Skandalaris Center Celebrates Student Innovation and Awards Venture Funding at WashU I&E Awards

ST. LOUIS, MO — The Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis recognized student achievement and awarded venture funding during its annual WashU Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awards.

The evening began with remarks from II Luscri, Managing Director of the Skandalaris Center and Assistant Vice Provost for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, who welcomed the audience, thanked SVC sponsors, and honored 21 graduating students earning Honors in Innovation and Entrepreneurship for their exceptional engagement in both curricular and co-curricular programs.

“Wow, take a look around – you are our community of innovators and entrepreneurs,” opened Luscri. “We build for and with you are only able to do what we do because of the support, the encouragement, and the enthusiasm demonstrated by this group.”

Strong Participation Highlights Growing Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

This year’s Skandalaris Venture Competition drew significant interest, with 106 teams applying and 35 advancing to the semifinals. Ultimately, 16 finalist teams presented their ventures, representing a diverse range of ideas and industries.

Throughout the semester, finalists engaged in customer discovery, refined their business models, and worked closely with mentors while balancing academic commitments. Final pitches were delivered to a panel of judges, who evaluated teams on criteria including problem-solution fit, value proposition, financial viability and traction.

Skandalaris Venture Competition Winners:

Following the competition, Venture Development Manager Cyril Loum announced the recipients of SVC funding, which is structured to support ventures at varying stages of development:

Innovator Funding $2,000:

ArmorMed Sundeep Chakladar (MD ‘28)

ArmorMed is a digital health platform that uses AI-powered pose estimation models to automatically measure and patients’ range of motion from simple videos, enabling accurate, accessible musculoskeletal assessment anytime, anywhere.

Alliance for Civic Engagement Ella Dennis (MSW ‘27), Alyssa Hoffecker, Ellen Rizika

We’re a student-centered policy program providing hands-on mentorship and publication opportunities to young policy thinkers while disseminating accessible, nonpartisan policy briefs to cultivate a more informed public.

Amass Biosystems Justin Traenkle (MBA ‘27)

Using the capabilities symbiotic species to enable farmers to diversify revenue while enabling utilities to transition to greener, cleaner fuels.

CardioVis Heath Rutledge-Jukes (MD ‘26)

Delivers real-time guidance for robotic cardiac surgery by analyzing multiple data streams to enhance precision.

Disruptor Funding $5,000:

Realize to Act Tanya Keskar (LA ‘27)

Empowering students to learn and dream big with educational resources, a platform to drive positive change, and tech infrastructure connecting schools with community resources.

Netty’s Juicery Ginette Rhodes (MBA ‘27)

Offers handcrafted cold-pressed juices, loose-leaf teas, and herbals through a convenient subscription model available both locally and nationwide.

Alon Technologies Nate Scherer (LA ‘27), Forrest Reyes, Flaviano Reyes
Alon Technologies handles athlete discovery, campaign generation, and compliance tracking for NIL agencies, so they can scale without scaling their team.One sentence: Alon Technologies handles athlete discovery, campaign generation, and compliance tracking for NIL agencies, so they can scale without scaling their team.

Catalyst Funding (up to $10,000):

SPARC Sergiu Celebidachi (MBA ‘25)

Mental performance training and analytics for athletic organizations.

Byte’m Brownie Bites Jacob Tubis (JD ‘25) John Davis

Making tasty brownies accessible to everyone.

Mayfield AI Garage Recipient:

The Mayfield AI Garage is a launchpad for AI founders, meeting them where they are on their journey and providing resources and mentorship to take their ideas to the next level. Mayfield is partnering with leading institutions, like WashU, across industry and academia to launch our transformative AI Garage initiatives. These programs provide early-stage founders with access to the tools they need to build the future of AI. The WashU Skandalaris Center will host AI Garage participants from May to November. Learn more about the Mayfield AI Garage here.

The Mayfield Recipient: NeuroMap Eli Abdou (MD ‘29) and Jeffrey Chen (EN ‘27)

NeuroMap helps neurosurgeons access millions of research findings in the context of their patient’s specific surgical target, bringing the best available evidence to the point of care.

Global Impact Award Winners:

The Global Impact Award (GIA) was founded in 2013 to support the vision and passion of WashU students, postdoctoral researchers, and recent alumni who are creating ventures that are:

• Scalable
• Sustainable
• For-profit
• Quick-to-market with proof of concept for a broad impact

The spring 2026 GIA award winners:

NeuroFore Winner: $25,000 Hamasa (PhD, ‘32)
NeuroFore has developed a patent pending machine learning algorithm that analyzes non-motor symptoms to detect and diagnose Parkinson’s disease earlier than has ever been possible.

uFab Winner: $50,000 Tyler Richards (EN ‘22)
uFab builds etchant-free, laser-based circuit board printing systems that compress a whole circuit-board factory line into a single machine, enabling ultra-fast, on-shore hardware manufacturing that can finally compete with overseas fabs on price.

WVN Winners:

Following the GIA awards, Lisa Weingarth, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor & Executive Director for the In St. Louis, For St. Louis Initiative, joined Luscri at the podium to announce the awardees of the WashU Venture Network Follow-on Investment. The joint effort between Skandalaris and In St. Louis, For St. Louis will award up to $150,000 each year to companies with WashU ties that have previously received Arch Grants funding. The goal of the program is to support startups with a high likelihood of remaining in St. Louis after the grant period ends.

“We often talk about WashU as an anchor institution – an engine of research, innovation, and talent,” remarked Weingarth. “But being in St. Louis isn’t enough. We have an opportunity to invest in the people and ideas that make our region stronger, and that’s exactly what this program does.”

Eligible startups were invited to submit investment materials, which were reviewed by the WashU Venture Network Student Analysts and the Skandalaris Center staff to assess their viability, scalability, and potential regional impact. The team held in-person pitches and Q&A sessions with each startup before making funding decisions. This year, three $25,000 investments and one $75,000 investement were awarded to the following ventures:

• SentiAR, Jon Silva (PhD ‘08), Jennifer Silva (Faculty) & Michael Southworth – A medtech company creating a wearable AR command center that unifies procedural data for cardiac ablations. $75,000.00
• Archetype, Sarah Mirth (MArch ‘20) – An AI-driven SaaS and eCommerce platform designed to revolutionize the complex commercial design and furnishing market. $25,000.00
• ChiChi, Chiara Munzi (BA ‘23) & Izzy Gorton (BSBA ‘25) – A CPG startup producing a high-protein, chickpea-based hot cereal to disrupt a stagnant $3B category. $25,0000.00
• GenAssist, Joe Beggs (BS ‘20) & Gabe Haas – A biotech firm developing a regenerative scaffold designed to restore functional muscle after severe trauma. $25,000.00

“At the Skandalaris Center, we believe in backing bold ideas and the founders behind them,” said Luscri. “Through the Follow-On Investment program and our partnership with In St. Louis for St. Louis, we’re helping high-potential companies accelerate their growth and deepen their roots in the St. Louis innovation ecosystem.”

We are extremely proud of the work our students and alumni have put into this cycle of the Skandalaris Venture Competition and Global Impact Award and cannot wait to see what is next for all the teams represented today.