Michka comes to the BrightEdge team from Flagship Pioneering, a venture creation firm in Cambridge, MA. Michka has extensive experience building the next generation of transformative companies in human health, sustainability, and agriculture. In that role, Michka developed the venture concepts, research and development plans, intellectual property, and corporate strategies that form the foundation of the firm’s breakthrough startups. Michka lead research and development teams through Series A financing and served as Interim Director of Discovery leveraging machine learning tools to develop novel RNA tools and RNA synthetic circuit solutions. Michka earned her Ph.D. in developmental and regenerative biology at Harvard Medical School where she studied the molecular mechanisms regulating cardiomyocyte proliferation in the developing heart and during regeneration. Her work was published in several top-tier journals, including Developmental Cell and Circulation. Michka received numerous awards and fellowships during her graduate school tenure, including the prestigious National Science Fellowship grant awarded by the National Science Foundation, as well as the Joceyln Spragg Fellowship awarded by the Harvard Medical School. Michka’s entrepreneurial activities continued outside of the lab, where she founded and led her first company and tech venture. Michka was involved in raising capital and building and leading a team to develop the platform for external stakeholders. She was awarded the Manne Prize Innovator’s Award for her work. In addition to her Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, Michka holds a B.Sc. in Neuroscience and Behavioral Biology from Emory University, where she graduated summa cum laude. In her spare time, Michka enjoys playing squash and building reinforcement learning and machine learning models using game theory to predict optimal race strategies for Formula 1.