Founder’s Roundtable

Rupal Patel is the Founder and CEO of VocaliD, a voice technology company that provides AI-generated voices with personality. VocaliD’s award-winning technology leverages the latest advances in machine learning, signal processing and voice analytics along with the company’s crowdsourced Voicebank to create inclusive, diverse and brand aligned voices for organizations and individuals with special needs.

Rupal began her career as a speech clinician where she became fascinated with the potential of using speech technologies for assistive communication which then led to a doctorate in speech science. Her interdisciplinary research applies empirical evidence about speech motor control to develop novel communication technologies.

She is currently on leave from Northeastern University where she is a tenured professor in Bouvé College of Health Sciences and Khoury College of Computer Science. Named one of The Top 11 Visionaries in Voice 2019 by Voicebot.ai and Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, Rupal has been featured on TED, NPR, and in major international news and technology publications.

Connect on LinkedIn

Sidi A. Bencherif, Ph.D., is one of the founders of Cryoxia Biosciences, a startup company that develops technologies for hypoxic cell culture conditions.

Bencherif is Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern and an Associate at Harvard University. He is the director of the Laboratory of Advanced and Multifunctional Biomaterials and his research interest lies in the design of sophisticated materials for biomedical applications, including tissue engineering and cancer immunotherapy.

Bencherif has authored and co-authored over 60 articles in highly regarded journals (e.g., Science, PNAS, Nature Materials, Nature Communications), international conference proceedings, reviews and patent applications, and is the recipient of several fellowships, honors and awards, including the NSF CAREER award, and was recently named Biomaterials Science Emerging Investigator 2021.

Dr. Bencherif’s degrees are in materials and technologies engineering from the University of Montpellier, France (M.S., 2002), and polymer science (M.S., 2009) and chemistry (Ph.D., 2009) from Carnegie Mellon University.

James L. Sherley, M.D., Ph.D., is the founder and director of Massachusetts stem cell biotechnology company Asymmetrex that develops and markets technologies for advancing stem cell medicine, including the first and only technology for specific counting and determining the dose of therapeutic adult tissue stem cells. This technology is also applied to design optimized procedures for more effective manufacturing of therapeutic adult tissue stem cells at greatly reduced cost.

Prior to founding Asymmetrex, Dr. Sherley held academic research appointments at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Boston Biomedical Research Institute. Professional awards include Pew Biomedical Research Scholar, Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Aging Research, and NIH Director’s Pioneer Award.

Dr. Sherley is a graduate of Harvard College, with a B.A. degree in biology, and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, earning joint M.D. and Ph.D. degrees.

Connect on LinkedIn