Meet the team

Arc brings together people from academic research backgrounds, the biotech industry, the technology sector, and other domains.

Silvana Konermann
Executive Director and Core Investigator

Silvana Konermann

Silvana is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford. Her research laboratory aims to understand the molecular pathways that drive the development of Alzheimer’s disease using next-generation functional genomics, with the long-term goal of developing rationally targeted therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from MIT. Silvana’s pioneering work on tools to directly perturb the transcriptomic landscape of the cell using CRISPR has been recognized by her faculty appointment as a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator and Hanna Gray Fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Patrick Hsu
Cofounder and Core Investigator

Patrick Hsu

Patrick Hsu is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Deb Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. His lab develops molecular technologies to improve human health through next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Patrick received A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and the Broad Institute, where he helped to pioneer CRISPR-Cas9 technologies for genome editing. His research has been recognized in Forbes' 30 Under 30, the NIH Early Independence Award, the MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35, the Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientist, and the Amgen Young Investigator Award.

Lingyin Li
Core Investigator

Lingyin Li

Lingyin Li is an Associate Professor in the Biochemistry Department and the ChEM-H institute at Stanford. She received her Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Dr. Laura Kiessling and performed postdoctoral studies with Dr. Timothy Mitchison at Harvard Medical School. The Li Laboratory has pioneered the development of chemical tools to define and manipulate new modulators of the innate immune STING pathway. Dr. Li is the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award in 2017, the Ono Pharma Foundation Breakthrough Science Initiative Award in 2017, and the 2022 Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry.

Luke Gilbert
Core Investigator

Luke Gilbert

Luke Gilbert is an Assistant Professor of Urology and of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, and is affiliated with the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Innovative Genomics Institute. He received his Ph.D. from MIT and completed his postdoctoral training at UCSF. Dr. Gilbert was an early pioneer in applying CRISPR technology to edit the epigenome (CRISPRi and CRISPRa), and continues to develop new strategies for editing and understanding human genetics and epigenetics at large scale, with a particular focus on cancer. Dr. Gilbert’s research has been recognized by a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Pew-Stewart scholar for cancer research award, and the AAAS Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer research award.

Nat Friedman
Board member

Nat Friedman

Nat was the CEO of GitHub and the cofounder and CEO of Xamarin (acquired by Microsoft). Nat also cofounded the GNOME Foundation, an organization to support the GNOME project goals of an open source computing platform.

Alden Woodrow
COO

Alden Woodrow

Alden leads operations at Arc. He has built teams and technologies in various industries including energy, aerospace, and transportation. Previously Alden held product management roles at Nuro, Uber, Google, Makani, and was the co-founder and CEO of Ike.

Julia Kazaks
General Counsel

Julia Kazaks

Julia leads the legal team at Arc. She brings leadership experience from public company executive roles and two decades of work at Skadden.

Nianzhen Li
Senior Director, Multi-Omics

Nianzhen Li

Nianzhen leads Arc’s multi-omic technology center. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Iowa State University followed by post-doctoral research in Bioengineering at University of Washington. She started her career at Fluxion Biosciences and has held various leadership positions at Fluidigm, Mission Bio, and Deepcell.

Lynn Hendrickson
University Relations & Academic Affairs

Lynn Hendrickson

Lynn leads university partnerships for the Institute. Previous to Arc, Lynn held roles at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Addgene, and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Aarthi Belani
Legal

Aarthi Belani

Aarthi is a partner in the M&A practice of Baker McKenzie and focuses on tech and life sciences deals. Aarthi has previously represented a number of major scientific institutions.

Vicki Lin
Communications

Vicki Lin

Vicki works on Comms and People Operations for the Institute. She brings over two decades of experience from various operational roles in Bay Area tech companies, including Google and Stripe.

Nicolle Seuss
Operational Systems

Nicolle Seuss

Nicolle leads operations projects across operational systems at the Institute. She comes from Director roles at two Fortune 100 Insurance carriers.

Julie Cummings
People

Julie Cummings

Julie works on People Operations at the Institute. Prior to Arc, Julie held people leadership roles at Google and Stripe.

Rose Harris
Finance

Rose Harris

Rose works on finance operations for the Institute. Formerly, Rose worked in the healthcare sector, most recently as a Vice President at Aetna.

April Pawluk
Scientific Publications

April Pawluk

April provides scientific writing and editing support for the Institute. She brings scientific publications expertise from her time as a Cell editor and as a scientific program manager at Harvard University.