Meet Our Team
Leadership
Ali Afshar
CEO | Co-Founder
First designed lab robots during PhD, and previously started a hardware company. Sits at intersection of science, engineering, and business. YCombinator alumnus, and Forbes 30 Under 30.
Ignacio Willats
Co-Founder
Enterprise sales and product experience at multiple startups. Fosters a deep focus on the customer within the team, and leads sales. YCombinator alumnus, and Forbes 30 Under 30.
Justin Chan
Head of Engineering
Multidisciplinary hardware engineer, experienced in new product development. Former "New Categories" R&D engineer at Dyson, and robotic kitchens at Deliveroo.
Celso Milne
Chief of Staff
Strategic planning, project management and cross-functional project execution. Previously at BCG and Eucalyptus, with a background in scaling operations in healthcare and biotech.
Biology
Stephen Weston
Biology Lead
Experience developing and implementing novel iPSC differentiation protocols during PhD.
Jordina Casanova Vilar
Senior Scientist
Multiple years experience in molecular biology techniques and working with multiple mammalian cell types. Experience conducting R&D that crosses engineering and biology.
Joana Costa
Senior Scientist
Experienced developing at the interface of biology and engineering. Has developed advanced in vitro models representative of human physiology by exploring different technologies such as fluidic systems, bioprinting and soft actuators.
Rebecca Powell
Scientist
Multiple years experience working with stem cells in biotech and academia. Specialised in stem cell differentiation and tissue engineering during PhD.
Sarah Pokorny
Scientist
Background and experience in iPSC-derived cell manufacture and cell therapy process development.
Hardware
James Cunningham
Hardware Engineering Manager
Hardware engineer with extensive early development and manufacture experience. Has overseen products from early prototypes, all the way through to manufacture in China.
Pierre Lin
Staff Mechanical Engineer
A mechanical engineer with 12 years of start-up experience in developing precision opto-mechanical processing equipment from concept to commercialisation. Co-founded two additive manufacturing start-ups.
Felix Russell
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Research and robotics engineer with 6 years experience in automation across the fields of biomechanics, batteries and now biology. Created a world-leading mechanical knee model during PhD.
Rob Melling
Senior Mechanical Engineer
Multi-disciplinary mechanical engineer with experience interning on automated cell culture machines and multiple years of rapid prototyping and design for manufacture.
James Ward
Electronics Engineer
Multidisciplinary Electronic Engineering graduate with background in drones, 3D printing and real-time signal analysis. Previous co-founder of a hardware company.
Kate Bassil
Junior Mechanical Engineer
Mechanical engineer with a research background in biomechanics. Developed a novel experimental model of blood pressure measurement, focused on improving measurement accuracy, during PhD.
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Alex McAuley
Junior Mechanical Engineer
Mechanical Engineering Graduate with background in robotic manipulation and tactile sensing. Enjoys solving complex electro-mechanical problems.
Herbie Christophers
Junior Mechanical Engineer
Mechanical engineer with a background in space mechanism design, vibration research, and precision fabrication. Experienced in developing and validating hardware across demanding environments.
Jarrod Greenwood
Junior Manufacturing Engineer
Biomedical Engineering graduate focused on medical devices and bone scaffold design. 4 years experience as a machinist, with proficiency in CNC and manual techniques.
Nicolas Ceballos
Engineering Technician
Computer Systems Engineer with expertise in robotics and electronics. Focused on hardware integration and innovative tech solutions. Brings years of hands-on experience to the field.
Alexandra Fagan
Engineering Technician
Technician with experience in industrial robotics, manufacture and assembly, Along side proficiencies with fine detail assembly and a high standard of quality control with a wide variety of processes and tools.
Software
Henry Miskin
Staff Software Engineer
Full-stack software engineer, spanning from firmware all the way to cloud. 5 years experience as early engineer at multiple startups. Also qualified as a mechanical engineer.
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Tom Brooks
Senior Software Engineer
Software engineer with a PhD in particle physics, specializing in building software for complex systems. Experience includes cryptographic proof systems, data analysis tools, and carbon accounting software.
Tomás Mella Pickersgill
Senior Software Engineer
Software engineer specialising in backend systems and data streaming, with experience in event-driven architectures and scalable cloud platform design, high-throughput data pipelines, platform migrations, and product development.
Ben Wilson
Software Engineer
Software/bio-engineer, specialising in working across disciplines on complex systems. Experience in computer vision and statistical methods.
Alex Gokhale
Software Engineer
Full-stack engineer with a Computer Science background. Experience building scalable software in the accounting industry. Enjoys solving problems at the interface of hardware and software.
Product, Sales, Operations
Xian Weng
Director of Product Solutions
Highly-innovative scientist skilled in combining biology and chemistry with engineering to solve hard challenges. Former Principal Scientist developing on-chip blood diagnostics at Orphidia, and GMP experience at Lonza.
Felix Quagliarello
Sr. Director of Business Development
Strategic business development professional specialising in cell and gene therapies. Leverages a strong scientific background to form partnerships that integrate advanced automation, aiming to reduce costs and accelerate timelines.
Jonathan Paikoff
US Account Executive
Spent seven years in tech sales roles of increasing responsibility before pursuing drug development research. Ready to help your team automate cell culture.
Milo Dundas
Operations Manager
Multiple years of Operations experience in startups at various stages of growth. Previously worked in Q-commerce industry at Getir. Particular interest in linking Tech and Operations.
Michael Losavio
BizOps Associate
Driving business efficiency and supporting Mytos' strategic objectives. Previously at McKinsey, with a focus on operational transformations
Advisors
Jared Friedman
Partner, Y-Combinator
Founding CTO of Scribd, now a $100m/yr business. As a partner at Y-Combinator, Jared has coached hundreds of highly-succcesful startups, including many in biotech. An expert on all aspects of running and scaling a company.
Ian Felix
Manufacturing Advisor
Over 40 years experience in successfully bringing products from prototype through manufacture as a leader, including Apple, IBM, and 7 medical devices at different startups. Currently COO at Lassen Peak.
Ahmed Badr
Legal Advisor
Ahmed is COO at GoCardless. He joined GoCardless in 2015 and helped take them from Series B to G, from 40 to 1,000 people and to over $100m revenue. A lawyer by trade, and tech geek by nature.
Ben Haley
Drug Discovery Advisor
20 years of experience focused on technology development for scalable biological discovery and gene, cell, and nucleic acid therapies. Previously a Distinguished Scientist at Genentech, Ben is currently a Full Professor at the Université de Montréal.
Brian O'Sullivan
Sales Advisor
Known as a sales sniper, Brian has built commercial organisations within life science tech start ups and multinational organisations with revenue generation at top of mind. Passion for the digital transformation in the life science market and harnessing data to drive discovery via automation data factories.
Paddy Lambros
People Advisor
Paddy is an expert in People and Recruiting. He built the team at Improbable as a Talent Acquisition Lead from 65 people to 650 people, and then went on to lead Sensat as Head of People and Talent from 20 before Series A, to over 90 post Series B.
Charlie O'Driscoll
People Advisor
Charlie is the Head of Tech Recruitment at Monzo bank. He joined Monzo in 2021 and has helped the tech org double in size. Before Monzo Charlie worked at Deliveroo during their IPO and has previously led hiring teams at Improbable, the BBC and others.