Managing Partner and Co-Founder

Email: kmm@hypatiaproject.com

Kelly is Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Hypatia. At Hypatia, she is responsible for leading partnerships with governments and corporations to design, build and deploy new technologies. Kelly is a scientist, technologist and investor with 25 years of experience helping Fortune 500 corporations, governments and private companies develop horizon technologies, from precision medicine to national cybersecurity. Prior to Hypatia, she served as senior scientist for strategy and R&D at Northrop Grumman, led R&D and Product at Ekagra Software, and supported the commercialization of twelve technology ventures. Kelly received a PhD in neuroscience with distinction from Georgetown and a masters in cognitive psychology from Harvard.

Kelly specializes in taking ideas from concept to reality, enabling colleagues and customers to take the inventive step and achieve mission success — often from a single line scope of work. She has a track record of milestone achievements designing and scaling scientific computing platforms and modern IT infrastructures that incorporate artificial intelligence, blockchain protocols, zero trust collaboration technologies, natural language reasoning and bio-inspired solution architecture.

Legacy of Enabling Infrastructure and Digital Transformations

• Served as Chairman of Lupus Therapeutics for the launch and scaling of the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network (LuCIN), a collaborative clinical trial network comprised of 57 academic medical centers, 200 principal investigators, 25,000 patients and 18+ industry sponsors (enabling infrastructure for regulated product industry and precision medicine).

• Served as architect for the U.S. Department of Defense to design an AI software factory with zero trust best practices for continuous integration, continuous development and continuous ATO for shipping military artificial intelligence products in multicloud environment with container design patterns, with a ‘reasoning AI’ Co-Pilot trained to function as a continuous monitor of cybersecurity policies.

• Served as architect for consortium blockchain for government procurement automation across vendor supply chain with self-executing smart contracts and drag-and-drop workflows.

• Served as Chief Scientific Officer and product manager for Janus, a software platform for accelerating regulatory review of clinical trial data when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required Industry to submit investigational new drug (IND) applications, biologic license applications (BLAs), and new drug applications (NDAs) using the electronic common technical document (eCTD) specifications. This digital transformation of a legacy system was cited as transformational by FDA and NCI senior leadership, receiving a merit award from NCI Director Harold Varmus for enabling medical reviewers to access, for the first time in FDA history, across-study datasets from multiple sources, in a standard format with shared semantics.

• Served as Northrop Grumman Senior Scientist for health information systems, where she led advanced technology programs and system-of-systems projects in public health, military health and regulated science, with a particular focus on DNA exploitation for precision medicine.

• Served as architect, with others, of the Learning Health System, an all-scale machine learning prediction engine, with methods for integrating multi-omic data and leveraging machine learning across participating health centers (data engineering, knowledge engineering and artificial intelligence for proteomics, genomics, and EHR, US Patent owned by Northrop Grumman).

• Served as Director and Product Manager at Smarthinking, where she built a product line and global team for Smarthinking’s synchronous e-tutoring platform that grew from startup to serving 2000 institutes of higher education universities, and bundled with all leading textbook publishers, before exiting to Pearson (synchronous collaboration platforms for distributed communities).

National Leadership in Industry and Government Organizations

• Prospective NCATS Advisory Council member for the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Science and the Cures Acceleration Network (term begins 2021).

• Inaugural Chairman and board member of Lupus Therapeutics, a subsidiary of the Lupus Research Alliance.

• Chairman of Syndication and board member of Life Science Angels, ranked #1 seed stage investing group by CB Insights, with 65M invested in 48 companies resulting in 4 IPOs, 11 acquisitions, and 1B in follow on funding from leading VCs and strategics.

• Roundtable Member of the Roundtable on Translating Genomic-Based Research for Health of the National Academies of Medicine, contributing to workshops and publications, including Genome-Based Diagnostics: Demonstrating Clinical Utility in Oncology, Sharing Clinical Research Data , Drug Repurposing and Repositioning, The Economics of Genomic Medicine , Refining Processes for the Co-Development of Genome-Based Therapeutics and Companion Diagnostic Tests , Conflict of Interest and Medical Innovation.

• Three term board member of the Ivymount Foundation .

• Two term Scientific Advisory Board member of the Maryland Science Center .

• Academic Advisor in perpetuity to the The Nankai Center for Behavioral Science at Nankai University Medical School in Tianjin, China.

• Active industry membership in the professional organizations, including Life Science Angels, Women in Private Equity, Angel Capital Association, and Society for Neuroscience.

