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Pink Army’s Board of Directors

Sharon Barker obtained her PhD in Oncology from the University of Alberta and has spent almost 20 years as a part of research teams studying molecular oncology in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and the UK. Dr. Barker is currently completing her MBA at the University of Alberta School of Business, specializing in Technology Commercialization. She is passionate about translating scientific advances into public benefit and has gained experience with Alberta-based technology start-up companies through roles with TEC Edmonton and BioNeutra Inc. Dr. Barker is an active member of multiple committees with WISEST (Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science, and Technology) as is a WISEST Advisory Board Member. She is a Director At Large with the Alberta Women’s Science Network (AWSN) and was previously a member of the Steering Committee and Policy Committee of the Canadian Association of Postdoctoral Scholars (CAPS).

John Carlson is founding director of the Pink Army Cooperative.  He has over a decade of experience in the public securities market, and is a co-founder of the J2 capital corporation which, through its subsidiaries, has almost 300 employees.  Mr. Carlson is also a partner in Q2 Consulting Limited, a consulting group focused on developing innovation strategies and solutions for the Canadian life science, technology, and energy sectors.

Alexandra Carmichael is co-founder of CureTogether, a Health 2.0 company that brings patients together online to identify better treatment strategies.  Ms. Carmichael has spent 15 years bridging gaps between life science research, internet technologies, design, and business. She previously co-founded bioinformatics software company Redasoft, whose Visual Cloning technology was later acquired by Hitachi Software. Ms. Carmichael also helped to design the first social web application for bioinformatics. She is currently an advisor on the Biotech/Medical Board of the Lifeboat Foundation and a prolific Tweeter on topics of health and chronic conditions @accarmichael.  Ms. Carmichael is dedicated to changing the way health decisions are made using the power of social networks.

Shawn Gervais is the Managing Director of Katoya Venture Partners Inc. He specializes in the marketing and design of new products. Upon completion of eight years service as an army officer and two more for his MBA, Mr. Gervais joined the Specialty Products Division of The Westaim Corporation in 1996. After successful assignments as a market analyst and managing a sales territory in SE Asia, Mr. Gervais was promoted to division management running R&D, marketing and sales. In that role, the product portfolio was expanded from advanced materials for jet engines into applications in electronics and fuel cell catalysts as well as the introduction of new product brands.

He moved on to the Alberta Research Council (ARC) in 2002 to learn more about technology development. After two years in the role of corporate development manager, he was promoted to Vice-President where he built a portfolio of technology development programs in Life Sciences. The focus of these programs applied information technology, clean-tech and biotech to land & water resource management, industrial bioproducts and health. Believing in the power of entrepreneurship to be a positive agent of change, he resigned from ARC in 2009 to start Katoya Venture Partners and build breakthrough ventures for healthy people on a healthy planet.  Mr. Gervais has a BA from Royal Roads Military College and an MBA from the University of Alberta.

Andrew Hessel is the founder and managing director of the Pink Army Cooperative. After earning degrees in cellular biology and bacterial genomics, he joined the Amgen Institute in Toronto, where he learned firsthand the challenges of novel drug development. A champion of open source synthetic biology since 2004, he now advises leading groups on strategies for open innovation, including open drug development. His work is enabling a new generation of researchers and entrepreneurs to address major bioengineering challenges, including renewable energy production, environmental preservation and remediation, and human disease.

Paul Lem, M.D. is the Founder of Spartan Bioscience (www.spartanbio.com). Spartan provides end-to-end solutions for on-demand DNA testing. Prior to starting Spartan, Dr. Lem was VP Product Management at DNA Genotek, where he led commercialization of the Oragene® DNA collection device. Oragene is now used by thousands of labs around the world, including Quest Diagnostics and 23andMe. Dr. Lem holds a B.Sc. in Human Biology from the University of Toronto, and a Medical Degree from the University of Ottawa. He is a member of the inaugural class of Singularity University (www.singularityu.org).

Joseph Meehan has been a principal of Southgate Alternative Investments since inception. From 2000 until 2007, Mr. Meehan was a co-founder, Director, and President of the Qtrade Financial Group (QFG), a provider of integrated retail and institutional wealth management platforms to banks, credit unions and financial planning firms across Canada. QFG is the owner of Qtrade Investor, Canada’s top-ranked online brokerage. From 1997 to 2000, Mr. Meehan was a London-based structured finance lawyer for Clifford Chance and subsequently Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, practicing both U.S. and U.K. securities law.

Lori Sheremeta holds an LL.B. and LL.M from the University of Alberta. She currently sits on the Science Advisory Board of Canadian Blood Services, One Match Stem Cell and Marrow Registry, and the Advisory Council of the Hereditary Breast and Ovarian Cancer Society of Alberta. Ms. Sheremeta is a lawyer, a member of the Bar of British Columbia. She is a Research Officer at the National Research Council’s National Institute for Nanotechnology in Edmonton Alberta and a Research Associate at the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. She is currently seconded to Alberta Ingenuity Fund, where she acts as an Advisor on Strategic Nanotechnology Programs.

Prior to becoming a lawyer, Ms. Sheremeta was a Nuclear Medicine Technologist and clinical researcher at the Cross Cancer Institute in Edmonton. Once becoming a lawyer, Ms. Sheremeta’s work focussed on intellectual property and the commercialization of emerging health technologies including genomics, stem cell technologies and nanotechnology. She has co-authored several background papers for Genome Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Canadian Biotechnology Advisory Committee on various issues relating to research and commercialization in Canada. Most recently, Ms. Sheremeta served on the Council of Canadian Academies Expert Panel on Nanotechnology.

Jayson Tymko is an Alberta-born businessperson who continually seeks new opportunities and challenges. A founding director of the Pink Army Cooperative, he is also active on the boards of a numerous companies, including a private investment bank, an investment trust, a construction company, and a consulting company. He also builds strategic alliances and does corporate development and investment banking services through his work with the J2 Capital Corporation.