I was going to be the next Andre Agassi... the hairline was as close as I got.

Luckily, my DNA saved me. As the son and grandson of chemists, genetics guided me into science and the lab. I started my research in synthetic chemistry, then expanded into pharmacology, biochemistry, virology, ultimately leading to neuroscience at MIT—exploring learning and memory at the molecular level.

Always a believer that the highest scientific endeavor is to improve society, I fused my scientific research with a vision to improve the way we communicate, learn and grow. Initially focusing on the scientific community, I came to understand that the problems I sought to solve existed in all disciplines and, tragically, began much earlier than I expected. In response, BenchFly grew from a peer-to-peer platform between scientists around the world to one that now drives collaborations and builds relationships between students of all ages and the workforce they will one day join.

Here are three things that describe my work and my beliefs.

1) I’ve worked in some of the top research institutions in the world (UCSF, MIT). I’ve published my work in some of the most prestigious journals in science (PNAS, Nature Structural & Molecular Biology). I’ve had the opportunity to start and build a company.

2) Magic happens at the interface of disciplines—using strategies and approaches from one industry to diagnose and solve problems in another.

3) There is tremendous satisfaction in building things that solve problems—turning what was once an idea into something real:

• when I needed a computer with maximum processing power on a budget with minimum flexibility, I built one myself—even though ‘changing the batteries in a mouse’ was the extent of my computer knowledge at the time.

• when I experienced the growing divergence between the skills students learn in the classroom and those they need to succeed in today’s world, I left the lab to build a platform that realigns the classroom with the workplace.