2026 SUD Sprint Cohort

Mahmoud Salama Ahmed is an assistant professor at department of pharmaceutical sciences at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC). Prior to TTUHSC, he was trained as a medicinal chemist to receive his PhD from the department of chemistry and biochemistry at South Dakota State University (SDSU). Then, he joined Kemin Industries, Iowa; as a postdoctoral research scientist. In 2018, he joined UT Southwestern medical center as a research instructor. Dr. Ahmed’s research program at TTUHSC focuses on reimagining a platform to develop small molecules and/or pair established FDA therapeutics to target critical diseases in human health by bringing molecular modeling and structure-informed machine learning into the genomics era. Dr. Ahmed got multiple recognitions such as TTUHSC emerging inventor (2023), President's early career investigator award (TTUHSC, 2025), and American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) early career investigator for cardiovascular pharmacology (2026).

I believe this course will interpret our scientific findings to take it to the entrepreneurship level.

Identification of non-opioid based therapeutics targeting EphB tyrosine signaling in chronic pain

Chronic inflammatory pain is a common debilitating condition that typically results in the prescription of opioids at escalating doses and has created a severe nationwide threat. Our innovation is to elucidate nonopioid based therapeutics that can of the EphB1/2 tyrosine kinase signaling cascade to reverse/block associated thermal hyperalgesia and mechanical allodynia in the progression of chronic pain. Therefore, we will identify the necessary structure/activity requirements and the molecular mechanism of novel compounds targeting EphB1/2 tyrosine kinase to decrease chronic pain in preclinical rodent models.

Jess Anand is currently faculty in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Michigan. She is trained as a Medicinal Chemist and has more than 15 years of experience in the field of opioid research. Dr. Anand’s work focuses on the unique strategy of exploiting the shape and structure of highly dangerous illicit drugs and transforming them into potentially life saving rescue medications for patients suffering from overdose and drug abuse. Her medicinal chemistry and pharmacology work has helped to separate useful drugs, such as those that can be converted to new therapeutics, from dangerous ones. This separation allows up to effectively pursue the development of medicine – more compassionate overdose rescue agents, pain medications without addiction liability, or medications to combat anxiety and depression. By learning more about what drives the danger of illicit drugs, we are able to understand the benefits and liabilities of new drug compounds. With this understanding, we are better equipped to tackle the ongoing chronic pain and drug abuse epidemics.

I have a compound that is very close to IND and want more information on how to best get it into the world and working to improve medical care.

Developing Better Opioid Overdose Rescue Agents 

Narcan is currently the standard of care for reversing opioid overdoses. However it is less effective against novel ultra-potent synthetic opioids currently flooding the market. There is therefore an urgent unmet medical need for improved opioid overdose rescue agents that are more potent and longer lasting.

Timothy Calpin is the founder of Torch and owner of Conscious Content Agency, with a career spanning technology development and digital marketing strategy. A Syracuse University graduate, Tim brings both professional expertise in product and digital experience design and personal lived experience in recovery—a combination that directly informs Torch's product philosophy and metrics model. He founded Torch to build the recovery support tool he wished had existed during his own journey, and to make the invisible work of recovery measurable for the millions navigating it.

I am applying to the Babson SUD Sprint because Torch is at the precise inflection point the program is built to accelerate: a clearly defined product, a complete MVP specification, an assembled board, and a validated mission—but without the commercialization framework, regulatory and reimbursement literacy, and SUD-ecosystem network required to move from concept to scaled impact. Babson's Entrepreneurial Thought & Action methodology, combined with direct access to the NIDA-aligned funding pathway, mentorship from healthcare and life sciences leaders, and a peer cohort of innovators tackling the same crisis from different angles, would meaningfully de-risk Torch's path to market. As a non-clinical founder building a recovery technology platform, I want the rigor, the credibility, and the connectivity that the SUD Sprint uniquely provides—and I want to contribute back to a community of innovators whose work I deeply respect.

Torch

Torch is a mobile recovery platform that combines conversational AI, wearable biometric data, and a proprietary metrics model to support individuals navigating substance use and behavioral recovery. Through structured check-ins and passive data from Apple Watch and Fitbit, Torch tracks more than 30 individual indicators across three dimensions—Body, Mind, and Soul—to produce a continuously updating Relapse Spectrum score that helps users, clinicians, and support networks intervene before crisis. By measuring previously untracked “deep metrics” like Purpose, Hope, Connection, and Acceptance, Torch generates the kind of longitudinal recovery data that has never before existed at scale—creating value for individuals in recovery, treatment providers, insurers, and public health agencies.

David A. Colby, Pharm.D., Ph.D., is the Chief Scientific Officer and a Founder of Fluoriq LLC, a biotechnology company focused on applying innovative chemistry to address critical challenges in healthcare. He has published nearly 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, and his laboratory has been funded by the National Institutes of Health since 2011. Dr. Colby has experience translating scientific discoveries into real-world applications, including the commercialization of technologies and serving as an inventor on patent applications and issued patents. Dr. Colby has advanced training in both pharmacy and chemistry, holding a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry. His research expertise spans medicinal chemistry, natural products chemistry, drug design, and fluorine chemistry. He is also an educator in medicinal chemistry, dietary supplements, and medical cannabis. Dr. Colby is currently working with the team at Fluoriq LLC to commercialize the first noninvasive pain diagnostic that is designed to objectively quantify novel biomarkers to guide treatment of substance use disorder and chronic pain using saliva.

I am a pharmacist-scientist, and this product has the potential to deliver substantial impact for patients with substance use disorder. My laboratory has invented the enabling technology, and even though I have assembled a capable team at Fluoriq, we still have critical needs to put a new medical diagnostic in the market. I want to participate in this program to improve my skills in entrepreneurship and connect with experts to move this invention from bench to bedside.

A Noninvasive Diagnostic Test to Guide Addiction Therapy

The prototype envisioned by the team at Fluoriq LLC is a noninvasive diagnostic collection and analysis system designed to objectively quantify biomarkers of pain to guide treatment of substance use disorder and chronic pain using saliva.

I am a neuroscientist launching an independent research program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, focused on stress-sensitive brain circuits across neurological and psychiatric disease. My research centers on the nucleus incertus and its relaxin-3/RXFP3 signaling system, an understudied brain network implicated in stress regulation, compulsion, relapse vulnerability, and emerging mechanisms of neurodegeneration. Trained across international institutions, including Laval University, the University of Bordeaux, the University of Melbourne, and the Mayo Clinic, I bring over a decade of expertise in translational neuroscience, including more than seven years of experience working in industry. My goal is to bridge fundamental brain science with translational impact by developing innovative, mechanism-based interventions with relevance to substance use disorders and neurodegenerative disease.

I want to participate in this program because I am at a stage where I need to move beyond the laboratory and learn how to translate strong neuroscience into solutions that can meaningfully help people. As a neuroscientist, I have had limited exposure to market strategy, customer discovery, and commercialization, and I am eager to better understand what it takes to move a therapy from bench research to bedside impact. I am particularly excited to engage with a diverse cohort of clinicians, founders, and public health leaders, whose perspectives will help ground my work in translational and community-informed needs and strengthen its relevance for individuals and systems affected by substance use disorders.

Breaking the Stress–Relapse Cycle in Fentanyl Addiction

My innovation addresses fentanyl use disorder by targeting the brain’s stress–addiction interface rather than opioid reward pathways. Chronic stress is a major driver of relapse, yet current treatments inadequately address stress-sensitive neural circuits. This solution focuses on the nucleus incertus, a stress-responsive brainstem hub enriched in relaxin-3 neurons that signal through RXFP3 receptors. By selectively modulating RLN3/RXFP3 signaling using agonists or antagonists, the approach aims to reduce stress-driven fentanyl seeking and relapse while preserving reward function. This represents a novel, non-opioid therapeutic strategy with strong translational and public health potential. I am excited to join the Babson College SUD Sprint 2026 to learn from fellow participants, mentors, and interdisciplinary perspectives that will strengthen the translational impact of this work.

Rebecca O. Shasanmi Ellis, PhD, MPH, MS, RN, FADLN is an Assistant Professor at Georgetown University School of Nursing. Her long-term research agenda focuses on the intersections of health workforce and health systems development, mental health, and structural determinants of health, with the goal of reducing health disparities in underserved and resource-limited communities globally. With more than 20 years of experience as a field-trained health professional, Dr. Ellis brings deep expertise in program management, implementation science, and interprofessional education across research, clinical practice, health system strengthening, and policy. This multidisciplinary background uniquely positions her to design, lead, and evaluate complex, collaborative programs that bridge nursing, public health, and global health practice. Dr. Ellis explores through her research how we can mobilize models of care that strengthen resilience, promote health equity, and advance cura personalis across the life span. Dr. Ellis is currently chairperson of the Public Health Nursing (PHN) Section of the American Public Health Association (APHA). She provides care as a registered community mental health nurse and a Community Resiliency Model (CRM)® Teacher in Washington, DC. Before her transition to Georgetown, she was an instructor at Emory University from 2018, and notably worked for the World Health Organization during the Ebola response in Nigeria till 2015.

The Babson SUD Sprint gives me the business formation skills, mentorship, and institutional scaffolding to turn a validated intervention into something that can actually reach the women who need it most — at scale, sustainably, and on their terms.

Perinatal Community Resilience: A Mobile Intervention for Stress Regulation and SUD Support

This app-based perinatal mental health and SUD prevention tool integrates maternal health specific translation of the evidence-based Community Resiliency Model (CRM) into a platform. It fills a critical gap by strengthening pregnant and postpartum stress regulation capacity—a key driver of perinatal distress and SUD vulnerability—rather than just screening. CRM teaches practical, biologically grounded skills (e.g., somatic tracking) to restore a regulated "resilient zone." This digital translation is scalable, perinatal-focused, culturally responsive, and includes pregnancy-specific content and behavioral health/social needs screening. Embedding CRM within maternal health application provides a feasible, market-ready solution to an unmet clinical need.

Founder & CEO of Nosis Health. Previously 0->1 product builder at both public companies and venture backed startups. Person in long term recovery.

Connecting with others innovating across SUD treatment.

Nosis Health

Nosis Health is a virtual practice pioneering a new approach to substance use disorder — focused on building health, not just stopping use. Our model addresses both the biological and psychological drivers of use through an integrated approach combining addiction medicine, functional medicine, biomarker testing, clinical GLP-1 protocols, therapy, coaching, and lifestyle interventions. We are built from the ground up with AI at our core and delivered entirely at home.

Mike Garafalo is a behavioral health executive, licensed alcohol and drug counselor, certified addiction recovery coach, and startup founder whose work bridges lived experience, healthcare operations, and innovation. He currently serves as Director of Behavioral Health Operations at Fallon Health, where he leads large scale initiatives across value‑based care, provider partnerships, compliance, and performance improvement, driving measurable impact within complex behavioral health systems. Drawing on both clinical training and personal recovery, Mike is a co‑founder and business lead of a startup team selected for the 2025 NIDA Substance Use Disorder Startup Challenge, focused on developing scalable, person centered solutions that connect care systems, data, and lived experience. A person in long term recovery, husband, and father, Mike has been featured in regional and national media for his advocacy and leadership, and remains committed to building behavioral health systems that treat recovery as sustainable, measurable, and worthy of long‑term investment.  

I want to participate in the Babson SUD Sprint because it sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, execution, and real‑world impact. Exactly where my work and experience are today. I’ve seen firsthand how fragmented systems fail people despite good intentions. Through my work launching RecPath and being selected for the 2025 NIDA Substance Use Disorder Startup Challenge, I’m at a critical stage where moving from concept to scalable, sustainable execution matters most. Babson’s emphasis on founder led innovation, disciplined experimentation, and building viable ventures aligns with my goal of creating solutions that are not only compassionate and person centered, but operationally sound, measurable, and fundable. The SUD Sprint offers the rigor, mentorship, and peer community needed to pressure test ideas and accelerate solutions that can meaningfully transform how recovery is supported.

RecPath

RecPath is a care coordination and navigation platform designed to support individuals with substance use disorder, particularly those involved with or transitioning from the justice system. The platform connects people to treatment, recovery supports, and community‑based services while improving communication and accountability across providers, case managers, and systems of care. Grounded in lived experience and informed by behavioral health operations, RecPath focuses on reducing fragmentation, improving continuity, and making recovery pathways more transparent, measurable, and accessible for both individuals and the systems serving them.

Hannah Haynie is a doctoral candidate in Medical and Mental Health Sociology at Kent State University and the Center Director of the Northwest Pennsylvania Area Health Education Center. Her work focuses on healthcare workforce development, substance use disorder education, and community-based approaches to improving access to care. She has presented research nationally and internationally, secured more than $70,000 in external funding as a principal investigator, and published work on provider readiness for medication-assisted treatment, interprofessional education, and global substance use disorder curriculum development. Her research is driven by a central question: how do we move evidence-based practices from theory into real-world clinical training and patient care? Over the past several years, Hannah has led grant-funded programs, built academic and community partnerships, and developed training initiatives across healthcare and higher education settings. Through this work, she recognized a persistent gap between strong educational research and scalable implementation strategies: “I’ve spent years building programs, coordinating partnerships, and developing educational initiatives within academic medicine and community health. This project is the first time I’ve stepped back and realized that the work we’ve created has the potential to scale far beyond a single institution or region. My goal is to develop practical, culturally responsive training tools that improve how providers learn to care for people with substance use disorders. I’m interested in learning how to move evidence-informed educational models into sustainable implementation so they can reach providers and patients at a broader level.”

From Global Curriculum Consensus to Accreditation Pathways: Advancing Culturally Responsive Standards for Substance Use Disorder Education

Despite the global burden of substance use disorders, healthcare training in SUD care remains inconsistent across professions, institutions, and countries. In many settings, providers receive limited formal education in addiction medicine, contributing to gaps in treatment access and quality of care. Using Group Concept Mapping, this research brought together interprofessional stakeholders from multiple countries to identify the foundational competencies all healthcare providers should develop in substance use disorder education. The resulting framework includes nine domains spanning addiction science, harm reduction, clinical practice, cultural responsiveness, and provider attitudes. The next phase of this work focuses on translating that international consensus into a modular, accreditation-aligned curriculum toolkit that institutions can adapt across diverse educational and clinical settings. The long-term goal is to support more consistent, evidence-informed preparation of the healthcare workforce worldwide.

I graduated UCSD with a B.A. in Applied Mathematics and a B.S. in Cognitive Science with a strong foundation in artificial intelligence. After working at the Salk Institute for three years, I pursued a Ph.D. at the Brandeis University in the lab of Dr. Leslie Griffith. I received my Ph.D. in 2013 as a seasoned fly electrophysiologist, but transitioned to Bioinformatics for my post-doc at UMass Worcester. Afterwards, I worked at Genentech as a Bioinformatician in Cancer and Immunology for eight years before pursuing my own company. I am a proud native of the San Francisco Bay Area, happily raising two children with my wife.

My particular challenge revolves around finding funding for an idea stage company. The funding environment is currently very challenging with “de-risking” as a major theme, and foundations and angel investors are few and difficult to identify. I seek to learn how to better advertise myself to investors of all types to get my project off the ground.

A Next Generation Targeted Analgesic Platform Drug

My drug will utilize a novel mechanism to deliver analgesics in a locally targeted, non-addictive manner that will improve both the efficacy and safety of existing analgesics.

I am the Co-founder and CEO of SUTOL Bio, an MIT Langer Lab spin-out developing next-generation drug delivery technologies. My background is in biomedical engineering and translational research, with a focus on implantable systems and oral drug delivery platforms designed for real-world clinical impact. At SUTOL Bio, I lead the development of a once-monthly oral capsule platform aimed at replacing daily pills and long-acting injectables for chronic diseases. Our work bridges advanced engineering, clinical needs, and regulatory strategy to bring scalable healthcare solutions to patients.

I want to deepen my understanding of entrepreneurship, commercialization, and scaling innovation in healthcare. As a founder, I am particularly interested in refining our business strategy, investor communication, and go-to-market approach. I believe this course will provide valuable insights, practical frameworks, and a strong network to accelerate the growth of SUTOL Bio and help translate our technology into real-world impact.

A Monthly Capsule for Opioid and Alcohol Use Disorder

We are developing a once-monthly oral capsule that delivers drugs continuously in the body, eliminating the need for daily medication or painful injections. The capsule self-assembles in the stomach and enables long-term, controlled drug release for over one month. This platform can be applied to over 100 FDA approved drugs, offering a faster, lower cost pathway to improve medication adherence and patient outcomes across multiple chronic diseases.

Marlene Lira holds an MPH in epidemiology from Harvard and is a DrPH candidate at Johns Hopkins in health policy. Marlene brings fifteen years of experience in the addiction field spanning research, implementation, and operations in academic and digital health settings. She is currently developing a novel pharmacological telehealth approach to substance use disorders, with a planned national launch later this year.

Lance Lively is a health technology executive and the founder and CEO of Livelyhood, a startup innovating in the direct-to-consumer telemedicine space. Prior to founding Livelyhood, Lance held key leadership roles across the deep-tech and food-tech sectors, serving as VP and GM at The EVERY Company (eggs without the chicken) and COO at Biolumen (sugar-absorbing fiber). He brings a strong foundation in strategic growth and business management, drawing on his experience at McKinsey & Company. Lance is an alumnus of Princeton University and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. I am eager to join the Babson SUD Ventures course to contribute to a collaborative ecosystem of innovators working to transform behavioral health. By exchanging insights on novel clinical pathways for alcohol addiction, I hope to both learn from my peers and share my own experiences in health tech so we can collectively dismantle the stigma surrounding substance use disorders.

Breaking the addiction loop with GLP-1s

Pioneering access to anti-craving medications for people in recovery from alcohol use disorder

Kaylee Murphy, LICSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in the Boston area specializing in women’s behavioral health and wellness. Her work focuses on anxiety, insomnia, alcohol misuse, relationship challenges, career stress, and midlife transitions using a CBT-informed, whole-body approach that integrates mindfulness, exercise, nutrition, and behavior change. Kaylee has worked across the continuum of substance use treatment, including inpatient detox, PHP, and IOP settings, and has developed and facilitated group-based support programs focused on relapse prevention, recovery support, and medication-assisted treatment within community health settings. A Babson College graduate (Class of 1986), she is passionate about creating accessible, educational approaches that help women make meaningful and sustainable health behavior changes before crisis occurs.

As a psychotherapist with experience across the continuum of substance use care and a passion for women’s mental health and wellness, I am interested in exploring whether a shame-free, education-based recovery readiness model could help engage this underserved population earlier and more effectively. I hope to use the Babson SUD Sprint program to refine the concept, better understand scalable delivery models, and explore how health education, digital engagement, and clinician-supported interventions might improve outcomes for women, clinicians, and workplace wellness programs.

R4: Recovery Readiness Framework

R4 (Recovery Readiness Framework) is a developing behavioral health intervention model designed for women in the contemplative stage of alcohol behavior change. The framework targets a largely underserved population of high-functioning women whose sleep, stress regulation, health, relationships, parenting, and work performance may be negatively impacted by alcohol use before major consequences emerge. Using targeted social media outreach, self-assessment tools, psychoeducation, and behavior-change support, R4 aims to reduce shame, increase insight, and help participants move toward healthier alcohol use patterns, treatment engagement, or abstinence. The model also has potential applications in workplace wellness, clinician training, and healthcare settings.

Nitish is a Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of California Irvine Institute for Future Health. He specializes in fairness-aware causal inference and large language models for health applications. His research has been published in top-tier venues like IEEE Medicine & Biology and Elsevier Smart Health, American Heart Association, and the American Diabetes Association. He is the recipient of UC Irvine’s Beall Family Entrepreneur Award, the Technical University of Munich Young Academy Scholarship, and the Best Outgoing Student award in Electrical Engineering at R.V. College, India. Outside of work, he enjoys science communication and mentoring people from diverse backgrounds.

“I have seen how challenges related to access to care and associated stigma with mental health prevent people from getting the care they need. As a technologist, I want to build solutions that can overcome these challenges by creating a product that will benefit users who need it the most. Through the program, I am interested in learning about the research-driven mechanisms of substance abuse and ways to translate technology into a full-fledged venture.

I will add value to the cohort by sharing my skills and expertise in machine learning, synthetic data, and causality. I aim to work with partners, mentors, and providers to operationalize our product and scale our solution, thereby improving patient care. Finally, the program’s mission aligns with my vision of empowering people to lead a happier, healthier, and fulfilling life.”

Building the Intelligence Layer for Behavioral Health

People with substance abuse and mental health challenges struggle to keep up with their routines and seek assistance in rehabilitation centers. Current treatment centers face staff shortages and lack full insurance coverage. As a result, patients are not fully provided the care they truly need, necessitating the need for alternative monitoring solutions.

Therefore, we are building an integrated care environment for residential substance use treatment. Our platform seeks to reduce operational strain, improve care quality, and facilitate timely reimbursement.

Olaitan is a data driven innovator committed to improving maternal health through practical, AIenabled innovation. He is developing a predictive model that enhances early detection of Substance Use Disorder (SUD) risk in pregnancy, addressing a critical gap in feto-maternal care where traditional screening often misses early warning signs. His background includes creating deployable analytics tools, including winning the Best Applied Insight/Deployability Prize at the 2026 Vibe Coding Hackathon at UWM. He is now focused on translating this maternal health solution into a scalable product that can meaningfully support clinicians and mothers.

I want to participate in this course to gain the entrepreneurial guidance, mentorship, and practical frameworks needed to turn my AI enabled maternal health innovation into a scalable, real world solution. This program offers the expertise and support structure that will help me move from concept to commercialization and ensure the EMBRACE model reaches the clinicians and mothers who need it most.

EMBRACE - Early Maternal Behavioral Risk Recognition and Clinical Engagement

This innovation, called EMBRACE (Early Maternal Behavioral risk Recognition And Clinical Engagement), is an AI enabled clinical decision support tool design to enhances early detection of substance use disorder (SUD) risk in pregnancy. By combining traditional screening tools with routinely collected prenatal data, EMBRACE identifies subtle clinical, behavioral, and social patterns that often go unnoticed, giving providers earlier, more reliable, and non stigmatizing insight to guide supportive care for mothers.

