2026
Featured Participants
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Eve Blossom is a seasoned advisor, mentor and expert in technology, women's healthcare and digital health, Eve Blossom builds and invests in ventures that transform how we define, access and interact with care. Her focus is spearheading investments, strategy and business operations that solve healthcare's most critical challenges. Eve also founded Material Change Institute, a non-profit that enables diverse investors to reach influential decision-making positions within the asset management industry, which in turn broadens investments. She has been active in startup and growth companies for the last two decades, both nationally and internationally. Eve is an author, speaker and an Associate at Creative Destruction Lab.
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Daniel J. Jones, an NMSU Graduate, has over 20 years of experience as an early and growth-stage software entrepreneur and operator across several VC backed technology ventures, leading to multiple exits. Daniel is currently leading multiple ventures including Deadbolt Cyber, a cybersecurity software company focused on the world's most complex large-scale malware challenges, CEO for Patient Signs, a healthcare data platform for hospitals, and as Chief Business Officer for Colossal, the world's most advanced fundraising platform. Daniel’s work also includes serving as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Arrowhead Center, a strategic consultant for several healthcare technology initiatives at Arizona State University and is an advisor to Audaz Capital in El Paso.
Previously, Daniel served as CEO of Aural Analytics and led innovation and venture efforts at Carneros Bay Capital, a San Francisco based VC, incubator/accelerator and technology development group.
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Laura is currently Director of Health Policy, Economics for Edwards LifeSciences based out of El Paso, TX. She supports the South Central & Midwestern Regions and is responsible for providing field economic support for hospitals with new or existing structural heart programs in the transcatheter heart valve replacement space. Leveraging expertise in health policy, financial and data analytics, Laura’s team is deploying innovative approaches to partner with health system leaders to advance value based healthcare in the United States.
Laura has over 20 years of healthcare experience in biologics, pharmaceutical and medical device serving in various sales, management, market access, training and leadership roles. She has expertise in the areas of payer strategy, economic value positioning, health policy, reimbursement, contracting, advocacy, account management and strategic sales solutions.
Prior to joining Edwards Life Sciences, Laura worked for Johnson and Johnson Medical Device Companies as a Director in Health Policy, Economics and Market Access for the Western US. Partnering with Government Affairs she helped lead, shape & influence various state bariatric policy projects working with Regional payers, and employers for improved patient access for bariatric surgery, orthopedics, trauma, and spine. Laura also worked for GlaxoSmithKline in Market Access and Strategic Market Development. There she led regional payer access projects with various public customer segments including the Department of Defense, Indian Health, and CDC state health advisors.
Laura holds a Bachelors in International Economics with a minor in Spanish from Texas Tech University. She has completed Health Policy coursework from Rutgers University and Comparative Effectiveness Research coursework at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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Dr. Lauren Richardson is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch and Chief Scientific Officer of Gravitas Women’s Health and KaRMa Exotechnologies. Her research focuses on developing advanced microphysiological systems to model human reproduction and pregnancy. She engineers physiologically relevant fetal–maternal interface platforms using primary human cells and tissue-derived matrices, overcoming key limitations of traditional in vitro and animal models. Through these systems, she investigates cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions, mechanisms of immune tolerance, and pathways leading to adverse pregnancy outcomes.
Dr. Richardson is a part of a highly collaborative, interdisciplinary team that integrate reproductive biology, bioengineering, immunology, and pharmacology. There work supports studies of preterm birth, evaluation of environmental toxicants, and discovery and screening of therapeutics. Across academia and industry, she drives translation of organ-on-chip technologies to improve women’s health outcomes and advances regulatory science by promoting adoption of human-relevant models for safer, more effective interventions worldwide.