Education

Kelly is trained as neuroscientist and cognitive developmental psychologist, and she is a member of the Society for Neuroscience. She earned a Ph.D. with distinction from Georgetown. She completed a research fellowship in developmental neuroscience, studying the effects of fetal drug exposure on cognitive development. Kelly also trained in neuroimaging at the Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging and the Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, completing a fellowship in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). She practiced diagnostic-prescriptive learning interventions and neuropsychological assessments in academic hospitals, clinical day schools, and private practice in urban settings and remote communities in the U.S. and China.

• Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging, Postdoc, Neuroimaging and Neuropsychology

• Georgetown University, Ph.D., Neuroscience

• Harvard University, Ed.M., Cognitive Psychology

• American University, M.A., Learning Disabilities

Tinkering with Intelligence since 1992

Kelly began her career developing immersive environments for learning optimization, training under Sally Smith at a learning laboratory and clinical day school for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and learning differences.  During this time, she designed behavior hacking methods, multisensory games and hands-free computer play that harnessed EEG activity for neurodiverse children. These multisensory interventions were featured in Newsweek, CBS’ The Doctor is In, the Harvard Crimson and the Potomac Almanac, and resulted in co-developing workshops with Robert Rauschenberg for art making learning interventions.

At Harvard, Kelly studied cognitive science and human creativity under Howard Gardner and Jessica Davis at Harvard. While there, she began to tinker with cognitive collaboration technologies at the MIT Media Lab, and she incubated DaVinci Days at the Kennedy School of Government, a laboratory-based STEM innovation program for youth that received the Harvard Martin Arts Research Award. Kelly subsequently scaled DaVinci Days as a 501(c)(3) product-driven mentoring program in collaboration with the Sidwell Friends School and Georgetown University Medical School, where youth replicated laboratory experiments of nobel laureates. 

At Georgetown, she trained under Kimford Meador, studying the effects of fetal drug exposure on neurodevelopment and higher order cognition with behavioral neurology methods, neurodevelopmental animal models, and noninvasive functional neuroimaging. She was part of the team that demonstrated cognitive teratogenicity for valproate, cited by the FDA as primary evidence for a drug label change.  Her neurodevelopment research was supported by a Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH-NINDS), the National Institute for Mental Health (NIH-NIMH), the Medical College of Georgia, and the Greg and Derry Craig Family; her cognitive enhancement research was supported by the Department of Defense (DOD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), where she designed a compartmentalized drug for the Temporary Creative Warfighter Project; and her cognitive teratology and acquired neurotrauma research was supported by Hoffman LaRoche and the Defense Center of Excellence (DCoE) for Traumatic Brain Injury & Psychological Health. She developed novel methods for Autism Spectrum Etiology with a Minimal Gene Panel using a Nitrocellulose Microarray, a low cost research tool for Autism Spectrum Population Attributable Risk (PAR) with four phenotype lanes: Synaptic Dysfunction Phenotype (Druggable Targets); Neuroteratology Phenotype (Maternal-Fetal Transfer); Neurotoxicology Phenotype (Environment-Child Transfer); and Mendelian Rule-out Out Protocol (Mendelian Disorders with Autistic Phenotypes).

Kelly’s expert testimony in cases of neurotrauma sequelae and skill loss have resulted in lifetime support for victims in Pinellas County, Florida; and in cases of ADA compliance for epilepsy and autism spectrum disorders have resulted in comprehensive accommodations for children in Arlington County, Virginia.

Peer Review Publications, Invited Presentations and Government Publications

Weinstein, L, McVearry,K. Demystifying Artificial Intelligence, DIB Tech Talk, January 2021.

McVearry K. The Biology Bento Box and Shared Value Platform: Can We Bring the Clinical Trial to Patient Doorsteps for Contactless Data Collection? Lupus Therapeutics Board of Directors, June 2020.

Shah, N., Sweet, J., McVearry, K. DEVELOPING A CONTINUOUS MONITORING PROGRAM FOR DEVELOPING AND SHIPPING SECURE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE PRODUCTS IN A CLOUD NATIVE ENVIRONMENT, System Architecture Guidance for the Joint Common Foundation, Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, March 2020.

Rode, B, Lenat, D. Shah, N., Sweet, J., McVearry, K. ‘Reasoning AI’ Co-Pilot for JCF Continuous Authorization and Monitoring of Cybersecurity Controls. Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, March 2020.

Albuelhassan, T., Kiersey, M. Allam, H., McVearry, K. Government Procurement Automation Across the HCT Vendor Supply Chain, UAE Ministry of Possibilities, February 2020.

Deshpande G, McVearry K (Panel). Family Offices as Early Stage Investors – Natural Partners in Healthcare Investing, MedTech Startup Summit at JPMorgan Co, JP Morgan Health 2019, January 2019.

Tay, N., Nasr, J., McVearry K. Harnessing Blockchain, Big Data and Machine Learning for Health, Blockchain Health Conference, Washington, DC, August 2018. 


Tay, N., Nasr, J. McVearry K. Blockchain Applications for Patient-Centered Clinical Trials, Blockchain Health Conference, Washington, DC, August 2018 


Nasr, J., McVearry K (Panel).  Blockchain Strategies for Public Health, Panel with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and IBM, Distributed:Health, Nashville, September 2017. 


McVearry K, Todaro C, Siddiqui A, Higashi S, Glaser B, Butte A, Deshpande G, Bustamante C, Distributed Ledger for Pathogen Surveillance: A New Model for Pandemic Prevention and Medical Countermeasure Planning, U.S. Department of Commerce and Food and Drug Administration, Washington, D.C., July 2017 


Kogelnik, A, McVearry, K.  OpenMedNet:  Integrated Support and Research for Veterans and Patients in Crisis.  Veterans Administration, Suicide Prevention Initiative, Washington, DC, September 2016.

McVearry, K.  Early Stage Life Science Ventures: Managing Risk with Process and Syndication.  Angel Capital Association Annual Summit, Philadelphia, PA, May 2016.

McVearry, K. Mechanisms for Achieving Biotechnology Commercialization, National Cancer Institute, Rockville, Maryland, January 2016. 

McVearry, K.  Myths and Gaps in the Innovation Ecosystem: Accidental Angels of Lupus:  Scaffolding Government and Industry to Find Cures and Treatments.  The National Academy of Science Government, Industry, University Research Roundtable, Washington DC, October 2015.

McVearry K. The New FDA Janus Clinical Trial Repository (CTR): Data Harmonization Architecture for Accelerated Regulatory Review. Molecular Medicine Tri-CON 2015.

McVearry K, VanMeter J, Gaillard W, Meador K. A prospective study of cognitive fluency and originality in children exposed in utero to carbamazepine, lamotrigine, or valproate monotherapy. Epilepsy and Behavior, November 2009.

McVearry, KM  Early Childhood Autism Outcomes in a Prospective Study of Fetal Exposure to Antiseizure Medications. Nature Medicine and Roche Pharmaceuticals Annual Translational Neuroscience Symposium: Druggable Targets for Autism and Other Developmental Brain Disorders, Buonas, Switzerland, April 2009.

Slezicki K, Cho YW, Yi SD, Brock MS, Pfeiffer MH, McVearry KM, Tractenberg RE, Motamedi GK. Incidence of atypical handedness in epilepsy and its association with clinical factors, Epilepsy and Behavior, August 2009.

Meador KJ, Baker GA, Browning N, Clayton-Smith J, Coombs-Cantrell DT, Cohen M, Kalayjian LA, Kanner A, Liporace JD, Pennell PB, Privitera M, Loring DW for the NEAD Study Group. Fetal antiepileptic drug exposure and cognitive function at age 3, New England Journal of Medicine, April 2009.

McVearry, K., Scott, L., Garlington, D.P. Trends in the Military Children’s Literature: Gaps in Neuroscience Education about Deployment-Related Neurotrauma. Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, San Diego, November 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  VA/DoD (MEDCOM) Major Depressive Disorder “Fast Facts” Patient Tool. October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  VA / DoD Depression Practice Guidelines Provider Care Cards: A series of 29 cards summarizing the MDD CPG, including medication tables.  October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  VA/DoD Clinical Practice Guidelines for Management of Major Depressive Disorder in Adults: Primary Care Pocket Guide.  October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  Neurotrauma 101- Understanding Combat-Related Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Sequelae Through Advances in Technology.  October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  An Executive Level Overview of Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injuries in the DoD: Understanding the Facts and Recognizing the Misconceptions. October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  Literature Review - Relational Problems in Families of Post Deployed Service Members: Prevalence, Prevention, and Early Intervention. October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  Literature Review: Severe Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Treatment Modalities, Outcomes and Emerging Research. October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  Making the Invisible Visible- A Visual Vocabulary for Neurotrauma with a 3 Dimensional Toolkit. October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health. The Impact of OIF‐OEF on Military Children. October 2010.

Defense Center of Excellence for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health.  Addressing the Clinical Supervision Challenge: Telehealth Clinical Supervision for Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) and Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE).  October 2010.

McVearry, K. Fetal Exposure to Neuroactive Drugs:  Can We Conduct Credible Risk Assessments in Humans?  JMP Discovery Conference, The SAS Institute, Chicago (September 2009).

