CMU Lab to Market, Fall 2026
Join us in Pittsburgh, PA at Lab to Market on Tuesday, September 15, at Simmons Auditorium (4765 Forbes Ave) in the Tepper Quad Building for an inside look at breakthrough technologies and spinouts emerging from Carnegie Mellon across AI, robotics, cybersecurity, energy and healthcare. Hear from 40+ leading researchers, founders, investors and industry executives. Meet the people shaping what comes next, before the research reaches the broader market.
Featured Keynote Conversations
FEATURING 35+ LEADERS ACROSS RESEARCH, INDUSTRY AND VENTURE CAPITAL
Hear from Carnegie Mellon researchers and leaders from Abridge, Lovelace AI, Obvious Ventures, J.P. Morgan, Accenture Ventures, Construct Capital, Honda Ventures, Yosemite, Carnegie Foundry, Stratus Materials and more.
Rob Ackerman, Managing Director, DataTribe
Burcu Akinci, Dean, College of Engineering, CMU
Laurence Ales, Interim Dean, Tepper School of Business
Michael Benedict, Robotics Developer Relations Manager, Research, NVIDIA
Alexandra Bremers, Postdoc, Dietrich College, CMU
Tzahi (Itzhaq) Cohen-Karni, Professor, Biomedical Engineering and Materials Science & Engineering, CMU
Troy Demmer, President & Co-Founder, Gecko Robotics
Julie Downs, Dept. Head, Social and Decision Sciences, CMU
Meredith Meyer Grelli, AVP & Vice Provost, Entrepreneurship, CMU
Derek Ham, Director, Entertainment Technology Center, CMU
Martial Hebert, Dean, School of Computer Science
Chunshan Hu, Chief Technology Officer, Power 3D
Meela Imperato, VP of Marketing, Redesign Health
Sara Ittelson, Partner, Accel
Jana Kainerstorfer, Professor, Biomedical Engineering Associate Department Head for Faculty and Graduate Affairs, CMU
Matt Kirmayer, Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
Aniket Kittur, Professor & Associate Director for Strategy and Partnerships, HCII, CMU
Zico Kolter, Professor and Director, Machine Learning Department, CMU
Justin Krauss, Managing Director, Security & Resiliency Initiative, J.P. Morgan
Zack Lipton, Co-Founder & CTO, Abridge
Changliu Liu, Associate Professor, Robotics Institute, CMU
John Lowman, Senior Associate, Portfolio Development, UPMC Enterprises
Danith Ly, Director, Institute for Biomolecular Design and Discovery (IBD), CMU
Robert W. Mays, CEO, CytoSage
Amanda McBride, Managing Director, Accenture Ventures
Jonathan S. Minden, Founder, Impact Proteomics and Professor, CMU
Nick Naclerio, Founding Partner, Illumina Ventures
Graham Neubig - Co-Founder, OpenHands & Associate Professor, CMU
Rebecca Nugent, Fienberg University Professor of Statistics & Data Science/Department Head, CMU
Jean Oh, Associate Research Professor, Robotics Institute, CMU
Burak Ozdoganlar, Ver Planck Professor, Mechanical Engineering, CMU
Charlie Ren, Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering, CMU
Ellie Schriner, Venture Lead, Honda Xcelerator Ventures
Vyas Sekar, Co-Founder, Rockfish Data, Tan Family Chair Professor, CMU
Kahini Shah, Partner, Obvious Ventures
Yaser Sheikh, Chief Executive Officer, Sooth Labs
Damion Shelton, Associate VP and Executive Director of the Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, Dean, Mellon College of Sciences, CMU
Ryan Sullivan, Professor, Chemistry and Mechanical Engineering, CMU
Robert Szczerba, Co-Founder and CEO, Carnegie Foundry
Eugene Wan, Partner, Construct Capital
Chenxi Wang, Managing Partner, Rain Capital
Jay Whitacre, CEO, CTO, and Founder of Stratus Materials
Lauren Cantor Wright, Principal, Yosemite
Stephen Wu, Founder and Managing Partner, Carthage Capital
Ron Yurko, Assistant Teaching Professor, Director of Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Center, Department of Statistics & Data Science, CMU
Yongxin (Leon) Zhao, Associate Professor, Mellon College of Science, CMU
Kevin Zollman, Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences and Director, Institute for Complex Social Dynamics, CMU
Program Themes
Featured conversations will explore:
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Technology and the Future of Sports Entertainment
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General vs. Domain-Specific Foundation Models for Robotics
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AI Systems That Anticipate Complex Outcomes
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Decision-Making Under Risk and Uncertainty
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Physical AI in the Real World
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New Battery Materials and Architectures
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New Frontiers in Medical Technology and Bioelectronics
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New Tools for Understanding Cancer Earlier
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How AI Is Reshaping Cybersecurity
Want to be a part of the action?
Past Events
CMU Lab to Market - Spring 2026
CMU Lab to Market - Spring 2026
Thursday, February 11, 2026
Pear VC, 1800 Owens St, San Francisco, CA 94158
Thank you to our Event Hosts, Accel and Pear VC!
CMU Lab to Market - Fall 2025
CMU Lab to Market - Fall 2025
Thursday, September 25, 2025
Simmons Room A, Tepper School of Business Carnegie Mellon University
9:00 - 9:10 a.m. - Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Theresa Mayer, VP of Research, