Changing the trajectory of human health, one baby at a time.

Mike Johnson is a seasoned senior executive with nearly 20 years of experience leading companies in the health and technology sectors. He is deeply passionate about the mission of Infinant Health to use the power of the microbiome to positively impact lives. Prior to joining Infinant Health, Johnson served as the Global Managing Director at Cargill Animal Health Technologies, where he led a team of 500 individuals responsible for developing and distributing technology on a global scale. Before leading the Animal Health business, was instrumental in standing up Cargill’s approach to Health Technologies broadly. He was responsible for the human health supplement EpiCor and the organic and inorganic growth portfolio for health. In this capacity Mike led the most recent series for Infinant and participated in investments in both private and public companies. Mike’s passion for science and technology, coupled with his business acumen, has allowed him to develop a successful track record of bringing new products to market on a global scale. Mike also served on Infinant Health’s Board of Directors prior to being named Chief Executive Officer.

Dr. Sylvester is a surgeon-scientist, innovator, and entrepreneur. He is a globally recognized expert in maternal and child health discovery and translation. As an innovator, he has started and advised numerous companies in product development and innovation across the spectrum of life sciences, including medical technology, therapeutics, and diagnostics. In addition, he has led multidisciplinary teams in both academia and industry in the development of technology platforms for translational application. Dr. Sylvester is a Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford and Associate Dean of Maternal and Child Health Research at Stanford University School of Medicine. He has led a distinguished career in clinical care for infants born with a spectrum of congenital anomalies and is a recognized expert in newborn gut biology. Dr. Sylvester is an experienced clinical trialist and was a leading member of the first team to successfully execute a prospective randomized NIH-sponsored clinical trial for the surgical treatment of necrotizing enterocolitis in critically ill, very low birth weight newborns. He has authored over 120 peer-reviewed publications and holds numerous patents for his novel discoveries.

Christian is a healthcare leader with more than 20 years of experience building high-performance organizations in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device industries. He has successfully driven commercial operations and launched numerous pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and medical device products across multiple channels. A dedicated leader with a passion for organizational growth, Christian has led healthcare companies through private equity, public offering, and acquisition life cycles. This includes ViaCell, a biotechnology company specializing in cord blood stem cells that was acquired by global health science leader PerkinElmer for $300M. As Senior Vice President at TherapeuticsMD, he earned 'Forbes Fast 500' recognition for healthcare revenue growth three years in a row, building the nation's largest women's health sales organization from inception and achieving a $1.7B market valuation after the company went public in 2016. In addition to the launch of three new drugs in four years, TherapeuticsMD leveraged disruptive channel innovation with the development of vitaCare Prescription Services, later acquired by GoodRx for $150M. Most recently, Christian served as President and Chief Commercial Officer at Dominion Aesthetic Technologies, where he led this robotic medical device company from 510K clearance through production and successful launch, garnering aesthetic industry awards and market recognition. He earned his Master's in Management at Troy University and began his healthcare career at Eli Lilly & Company after serving as a Captain in the United States Air Force. 

As General Counsel, Corporate Secretary, and Chief Compliance and Regulatory Officer, Lisa Hannan leads Infinant Health’s legal, governance and compliance and regulatory efforts. Lisa joined Infinant Health from Novartis Pharmaceuticals, where she served in roles of increasing responsibility including U.S. Legal Head of Respiratory and U.S. Legal Head of Immunology. Over her ten-years with Novartis, Lisa supported five therapeutic areas, ten approved and/or investigational medicines and provided counsel on a range of matters relating to clinical development, commercialization, employment, litigation, and compliance. Over her career, Lisa’s work has focused on facilitating long-term business performance while building trust with society. She is a committed advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion. Lisa received her Juris Doctorate from Rutgers School of Law – Newark, and is a member of the State Bars of New York and New Jersey and the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

Anthony is an experienced operations and strategy professional with an extensive background in the technology and biotech industries. Before joining Infinant Health, he spent the last decade with Alexion Pharmaceuticals, where he held roles of increasing responsibilities within IT, real estate, manufacturing, and R&D. As such, he was highly successful in ensuring full execution of strategy and delivery of corporate goals. In his most recent role, he oversaw operations, GxP quality/compliance, and technology for the product development organization, in addition to workforce planning, capital investments, and global CMC/clinical supply budget (>300M). Additionally, Anthony has led numerous enterprise technology implementations, M&A pre-, and post-close integrations, and the entry and exit of over 20 global office locations, including corporate headquarters and manufacturing facilities. He received his JD from the Western New England School of Law, and prior to Alexion, Anthony managed a successful legal practice, concentrating on business law, contracts, and real estate.

Patrick is a finance leader with over ten years of experience in various accounting and finance roles. Before joining Infinant Health, he spent five years with Deloitte's audit practice, overseeing engagements of all sizes and industries, including public and private companies in biotech, media, clean energy, and consumer packaged goods industries. At Infinant Health, Patrick leads the accounting and finance functions and assists the executive team through fundraising activities. He is currently earning his MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business.

Jenn is a highly accomplished marketing executive with over 20 years of brand management expertise in both consumer-packaged goods and healthcare and possesses a formidable, proven track record of success. She has held marketing leadership roles across a variety of global organizations, including Unilever, L'Oreal, and German skincare company Beiersdorf, as well as within the private equity space, where she has consistently driven market share growth in highly commoditized categories. Most recently, Jenn was Head of Marketing for Aspira Women's Health, where she developed the marketing strategy to drive adoption, market expansion, and standard of care for gynecological health among health care professionals. Jenn earned her MBA from Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, and has a deep and broad understanding of brand building, strategic marketing, innovation development, and commercialization.

Dr. Henrick is responsible for developing and executing Infinant Health's discovery research programs to help shape the vision and long-term growth of the company through the oversight of an innovative research pipeline of first- or best-in-class therapies. She has served as Associate Director for the Foods for Health Institute at the University of California, Davis. Moreover, she has previously led the optimization of the world's fastest and most accurate point-of-care HIV1/2 diagnostic. Dr. Henrick has a BSc degree in biology and chemistry from Missouri State University, where she was an All-American Division 1 athlete, and a Ph.D. in medical science, specializing in Infection and Immunity, from McMaster University. Her doctoral work focused on the characterization of the innate immune systems in sensing and regulating human immunodeficiency virus-1 infection from mother to child. Dr. Henrick holds nine patents and has 41 peer-reviewed publications, including a recent Cell manuscript that was the first to show how the infant gut microbiome composition polarizes the immune system towards tolerance and away from phenotypes strongly associated with autoimmune and allergic diseases by directly impacting CD4+ T cell maturation. She received the International Milk Genomics Consortium's "Top Early Investigator Award" and currently serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Lincoln Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

Dr. Bragg serves as Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Director of the NICU Follow-up Program and Cardiac Neurodevelopmental Program at a Level IV NICU in New York. As a neonatologist, she is passionate about optimizing neurodevelopmental outcomes through a collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to advancing children's health. Her research interests include rapid genomic sequencing in critically ill infants, assessing the impact of developmental programming on parental stress, and early identification of sensory processing disorders in high-risk infants. Through the accelerated research pathway of the American Board of Pediatrics, she completed a year of research fellowship in neonatal follow-up, during which time she received a grant to study the impact of plasticizers on very low birth weight infants. She has been designated as a Castle Connelly Top Doctor from 2019 to 2022 and has a wealth of experience in both leadership and administration. Dr. Bragg has held several roles on multiple medical committees addressing important hospital metrics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she participated in a leadership course offered by Harvard Business Publishing that focused on successfully leading in a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) world. She received her MD from New York University School of Medicine and completed her pediatric residency and perinatal neonatal fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Craig is responsible for driving revenue through executing sales strategies aligned with company goals and objectives throughout the US and North American Market. He has over 25 years of medical sales and leadership experience that includes building sales teams and producing dramatic revenue growth in private startups as well as large public companies. Most recently, he was the Sales Director at Aspira Women's Health, responsible for national growth initiatives focusing on women's gynecological health. Before that, he spent over a decade with Millennium Health from startup through several VC acquisitions. He has led commercial organizations through novel product launches, is well-versed in health system needs, and is experienced in establishing a customer-centric approach while inspiring, empowering, and motivating elite sales executive performance.

Dr. Freeman received a Ph.D. in gastrointestinal physiology from the University of Calgary before completing postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis. While there, she became interested in how science and technology successfully create real-world value. She completed a certificate in business development from the Graduate school of Management at the University of California, Davis, to work at the forefront of the successful translation of research from science to market. With this new perspective, she became one of the co-founders of the Milk Bioactives Program and focused on building and managing multidisciplinary teams centered on the translation and commercialization of scientific discoveries from the program. Dr. Freeman then spent two years as a manager of a national public-private partnership (Foods for Health Ireland) in Ireland before returning to the University of California, Davis, as the Associate Director of Business Development at the Foods for Health Institute and became a co-founder of Infinant Health, to open the door to commercializing the Institute's pioneering technology. She now focuses full-time on the company as the Director of Intellectual Property and Regulatory Affairs to help commercialize the technology developed at the University of California, Davis.

Dr. Qualter received a Master’s in Nursing from Columbia University. She was a Clinical Research Nurse Practitioner within the Division of Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplantation at the Children's Hospital of New York-Presbyterian at Columbia University Medical Center. She was responsible for conducting pediatric oncology phase I clinical trials and institutional pediatric blood and marrow transplantation protocols. Her passion for clinical research led her to medical school, where she graduated cum laude from Albany Medical College. Dr. Qualter then returned to the Children's Hospital of New York Presbyterian for her pediatrics residency, followed by a fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Before Infinant Health, she worked as an attending neonatologist for Mednax at Monmouth Medical Center of RWJBarnabas Health, where she was responsible for opening and running its first clinical trial. Her passion lies in caring for extremely premature infants and optimizing their care and outcomes through the best nutrition options. 

Dr. Antonio is the southern California Clinical Implementation Director at Infinant Health. He also serves as Director of Neonatal Transport and Outreach and Associate Medical Director of the regional NICU at Miller Children's & Women's Hospital in Long Beach, California, where he oversees the operations, program development, and staff training specific to critically ill neonates in transport. His commitment to improving clinical and patient outcomes comes from his designation as a master training in TeamSTEPPS®, designed to optimize the use of information, clinicians, and resources to achieve optimal outcomes. He brought this experience to many referring hospitals and established Neonatal Transport service lines across southern California. As Associate Director, he cofounded the Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) program. Dr. Antonio has a DO from the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey and completed his residency in pediatrics at the Goryeb Children's Hospital in Morristown, NJ. He completed a fellowship in neonatology at Cohen's Children's Medical Center in New York, known for its level IV NICU. Dr. Antonio was a research fellow at the NIH, where his population health research focused on drug abuse and immune deficiency. His scholarly research during his fellowship included newborn screening for primary immune deficiencies. Dr. Antonio's research interests include neonatal transport medicine, high-frequency ventilation, pulmonary hypertension, chronic lung disease, neonatal resuscitation, newborn screening, and point-of-care ultrasound.

Dr. Adhikari is responsible for educating Infinant Health's scientific mission to physicians and health systems, helping them adopt the incredible advances to protect our most precious patients. Before joining Infinant Health, Dr. Adhikari was a strategic consultant in the Healthcare division of Huron Consulting Group and later became a pediatrician in Chicago, IL. She received her MD from The Chicago Medical School and completed her pediatric residency at Rush University Medical Center. As a pediatrician, she completed an Ethics Fellowship from the University of Chicago, which she used to teach Northwestern University medical students about healthcare disparities, and received an Excellence in Teaching award for this work. She sees patients at The Northwestern Children's Practice in Chicago, IL.  

Dr. Hight, a highly skilled board-certified Pediatrician, is the Atlanta Clinical Implementation Director at Infinant Health. She also serves as a Pediatrician in the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta network. A champion for maternal and child health, she is well regarded in the community. Dr. Hight has been named a Charlotte Magazine Top Doctor numerous times and is a multi-year recipient of the Parent Magazine parent choice award. Dr. Hight obtained her undergraduate and medical degree from Emory University with honors. She attended pediatric residency at Atrium Health Levine Children’s Hospital, which she led as the fourth-year Chief Resident. Dr. Hight worked as a clinical faculty instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine while serving children in private practice for over a decade. She sought to positively impact lives on a larger scale by branching into healthcare administration. First, as Medical Director implementing clinical quality improvement initiatives and most recently as Chief Medical Officer of a large health center, she transformed the patient experience, reducing medical errors and quantifiably raising the standard of care. Dr. Hight is a passionate family advocate and ardent supporter of utilizing her extensive medical training and comprehensive experience to reduce health inequities through disease prevention.

