University of California, San Diego

Dr. Lada Rasochova is the Executive Director of the California Institute for Innovation and Development (CIID) at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego, managing director of the Rady Venture Fund, founding director of StartR and mystartupXX accelerators, and CEO of Dermala Inc., an early stage biotech startup. Dr. Rasochova has been involved in commercialization of pharmaceutical and biotechnology products for the past 25 years. She spent more than 15 years in the pharma and biotech industries where she held various leadership positions, most recently as the Leader of Vaccine Technologies and Director of New Business Development at Dow Chemical Company. Dr. Rasochova is a microbiologist/virologist by training; she received her Ph.D. in MCDB from ISU and MBA from UCSD. She is an inventor on several patents, author of a number of scientific publications, and recipient of numerous national and international awards, honors and recognitions.