I am an Instructor of Emergency Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. I have a PhD in Biomedical Informatics and have done many big data studies surrounding polysubstance use and on prescription drugs of high misuse potential. My current research interests have evolved to include how artificial intelligence techniques can be used to improve outcomes for patients with substance use disorder especially in the emergency department. Furthermore, I am also interested in how AI techniques can be used to improve the drug discovery process, especially to create prescription drugs for pain and mental health use disorder with low misuse potential.

I have been honored to be accepted to this program with a NIDA-funded scholarship. Through this program, I hope to gain the skills I need to successfully fulfill my dream of creating and running this startup. I also hope to learn from NIDA best ways of getting funded to commercialize this project. I would also like to learn more about strategies for recruiting the appropriate personnel to work with me in forming the startup as well as build my network to include those in the community who may be advisors now and in the future.

Artificial Intelligence Based Drug Discovery to Identify New Drugs with Less Misuse Potential

To my knowledge, currently, there are few to none AI-based efforts focused on identifying new drug targets specifically for pain, mental health disorders, and substance use disorders. Currently, we have many drugs of high misuse potential in the market (e.g. amphetamines, gabapentinoids, opioids, and benzodiazepines), and few effective alternatives to replace them. Furthermore, the drug discovery process, especially identifying drug targets is lengthy, and takes years. There is preliminary evidence in other domains that shows that AI can help speed up the process for drug discovery, from years, to months. Creating an AI startup specifically focused on identifying targets for better drugs to help improve outcomes for patients with pain and mental health disorders could accelerate discovery and create a very large impact on patient outcomes.

Dr. Reza Rashidi is a mechanical engineer, innovator, and engineering educator with expertise in product development, sensing technologies, wearable devices, and multidisciplinary engineering design. He currently serves as faculty at University at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from University of British Columbia, where he also completed postdoctoral research in biomedical sensing devices and studies in engineering management and entrepreneurship.  Dr. Rashidi brings more than 15 years of industry experience and over a decade of academic experience spanning engineering innovation, design, and commercialization-focused education. His interests include medical devices, intelligent sensing systems, wearable technologies, energy harvesting technologies, and entrepreneurship-driven product development. He has advised multiple award-winning student teams in national engineering and startup competitions, including NASA Lunabotics, the Navy Promoting Electric Propulsion Competition, and collegiate startup competitions. He is also the recipient of the British Columbia Innovation Award.

I want to participate in this entrepreneurship course to learn how to systematically transform innovative ideas into viable real-world solutions. As someone working at the intersection of product development and applied research, I am particularly interested in understanding how to evaluate technical feasibility alongside market needs, build sustainable business models, and navigate the path from prototype to commercialization. This course would help me strengthen my ability to bridge engineering innovation with practical impact and real-world adoption.

Wearable Physiological Biomarkers for Early Relapse Risk Detection in Opioid Recovery

PhysioSense is a wearable health-monitoring platform designed to identify early physiological warning signs associated with relapse risk in individuals recovering from opioid use disorder. The system combines sleep patterns, autonomic nervous system activity, and mood-related physiological biomarkers collected through commercially available wearable devices to generate personalized, continuous relapse-risk insights. By enabling passive monitoring and proactive clinical intervention before behavioral deterioration occurs, the platform aims to support precision-guided addiction care and improve long-term recovery outcomes. The platform is currently under patent-pending status.

Dr. Rebecca Rossom is a Psychiatrist and Senior Investigator at HealthPartners Institute Division of Research in Minneapolis, MN. She has led and participated in numerous federally-funded studies focused on improving diagnosis and treatment of depression, cardiovascular risk, serious mental illness, opioid use disorder, and suicide risk. Dr. Rossom serves as the Chair of the Health Care Systems Research Network, the Site PI for the NIMH-funded Mental Health Research Network, and the Site PI for the NorthStar Node of the NIDA Clinical Trials Network.

I have a strong grounding in medicine and in research, but almost no training or experience with entrepreneurship or commercialization. I would like to learn innovative ways to get our tool into the hands of clinicians.

Opioid Wizard

Opioid Wizard is a web-based intervention that is linked to the electronic health record and guides primary care clinicians on the diagnosis and treatment of opioid use disorder.

Jessica Siewert, CCHII, BHIS, a clinician-founder with 7+ years of experience in behavioral health and functional medicine, is driven to transform SUD treatment with innovative, evidence-backed solutions. Siewert is pioneering a promising solution for SUD treatment, leveraging personal experience and clinical expertise to drive innovation. The focus on circadian rhythm and autonomic nervous system function is a unique approach that stands out from the current treatments that treat SUDs. Specializing in treating comorbidities like brain injury and substance use, PTSD and associated neurological conditions with bespoke protocols.

Grateful: I'm honored to be participating in the Babson SUD Sprint to accelerate Luminary's impact, driven by my own experience with mTBI and recovery. I'm seeking top-tier mentorship, strategic partnerships, and rigorous pilot design to responsibly bring a non-intoxicating, THCfree solution to SUD treatment settings, addressing the complex interplay of pain, sleep, and nervous system regulation.

Luminary: A Transdermal Pathway to SUD Recovery Stability

Emerging research suggests that lack of sleep affects inflammatory signaling and histamine-related pathways that may amplify pain, anxiety, and sleep disruption factors that can worsen relapse risk. Luminary addresses a critical gap in SUD treatment: sleep disruption's role in cravings and treatment challenges. By improving sleep continuity, we aim to reduce stress reactivity, pain sensitivity, and cognitive impairment, supporting better treatment outcomes. With clear endpoints and rigorous evaluation, Luminary is poised to set a new standard for SUD care—a natural, nonintoxicating remedy with FDA approval. Luminary is a novel *FDA-approvable time released-medical grade 3M transdermal patch leveraging 0% THC CBD and proprietary herbal biotechnology to target circadian rhythm disruption and autonomic nervous system imbalance in SUD recovery.