McVearry, K., Brost, D., VanMeter, J., Meador, K. Environmental Toxicology and Risk Assessment for Autism Phenotypes: A Prospective Study of Children Exposed in Utero to Antiepileptic Drugs. International Meeting for Autism Researchers, London, May 2008 (Oral Paper, Abstract 2170).

McVearry, K., Meador, K. Antiepileptic Drugs as Cognitive Teratogens: Differential Effects on Creativity in Prenatal Exposure to Valproate, Carbamazepine, and Lamotrigine. Neurobehavioral Teratology Society, 32nd Annual Meeting, Monterey, June 2008 (Oral Paper, Oxford Abstracts: NBTS 0045).

McVearry, K. Environmental Toxicology and Pediatric Brain Architecture: The Neuroimaging Methods We Need for Risk Assessment in the 21st Century. Janelia Farm Research Institute Novel Approaches to Bio-Imaging Conference. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2008.

McVearry, K., Motamedi, G., Meador, K. Behavioral Lateralization and Prenatal Exposure to Antiepileptic Drugs: Evidence for Increased Non-Right Hand Preference. Neurobehavioral Teratology Society, 32nd Annual Meeting, Monterey, June 2008 (Poster, Oxford Abstracts: NBTS 0046).

McVearry, K.  The Monoaminergic Synapse:  Mechanisms of Action and Pediatric Stimulant Medications, Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholars, Georgetown University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (June 2006).

McVearry, K.  Prenatal Exposure to Antiepileptic Drugs: Is Divergent Thinking Impaired?, Georgetown University Medical Center, Public Neurolunch Series (October 2006).

Berenice Alfonso, Rosalind Carney, Laura Cocas, Haining Dai, Kelly McVearry, Tom Naumann, Jonathan Slotkin, and Joshua Corbin. Cell Migration to the Developing Amygdala in NKx2.1 Knockout Rodents. Georgetown University, Washington DC, 2005.

McVearry, K. Differential Effects on Cognitive Fluency in Prenatal Exposure to Carbamazepine, Lamotrigine, and Valproate, Georgetown University Medical Center (September 2007).

McVearry, K. Valproate as a Behavioral Teratogen:  Fieldwork TCAM Evidence from the NEAD Population, NEAD Investigator’s Meeting, Tampa (April 2007).

McVearry, K. Where in the Brain is Autism? Insights from Neuroimaging Technologies, Keynote Speaker, Annual Conference on Autism, Learning Disabilities Association of St. Mary’s County (April 2006).

McVearry, K. Diseases and Disorders of the Brain (ICOS-325), Lectures “Neurobiology of Autism Spectrum Disorders” and “Neurobiology of Mood Disorders”, Georgetown University (Fall 2005, Fall 2006).

McVearry, K., Hurtt, B., Walker, B., Moore, C. Tactile Defensiveness in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A Case Study of an 18-Year-Old Male with Asperger’s Syndrome. Society for Neuroscience, 2004 (Abstract 14892).

McVearry, K., Is the Bereitshaft Potential a Window into Motor Dysfunction in Autism?, Georgetown University Medical Center (May 2003).

McVearry, K., VanMeter, J., Thoumi, A., Saxena, R., Euwer, C., Zeffiro, T. Evolution of the Understanding of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) Parallels Advances in Biomedical Technology. Society for Neuroscience, 2003 (Abstract).

McVearry, K., Physiological Changes in Development: What do brain imaging techniques reveal about growth cycles in normal child development?, Georgetown University (February 2002).

McVearry, K., Meet Sam: Remediating the Abnormal Social Behaviors of Asperger’s Disorder Through Oil Painting, University of Vermont (April 2000). 

McVearry, K., Art and Agency: Developing Voice in Three Adolescent Females with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Learning Disabilities.  Advisor Carol Gilligan, Spring 2000.  Supported by Harvard University Martin Arts Research Award.

McVearry, K., Beyond an Attention Deficit Model: Attention Usage in Surgeons and Artists with Tourettes’ Syndrome and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.   Advisor Howard Gardner, December 1999.

McVearry K in Smith, S.L. (2005). Chapter, “Live It, Learn It,” The Academic Club Methodology (Baltimore: Brooks Publishing).

McVearry K in Smith, S.L. (2001). Chapter, “Plaster Art and Painting: A Conversation with Kelly McVearry”; Section, “Theoretical Underpinnings,” The Power of the Arts: Creative Strategies for Teaching Exceptional Learners (Baltimore: Brooks Publishing).