Dr. Streimish is a highly accomplished medical professional, with a wealth of experience in the field of neonatal-perinatal medicine. As the Clinical Implementation Director for the New England area, she is responsible for overseeing the implementation of new medical practices and protocols, ensuring that patients receive the highest level of care. She began her journey in medicine in New Jersey, where she completed a joint BA/MD degree, followed by a pediatric residency and fellowship in neonatal-perinatal medicine. Throughout her career, she has worked tirelessly to coordinate prenatal and postnatal care and has devoted her career to working in Newborn ICUs and Special Care Nurseries in Boston and the surrounding areas, providing care to the most vulnerable and critically ill newborns. Dr. Streimish is also committed to staying current with the latest developments in neonatal-perinatal medicine and is active in research to improve the care of newborns. She continues to be a respected leader in her field and is dedicated to providing the best possible care to her patients and their families.

Pallavi provides oversight of quality and product safety across Infinant Health's supply chain, focusing on co-manufacturing and co-packaging the hospital product vials and consumer powder sachets. As a CfPIE (Center for Professional Innovation and Education), CMC (Chemical, Manufacturing, and Controls), and Biopharmaceutical Development Certified Professional, she brings exceptional operational and regulatory expertise to the organization. Her expertise provides successful approaches and strategies to meet regulatory compliance requirements for FDA, EU, and International Conference for Harmonization (ICH). Pallavi's experience includes leading GFSI (Global Food Safety Initiative) and NSF Dietary Supplement certification efforts in various manufacturing environments. She is also an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer who has led operational excellence initiatives to optimize consumer satisfaction utilizing Continuous Improvement tools. Pallavi has a degree in food biochemistry from the University of California, Davis, and a mini-MBA in Biopharma Innovation from Rutgers University Business School.

Derek is responsible for developing data analytics and reporting tools that support decision-making. His team supports executives and partners within the commercial organization. He is responsible for analyzing sales performance, budget management, variable compensation, territory planning, sales technology, and people analytics. Before joining Infinant Health, Derek served as Head of Commercial Operations and Analytics for Aspira Women's Health. Before that, he worked for over 30 years with Medtronic in various key roles, including Finance Reporting Manager and Senior Marketing Analyst. He also helped build several departments from inception and created and implemented a finance training program for the marketing team. Moreover, he has experience in contracts, supply chain, and distributor sales operations. 

Fei brings over 15 years of achievements in business analytics, digital marketing, brand management, and e-commerce. She has worked across a wide variety of industries, including healthcare, consumer products, and retail at organizations such as Blue Diamond Growers, Gap, Inc., and Target. Fei's broad range of experience includes helping brands widen their leadership gap and launching new brands to achieve significant revenue and profit growth. An accomplished brand leader and strategic thinker, Fei's skills include developing brand positioning based on meaningful insights and creating integrated, relevant cross-channel marketing plans to drive profitable business growth. Fei holds an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. 

Sabrina is a high-performing marketing leader with 10+ years’ experience in the healthcare industry developing go-to-market strategies that create awareness, adoption, engagement, and retention to increase market share and fuel growth. Most recently, Sabrina served as Director of Marketing at XACT Robotics where she led the development of product positioning and messaging, launched several new brand trademarks, and overhauled the company’s digital marketing channels. Prior to XACT, Sabrina spent 12 years at PDI Healthcare transitioning the company from a commodity brand to a recognized market leader for infection prevention through a company rebranding, thought leadership content, industry partnerships, and integrated marketing communication programs. Sabrina holds her master’s in integrated marketing from Marist College.

Melanie comes to Infinant Health with nearly twenty years’ experience in a wide variety of product and commercial marketing roles in consumer goods and the medical device space. Prior to joining Infinant Health, she most recently worked with Hologic’s Breast and Skeletal Health division, as the commercial marketer for the Breast Surgery and Specimen Radiography portfolio of products. At Infinant Health, she will develop best in class marketing strategic and tactical plans that deliver on commercial revenue and business goals. She received her MBA with a concentration in International Business from Sacred Heart University.

Louis is an operations professional with 10+ years of experience in the computing and life science industries. At Infinant Health, Louis leads 3PL relationships, raw material and packaging procurement, production, and fulfillment. Louis excels at collaborating cross-functionally to ensure total delivered costs are maximized, rigorous product quality standards are upheld, and operational efficiencies are enhanced through the value stream. Before joining Infinant Health, Louis spent 6 years with Intel Corporation’s Business Operations division focusing on strategic Fortune 100 growth account’s forecasting and revenue tracking.

Jonathan is an interdisciplinary microbiome scientist committed to the advancement of live biological therapeutics and personalized health technologies. He is responsible for managing and executing upon Infinant’s product portfolio strategy in concert with the clinical, commercialization, and operations teams. Prior to joining Infinant Health, Jonathan contributed to the development of next-gen immunotherapy technologies at Prellis Biologics and Nanotein Technologies as a lead scientist. Outside of the laboratory, he has lead product development for non-alcoholic beverage brands like Mary’s Alchemy and The Free Spirits Company. Jonathan earned his Ph.D. from Rice University with an emphasis on elucidating interkingdom interactions between the fungus Candida albicans and anaerobic bacteria found throughout the gut. 

Lizabeth Kurjiaka has nearly 20 years of experience balancing customer needs and business objectives to deliver results successfully and consistently in regulated industries for medical devices, combination drug products, and aircraft engines. She executes with sense-minded decision-making and applies engineering acumen, risk/benefit analysis, and critical problem-solving to lead upstream and downstream outcomes. Before joining Infinant Health, Lizabeth held a dual role at Teleflex Medical as Director of Strategic Initiatives and Quality Manager, where she was responsible for product development activities and quality production for globally commercialized hemostatic products. She helped increase production capacity, introduce new technology systems, and expand indications. She has held other previous roles in research and development, quality, and program management at both large-scale companies, such as Boston Scientific and Medtronic, as well as startup companies. 

Kendall is a leader in clinical development planning and operations with ten years of experience in program management. She is motivated to develop collaborative project teams, shape programs to achieve their purpose swiftly, and focus on a patient-centric approach to treatment. Before joining Infinant Health, Kendall served as Associate Director, Strategy and Operations at Arvinas, Inc., where she was responsible for the ARV-471 breast cancer drug development program. Kendall helped guide the Arvinas team through a partnership arrangement with Pfizer and to globally operationalize the drug in various phase I/II studies to develop a path towards a new drug application and life cycle management. Kendall has also worked as Global Program Manager at Takeda Pharmaceuticals and as Project Manager, Drug Development at Kura Oncology. She has a master's in healthcare administration from Cornell University as well as a PMP certification.

Dr. Duar is a microbiome scientist with over a decade of hands-on experience devising and evaluating microbiome-based products for key indications. At Infinant Health, she has successfully generated key data that serves as the foundation for the mechanism of action and superiority of B. infantis EVC001. She is the author of over 20 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Duar has an MSc. degree in food science and technology with an emphasis in analytical chemistry from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and a Ph.D. specializing in microbiome science and host-microbial symbiosis from the University of Alberta. She is the Associate Director of Product Marketing and the subject matter expert for Infinant Health's current and future products. In addition, she manages the product life cycles, penetration of the market, and customer relevancy.

Dr. Melnyk has nearly 15 years of experience as both a microbiologist and a bioinformatics scientist working in academia and industry. His primary areas of scientific expertise are in anaerobic microbial physiology, host-microbe interactions, and comparative genomics. Dr. Melnyk has published 23 papers in these areas, including 6 first-author papers. He was awarded the prestigious Life Sciences Research Fellowship for plant-microbe research he conducted at the University of British Columbia and University of California, Davis. Most recently, Dr. Melnyk worked at Pivot Bio, where he built a team of bioinformatics scientists and led several successful projects during a time of rapid growth. At Infinant Health, he leads all computational components of the discovery platform, leveraging metagenomics, comparative genomics, and metabolomics to drive product development. Dr. Melnyk holds his Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of California, Berkeley and was the recipient of the Philomathia Graduate Fellowship.

Dr. Heiss is a microbiologist focused on understanding the relationship between the microbe Bifidobacterium and dietary niches to optimize lifelong infant health. She is a Senior Scientist on the Research and Discovery team at Infinant Health, where she manages a growing team and projects related to product development, clinical trial measures, and further efforts to understand the mechanism of action for EVC001. Dr. Heiss has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Davis, with an emphasis on understanding how Bifidobacterium species establish robust, health-promoting populations in the gut environment.