Jackie Slaugenhaupt is the Co-Founder and President of Teetotal Initiative, a Pittsburgh-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit advancing innovative approaches to sustaining sobriety and recovery. Through free, high-quality events and programming, Teetotal Initiative addresses key drivers of return to use, including isolation, boredom, and lack of social connection, by creating consistent opportunities for engagement, belonging, and routine. Under her leadership, the organization has grown to serve thousands annually across Southwestern Pennsylvania, positioning social connection as a practical and scalable recovery support tool. In parallel, Jackie is the President of Project Enthusiast, LLC, where she works with nonprofits and businesses to move from idea to action. She helps define direction, design clear and practical plans for execution, and builds the processes and operating structure needed to make work happen, while staying engaged to guide implementation and ensure sustainable results. She brings over 25 years of experience in financial services, including leadership roles at institutions such as Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, and BNY Mellon, with deep expertise in enterprise change management, project management, process improvement, training, communications, and data visualization.

We’ve proven the concept at a community level, and the opportunity now is to evolve it into a more structured, repeatable model that can consistently support individuals over time while expanding its reach. Babson’s focus on entrepreneurship and commercialization is exactly what we need to take this work to the next level. I’m looking to refine how the model drives measurable relapse prevention impact, explore how technology can extend engagement and continuity between in person experiences, and build a clear framework for geographic expansion without losing quality. The goal is to translate what’s working into a scalable, durable solution that can reach more individuals and play a more defined role in long-term recovery support.

Advancing a Novel Recovery Modality into a Scalable, Sustainable Prevention Model

Teetotal Initiative is closing the most overlooked gap in the recovery ecosystem: the social, emotional, and lifestyle environments where sobriety and recovery are sustained. While clinical care and peer support are critical, they often do not extend into the unstructured time where isolation, boredom, and disconnection can increase the risk of return to use. Teetotal Initiative focuses on that space, creating consistent, accessible opportunities for connection, engagement, and routine that support individuals beyond formal systems of care. Its innovation lies in how it integrates recovery into everyday life. Rather than centering programming on treatment models, Teetotal designs experiences around how people naturally spend their time, building connection, exploring interests, and participating in community. This approach strengthens key protective factors and offers a scalable, real-world complement to traditional recovery services.

I am the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Ember Therapeutics Corporation, an Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the Brown University School of Public Health, and a licensed clinical psychologist and biostatistician specializing in identifying immediate, situational antecedents and consequences of substance use. I am the PI of the Comprehensive Addiction Research Lab at Brown University, which conducts behavioral addiction science and intervention development research. Across these roles, I bring expertise in using technology to assess and intervene on behaviors in real time in naturalistic settings. I am passionate about improving the timeliness and quality of care and starting to deliver on the promise of precision medicine. To this end, my colleagues at Ember and I have started to develop products that integrate wearable biosensors with remote assessment and digital interventions, along with the platform that supports these technologies.

I want to participate in the Babson SUD Sprint program because I want formal training in entrepreneurship and commercialization, and I recognize that without it, my research risks staying within academic circles rather than driving meaningful change in the field. From the Babson SUD Sprint program, I hope to gain a practical foundation in commercialization strategies that can move our evidence-based product into real-world use. I also hope to connect with a network of entrepreneurs, clinicians, and investors working at the intersection of public health and innovation. Last, I am eager to receive guidance on identifying and securing early-stage funding for research-driven ventures and frameworks for making the critical decision between building a focused product versus a broader platform.

SmartTaper: Enhancing Remote Management of Clinician-Led Benzodiazepine Tapers

SmartTaper is designed for patients who are tapering from benzodiazepines and clinicians who are managing this deprescribing. Current clinical practice in benzodiazepine tapering inadequately implements up-to-date guidelines as there are few empirically-supported tools to facilitate safe, individualized discontinuation. Effective tapering requires ongoing monitoring and timely dose adjustments, but barriers to access and underreporting of symptoms undermine treatment success. Patients may also minimize or underreport withdrawal due to stigma, distress, or fear of discontinuation failure. As a result, clinicians are often unaware of problems until symptoms escalate into preventable adverse events, relapse, or treatment dropout. These gaps highlight the need for solutions that extend monitoring outside the clinic and provide rapid, data-driven feedback.

Shahed Sufian, PhD, MPH, MS is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Center for Opioid and Addiction Research (NCOAR) within the Arkansas Children’s Research Institute. In this role, he utilizes health services research methods, advanced data analytics, and digital health to investigate the impact of the opioid crisis on maternal and child health, inform state and national policies, and develop evidence-based prevention and treatment solutions. Previously, he served as a Research Fellow at the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Dr. Sufian evaluated a national electronic health record program in Bangladesh and spearheaded a groundbreaking home-based telemedicine field trial that reached 25,000 rural residents. He completed his doctoral training in Health Systems and Services Research at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) and holds advanced degrees in public health, biomedical engineering, and electrical engineering. His areas of expertise include substance use disorder, implementation science, and the analysis of large-scale administrative claims databases. Dr. Sufian has been recognized for his significant contributions to health services research, receiving the Outstanding Achievement Award from the UAMS Graduate School and the National Science and Technology Fellowship from the Ministry of Science and Technology, Bangladesh.

The Babson SUD Sprint is uniquely structured to help researchers translate technically sound ideas into testable, market-ready solutions. I have experience in health services research and data analysis, but less formal training in commercialization, customer discovery, and business model development. The Sprint's focus on entrepreneurship for SUD innovations, combined with its intensive format and mentorship, is exactly what I need to refine the SUD Communication Companion from a concept into a product that health systems and payers will adopt and sustain.

