Team — Starlight Cardiovascular

Operating Team

Beverly is a dedicated Biodesigner whose career has focused on treating life-threatening cardiovascular and neurovascular disease. She brings over 15 years of technical depth, early-stage innovation, and leadership experience to solving critical unmet needs in the pediatric cardiovascular field. She holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, a Stanford GSB LEAD certificate in Managing Innovation, and was a Stanford Biodesign Fellow. Beverly was a founding member of Stryker Neurovascular's Advanced Technology and Innovation team and technical project lead at SeptRx. She is a strong advocate of diversity and inclusion of women and underrepresented minorities in MedTech.

Beverly Tang, PhD

Darrin is an accomplished medical device professional who is passionate about making a positive impact on people’s lives. He holds a B.S. in Materials Engineering from California Polytechnic, San Luis Obispo and brings over 20 years of experience in medical device design, development, and leadership. Darrin started his career at Guidant Corporation and then transitioned to start-ups including Sequent Medical, Rev 1 Engineering, and Ablative Solutions.

Darrin Kent

Kathryn is motivated to change the standard of care through new technology. She has over 15 years of experience in the medical device industry, a MEng in Bioengineering, and was a Stanford Biodesign Fellow. Kathryn joins Starlight from Ceterix Orthopaedics (acquired by Smith+Nephew) where she launched the NovoStitch Pro Meniscal Repair System. Kathryn has experience in marketing, business development, and new product development at Stryker Neurovascular, BIT MedTech, and Acclarent (Johnson & Johnson).

Kathryn Olson

Founders

Carl Berke is a partner at Partners Healthcare Innovation fund whose career has spanned over 25 years of bringing new technologies from lab to market. This includes R&D roles at Polaroid and Hygeia Sciences, consulting as a partner at Integral/Analysis group, and private equity investor at Angel Healthcare Investors and Mass Medical Angels.

Carl Berke, PhD

Dr. Pedro del Nido is Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital and Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School with over 25 years of experience treating pediatric congenital heart defects and training fellows. Dr. del Nido is also an inventor and researcher, with expertise in devices for beating heart surgery as founder of Nido Surgical.

Pedro del Nido, MD

With over 40 years of experience with Nitinol, Tom Duerig pioneered the alloy's use in medical devices in the late 1980's while working for Raychem Corporation, then founding Nitinol Development Corporation (NDC) in 1991. After selling NDC to J&J in 1997, he remained with the company as president until 2008, helping J&J develop self-expanding stents and other vascular products. Realizing a broader potential of the alloy in improving medical devices, he repurchased NDC, merging it with several other acquisitions to form Confluent Medical Technologies, from which he retired formally in 2019.

Tom Duerig, PhD

Attila Meretei has spent 20 years in the medical device industry, in various roles including marketing at Johnson & Johnson, product development at Guidepath and Clinasys, business development at NDC, and communications at AS&K Communications. A serial entrepreneur, he is president of Argo Research, Argus Cognitive and Argo Cardiovascular.

Attila Meretei, MD

Board of Directors

With over 40 years of experience with Nitinol, Tom Duerig pioneered the alloy's use in medical devices in the late 1980's while working for Raychem Corporation, then founding Nitinol Development Corporation (NDC) in 1991. After selling NDC to J&J in 1997, he remained with the company as president until 2008, helping J&J develop self-expanding stents and other vascular products. Realizing a broader potential of the alloy in improving medical devices, he repurchased NDC, merging it with several other acquisitions to form Confluent Medical Technologies, from which he retired formally in 2019.

Tom Duerig, PhD

Alf Grunwald has served as a member of our board of directors since 2022. Since October 2015, he has served as the Chief Executive Officer of Black Forest One GmbH & Co KG and Managing Director of Black Forest Medical Holding GmbH, which are part of the Biedermann Group, and as the Chief Executive Officer of artprivat GmbH, an independent investment advisory firm. From 2006 to 2016, Mr. Grunwald served as an Associate Professor at the University of Applied Science Offenburg. From 2004 to 2015, he worked as both an independent management consultant and as a consultant for Techno Cap GmbH, which he founded. Prior to that, he served as a venture partner and then a partner at E.M. Warburg Pincus LLC from 1997 to 2004, and held various positions at Deloitte from 1995 to 1999, where he ultimately served as CEO and President of the ICS group and as a Senior Executive Advisor. Mr. Grunwald also founded T.L. Onyx Inc. in 1995, where he served as the chairman from 2002 to 2007. Mr. Grunwald has served as a director of LIM Innovations, Inc., a prosthetic socket technology company, since June 2017. He previously served as a director of Nemaris lnc., a surgical planning software company, EonTec Inc., an enterprise software provider, APP Group, a management consulting firm, Shinka Technologies, an information technology and services company, Synquest, a supply chain 151 management company, and RadNet Inc., an information technology company. Mr. Grunwald earned a degree in engineering from University of Applied Science Offenburg.

Alf Grunwald

Beverly is a dedicated Biodesigner whose career has focused on treating life-threatening cardiovascular and neurovascular disease. She brings 15 years of technical depth, early-stage innovation, and leadership experience to solving critical unmet needs in the pediatric cardiovascular field. She holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, a Stanford GSB LEAD certificate in Managing Innovation, and was a Stanford Biodesign Fellow. Beverly was a founding member of Stryker Neurovascular's Advanced Technology and Innovation team and technical project lead at SeptRx. She is a strong advocate of diversity and inclusion of women and underrepresented minorities in MedTech.

Beverly Tang, PhD

Dr. Paul Yock began his faculty career as an interventional cardiologist at UC San Francisco and then moved to Stanford in 1994. Dr. Yock is known for his work in inventing, developing and testing new devices, including the Rapid Exchange angioplasty and stenting system, which is the primary approach used worldwide. Dr. Yock also authored the fundamental patents for intravascular ultrasound imaging, conducted the initial clinical trials and established the Stanford Center for Research in Cardiovascular Interventions as a core laboratory for analysis of intravascular ultrasound clinical studies. He also invented the Smart Needle and is a co-inventor of the strain-reduction patch for wound healing. Dr. Yock was founding Co-Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and continues research related to new device technologies. Dr. Yock also was the founding director of the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign -dedicated to advanced training in medical technology innovation.