Dr. German is a Distinguished Professor and Chemist at the University of California, Davis and Director of its Foods for Health Institute located in the Robert Mondavi Institute. He has had a long and highly distinguished career focused on understanding the role of food and certain food ingredients in delivering improved health. His research investigates how to improve foods and their ability to facilitate improved health.  His lab group seeks to discover physical, functional, and nutritional components of human milk. Dr. German’s particular expertise is the nutrient delivery between mothers and infants in the first few months of life.   A co-founder of Infinant Health, he has received numerous awards in recognition of his discoveries and has served as an expert advisor to the world's leading food and nutrition companies and organizations.

Dr. Mills is a Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Food Science and Technology and Viticulture and Enology and holds the Peter J. Shields Chair in Dairy Food Science at the University of California, Davis. He received his PhD from the University of Minnesota and completed postdoctoral studies at North Carolina State University. He studies the molecular biology and ecology of bacteria that play an active role in gut health or fermented foods and beverages. In the last 24 years, Dr. Mills has mentored over 30 graduate students and postdocs and has generated more than 210 publications, including seminal work on lactic acid bacterial and bifidobacterial genomics. He has worked to define, investigate, and translate the beneficial aspects of human milk and its role in human health. A co-founder of Infinant Health, Dr. Mills has previously served as a Distinguished Lecturer for the American Society for Microbiology where he was elected as a fellow and currently serves on the editorial board of Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Dr. Lebrilla is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and in Molecular Medicine at its School of Medicine. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley and was the Alexander von Humboldt Fellow and NSF/NATO Fellow at the Technical University in Berlin. His research focuses on developing bioanalytical methods based on mass spectrometry with the goals of structurally characterizing bioactives in food and determining their relationships to health and diseases. He has created techniques for the characterization of milk bio actives, most specifically mammalian milk oligosaccharides. He has published over 450 papers and has been cited over 30,000 times. Dr. Lebrilla is co-chief editor of Mass Spectrometry Reviews and has served on the editorial boards of Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, Mass Spectrometry Reviews, Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry, European Mass Spectrometry, and the International Journal of MassS pectrometry. He is a co-founder of Infinant Health and has co-founded other biotech companies focusing on bioactive foods and biomarkers for early disease diagnosis.

Dr. Barile is a Professor in the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of California, Davis. For the past 13 years, her research has centered on the chemical and biological properties of milk, with a focus on small molecules, to generate novel ingredients that can modulate the gut microbiome. The Barile Lab has established a high-throughput platform based on mass spectrometry for rapid-throughput analysis of microbiome-modulating compounds such as glycoproteins, glycans, and glycolipids as well as antimicrobial peptides. Her approach of sequential molecular deconstruction of human donor milk and dairy streams has generated valuable bioinformatic libraries of source materials and fundamental information on the underlying biological and processing conditions that give rise to their formation, preservation, and interaction with the gut microbiome. Dr. Barile has expanded her analytical work through a series of collaborative studies in animal models and in vitro, documenting selective stimulation of protective gut bacteria and investigating the interaction with pathogenic species. She is principal investigator and co-principal investigator on several USDA and NIH-funded grants on prebiotics/probiotics.  The highly collaborative aspect of her research is evidenced by the publication of over 120 research manuscripts in leading peer-reviewed food science and nutrition journals, which have been cited over 4,000 times in just the last 5 years. She received the 2017 UC Davis Chancellor’s Fellow Award, which is awarded to outstanding faculty members who produce groundbreaking research and scholarship early in their careers. Together with other Infinant Health co-founders, her work has been recognized by selection as the 2014 Dean's Team Award for Excellence for Outstanding Multidisciplinary Research Contributions and the 2020 UC Davis Chancellor’s Innovator of the Year Award.

Dr. Freeman received a Ph.D. in gastrointestinal physiology from the University of Calgary before completing postdoctoral training at the University of California, Davis. While there, she became interested in how science and technology successfully create real-world value. She completed a certificate in business development from the Graduate school of Management at the University of California, Davis, to work at the forefront of the successful translation of research from science to market. With this new perspective, she became one of the co-founders of the Milk Bioactives Program and focused on building and managing multidisciplinary teams centered on the translation and commercialization of scientific discoveries from the program. Dr. Freeman then spent two years as a manager of a national public-private partnership (Foods for Health Ireland) in Ireland before returning to the University of California, Davis, as the Associate Director of Business Development at the Foods for Health Institute and became a co-founder of Infinant Health, to open the door to commercializing the Institute's pioneering technology. She now focuses full-time on the company as the Director of Intellectual Property and Regulatory Affairs to help commercialize the technology developed at the University of California, Davis.