Meet Our Team
Mark Chalek ,Chief, Business Ventures
Mark has been the Director of Technology Ventures at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center since 1998, and Chief of Business Ventures since 2002. He oversees intellectual property, technology commercialization, strategic alliances, and research collaborations with industry. While at BIDMC, Mark has catalyzed the formation of fifteen new life sciences companies. Mark has over twenty-five years of executive experience in the health care and biotechnology industries, including four years as Vice President at MBRI, a biomedical business incubator and venture capital company. In 1995, Mark founded the MBRI/Boston Life Sciences Innovation Center, which catalyzed the development of many new biomedical companies, including Cytologix, Tolerance Pharmaceuticals (later sold to Roche), and Centagenetix (now Elixir). Mark’s past leadership positions have included a role as Deputy Commissioner of Boston's Department of Health and Hospitals from 1987-1990. He was the founding Executive Director of the Boston Area Health Education Center, and a faculty member of the Boston University School of Medicine and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He has consulted to numerous universities, academic medical centers, and emerging biomedical companies. He served as a Director at Consensus Pharmaceuticals, and is currently a board member of SomRx and Nephromics. From 1990-1993 he led the City of Boston’s economic development efforts to promote emerging industries such as biotechnology and medical devices.
Christine Jost, Ph.D. Associate Director, Technology Ventures Office,Senior Development Officer for Research
Christine received her doctoral degree at Harvard Medical School in the program of microbiology and molecular genetics. Prior to that, Christine worked in the research division at Creative Biomolecules, Inc., in Hopkinton, MA. Before coming to BIDMC, Christine was a technology transfer associate at the Massachusetts Biomedical Research Institute and helped to develop and run an intellectual property and licensing office at Tufts University School of Medicine.
Jason S. Felsch, Ph.D., Senior Associate
Jason has a unique breadth of experience with technology development and commercialization in the life science arena. Throughout his career he has worked with the Mayo Clinic, Massachusetts General Hospital and a drug discovery start-up that was acquired by Schering-Plough Corporation. Jason studied at the University of Chicago and Harvard University.
Catherine Lenich, Ph.D., Senior Associate
Cathy holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. Cathy completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Cardiovascular Research Institute of Boston University School of Medicine and subsequently worked in the Vascular Research Lab at New England Deaconess Hospital, where she held an appointment as Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Stanley Mah, Ph.D., Senior Associate
Stan holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from The Johns Hopkins University and performed postdoctoral research at MIT. Stan has three years of experience as a Patent Agent at Choate, Hall and Stewart and is registered to practice in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Debra Walk, Financial Analyst
Debra has fifteen years of technology transfer experience. Debra worked at the Deaconess Hospital in the Office of Industrial Affairs assisting the director with license, clinical, sponsored research and material transfer agreements, patent prosecution and royalty income distribution. Since 1996, Debra has been responsible for managing patent expenses, royalty collection and distribution in the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Technology Ventures Office.
Jodi E. Hecht, Ph.D., Licensing Associate
Jodi holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from Boston University. Prior to joining our office, Jodi worked as an intern at the Massachusetts General Hospital Corporate Sponsored Research and Licensing Office. Jodi has one-year of business experience working in business development at AmberGen, Inc.
Mandy L. Roberts-Crowley, Ph.D., Technology Transfer Specialist
Mandy holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences with a concentration in Neuroscience from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). While pursuing her graduate degree, Mandy worked as a licensing intern at the Office of Technology Management at UMMS.