Substance Use Disorder Communication Companion

The substance use disorder (SUD) Communication Companion is a vendor-agnostic, web-based tool that supports clear, non-stigmatizing conversations about SUD during high-impact clinical encounters. It connects to existing systems via standard interfaces, uses key data points to flag encounters where structured SUD counseling is critical, and provides clinicians with simple prompts and a checklist of evidence-based treatment options tailored to the patient's profile. The product includes protocol‑aligned training materials for clinicians. It automatically sends patients plain‑language summaries and links to appropriate national and local resources after the visit, reducing communication gaps and helping translate clinical contact into concrete next steps.

Hannah is a PhD-level clinical social worker who specializes in how technology can be responsibly used to promote behavioral and mental health equity. Hannah's work is at the intersections of implementation science, human-centered design, anti-oppressive practice, and community-based research. She both develops and tests digital health tools and interventions for patient populations that are often less prioritized within the current healthcare system. She also consults for the health tech industry and with policy makers on AI, mental health safety, and behavioral health promotion.

I want to learn how to make digital health tools accessible, sustainable, and impactful, beyond academic research.

uMAT-R: A digital health intervention prioritizing equity in addiction care

uMAT-R (pronounced “you matter”) is a mobile app digital health intervention that maintains contact with a population that is highly mobile by offering real-time support, including coaching, psychoeducation, and access to community resources. Intervention content has been iteratively shaped by feedback and recommendations from clients and community partners. Clients complete baseline, and one-month surveys, and app engagement data is also passively collected. Our team has demonstrated successful uptake of uMAT-R, improved SUD symptoms, and improved recovery outcomes. Over five years, our team has engaged nearly 2,000 adult clients who have used or are using opioids, stimulants, or both substances, who are lower-resourced, and who are seeking community-based addiction care across Missouri.

Dr. Tsang obtained her MD from UBC, MPH from Harvard, and is currently completing her DPhil from Oxford University as a Clarendon Scholar. She completed her residency in psychiatry at UBC and her addiction medicine fellowship through the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) at UBC. Her research work spans the fields of concurrent disorders and novel pharmacotherapies. She has over 50 peer reviewed publications, leads the Road to Recovery Concurrent Disorders project with the BCCSU, and is part of the addictions and concurrent disorders lab at UBC conducting research on opioid use disorders and concurrent disorders among patients. She is the Research Lead at Roots to Thrive, a non-profit psychedelic-assisted therapy clinic in Nanaimo, BC. This clinic was the first to provide psilocybin to patients in BC under the Special Access Program. She is also one of the founding members and a Director of the new Naut sa Mawt Psychedelic Centre on Vancouver Island. Dr. Tsang remains on the steering committee of the Canadian Collaborative for Childhood Cannabinoid Therapeutics, one of the largest cannabis research groups in the country. She has also served as board member or advisor to pharmaceutical and medical device companies such as Qi Integrated Health, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, and Janssen. She also runs a registered Canadian Charity called The HOPE Initiative and is the National Director of a young person's research advisory group KidsCan which is part of an international conglomerate working on regulations for paediatric clinical trials. She has won over $30 million dollars in grant funding for research and has previously lived in Geneva working at WHO headquarters as well as South Africa and Zimbabwe implementing the World Health Organization HealthWISE toolkit to prevent infectious disease transmission for workers in low-resource settings.

I am interested in joining the Babson entrepreneurship course to strengthen my ability to translate innovative mental health ideas into scalable, sustainable solutions. My work focuses on developing accessible, community-based mental health programs, and I am particularly interested in building models that integrate digital tools, peer support, and evidence-based care. Babson’s emphasis on practical, action-oriented entrepreneurship aligns closely with my goal of moving beyond research into real-world implementation and impact. This course will help me develop key skills in business strategy, program scaling, and sustainable funding models, enabling me to expand the reach of mental health interventions and improve access to care for underserved populations.

HOPE for Healing

The HOPE for Healing Program is a therapist-led, weekly youth development and mental health program designed to support adolescents in building emotional wellbeing, identity, and resilience in a safe, peer-based environment. To strengthen outcomes and continuity of care, the program will be paired with a digital companion app that enables therapists to assign CBT-based exercises and track participant progress in real time. CBT emphasizes practicing skills between sessions, as “homework” is a core component of effective therapy, helping youth apply what they learn in real life. Digital tools enhance this by making exercises more accessible and engaging outside sessions.

Wen-Jan Tuan, DHA MS MPH, is a clinical informaticist and health services researcher who develops data driven solutions to improve health care quality, efficiency, and equity. His work applies machine learning and real-world electronic health record data to design scalable clinical decision support and digital health tools, with a focus on chronic disease management and substance use disorder prevention. Dr. Tuan’s research emphasizes translation—moving analytic innovations from concept to clinical adoption by aligning clinical rigor with operational feasibility and stakeholder needs. He has received multiple federally and state funded research grants, including a five-year K01 career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and has developed decision support applications that have influenced safer prescribing and care delivery at scale.

My research focuses on developing data driven clinical decision support tools to prevent substance use disorders, with strong potential for real world impact. To move these innovations beyond academic settings and into routine clinical practice, I need deeper expertise in venture development, commercialization strategy, regulatory pathways, and stakeholder engagement. The Babson SUD SPRINT program offers a unique opportunity to develop an entrepreneurial mindset, learn from experienced founders and investors, and refine a clear value proposition and implementation pathway that can accelerate adoption and scale sustainable, patient centered solutions.

RxStimulantGuard: Intelligent decision support for safer prescribing

Description of project
RxStimulantGuard is an intelligence-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) designed to assess the risk of stimulant-related and other substance use disorders (SUD) among individuals receiving stimulant therapy. This CDSS tool addresses a critical and growing clinical need to ensuring safe, effective stimulant prescribing amid rising rates of substance use disorder and overdose. RxStimulantGuard leverages machine‑learning models trained on large‑scale, nationally representative electronic health record and claims data to identify and quantify the influence of demographic, medical, mental health, and health‑care utilization factors associated with subsequent SUD and overdose events. In addition to providing generalized risk stratification to inform clinical decision‑making, RxStimulantGuard is capable of incorporating transfer learning techniques to adapt national models to local clinical and geo‑socioeconomic contexts, ensuring relevance across diverse health systems and community settings.

Beyond its predictive capabilities, RxStimulantGuard incorporates user interfaces whose functionality and usability are systematically evaluated and refined based on clinical guidelines, expert input, and feedback from clinicians who prescribe stimulants. This iterative, user‑centered approach ensures that the tool is optimally designed, seamlessly integrated, and efficiently streamlined within routine clinical care. Moreover, the intelligence‑based CDSS platform supports real‑time, automated learning from newly incoming data, enhancing flexibility, and providing more personalized treatment decisions. This digital health tool can be deployed as a standalone application or integrated into existing electronic health record platforms, enabling broad adoption across diverse health systems while minimizing implementation burden and maximizing clinical impact.

Dr. Balazs Varga is a translational drug discovery scientist with expertise in medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, structure-based ligand design, and GPCR pharmacology. He is currently a Senior Scientist at UHSP/Washington University in St. Louis, where his work focuses on therapeutically selective modulation of receptor signaling for neurological, psychiatric, pain, and substance use-related disorders. His research has contributed to first-in-class bitopic ligands, GPCR allosteric modulation strategies, compounds advancing toward clinical development, multiple patent applications, and publications in journals including Nature and Nature Communications. He is developing non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists as a potentially scalable therapeutic approach for neuropsychiatric and behavioral health conditions, including substance use disorders.

I want to participate in Babson SUD Sprint because our project is at an early stage where entrepreneurial guidance can strongly shape its direction. We are developing non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists with potential relevance to substance use disorders, but we need to better understand where this approach fits within the SUD ecosystem, which indications and stakeholders are most appropriate, and what evidence will be needed to support a credible path forward. I hope to use the course to refine our value proposition, pressure-test our assumptions, and build a practical roadmap for translating the science into a scalable therapeutic opportunity.

NonHallucinogeni c 5-HT2A Agonists

We are developing non-hallucinogenic 5-HT2A agonists that aim to separate the therapeutic potential of psychedelic-target biology from the perceptual effects that limit scalability. Our goal is to create a treatment approach that is practical for outpatient use, with lower monitoring burden, reduced stigma, and broader access than traditional psychedelic-based therapies. We have validated the separation of hallucinogenic and therapeutic effects in two preclinical pain models and hope to extend this work into substance use disorder models.

Lindsey Zimmerman, PhD, is a licensed clinical and community psychologist, scientist, and founder. In her roles at the VA and Stanford University, she has led two 24-site cluster randomized trials, one VA-funded, one NIH-funded, studying precisely why evidence-based treatments fail to reach patients even when clinicians are trained and willing. Her research is funded by NIH, VA, SAMHSA, and Stanford, and her simulation tools are registered with the National Library of Medicine. She trained as a community psychologist because she always understood that people heal in systems, not in isolation. That conviction led her to implementation science, and then to systems science, as she watched the same hard problems persist over time, across locations and health care systems. She founded KindView, Inc., because she has lived those problems long enough to know exactly where the healthy feedback loops break down and how to re-build them. KindView is the operating system that connects the data, the decisions, and the people who share the same goals, so they can finally move together.

We are at an inflection point: in the science, in the technology, in the opportunity to get it right, and in the human cost of continuing to get this wrong. I have spent my career studying why evidence-based treatments fail to reach the people who need them most. I now know some of the most important answers. What I do not yet have is the commercial and entrepreneurial fluency to turn that precision into a product that works in the market. That is what I am coming to Babson to build. I have sat with clinicians who are overwhelmed to the point of crisis. I have conducted suicide screens with the clinicians who are holding the system together. What they need is not another app or another dashboard. They need someone with a KindView: someone who sees the whole picture, understands what is driving it, and can finally help the people around them work together better. Not with more data. With better connections. The evidence keeps coming in. I am coming to Babson to pressure-test KindView as a business, find partners who share both the mission and the discipline to build something that scales; the patients they serve are their neighbors, friends, and family. They deserve a system that helps them do better for each other. That is who KindView is for.

KindView: The Behavioral Health Operating System for the Healthcare Workforce

AI is reshaping every part of the behavioral health system: therapy delivery, clinical documentation, operational reporting. When every part of the system moves faster in its own direction, the cost of misalignment compounds. More signal, less synthesis. The problem is not the technology. The problem is that every part of the system is now moving faster in isolation; it is widening gaps instead of closing them. KindView builds the missing connection and translation layer. Healthcare workers have the highest rates of untreated addiction and traumatic stress of any industry. The clinical or operations leader watching this knows the costs: turnover, liability, quality failures, and safety risk. They are running out of runway to solve workforce burnout, patient outcomes, and budget pressure. These are not separate problems; they land on the same agenda and increasingly the same budget conversation. Workforce health, patient outcomes, and budget pressure are not three problems. They are one system. KindView is the behavioral health operating system for healthcare workforces: the GPS, not the speedometer. It integrates workforce data, simulation-based scenario planning, and decision support so that clinical and operations leaders share a single picture of what is driving the crisis and what levers to pull. Its approach meets national quality standards for substance use and traumatic stress. Designed to work with existing data infrastructure investments, KindView adds the domain-specific intelligence layer that general platforms cannot provide. Its research base identified the precise points where these systems undermine themselves, tested across sites, funders, and health care systems. Its architecture is structured around privacy-preserving data design that keeps sensitive records exactly where they belong. The goal is not to replace what health systems have already built. It is to make it finally work.