of knowledge in NGS based assays. Michael believes in high throughput approaches to unlock the immune system's potential to fight against cancer and was drawn to Shennon for this reason. In his spare time, he enjoys hiking, biking, playing retro video games and writing music.
Michael Malone, PhD
Scientist
Scientific advisory board
David Weitz, PhD
Expert in single cell platforms, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics
Harvard UniversityJoseph Fraietta, PhD
T cell therapy expert, Director of the Solid Tumor Immunotherapy Lab
University of PennsylvaniaBenjamin Greenbaum, PhD
Expert in neoantigen prediction, Computational Oncologist
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer CenterNiroshana Anandasabapathy, MD/PhD
Melanoma expert, Associate Professor of Dermatology in Microbiology and Immunology
Weill Cornell MedicineJonathan Esensten, MD/PhD
Expert in cell therapy development and manufacturing, Medical Director of the GMP facility
University of California, San Francisco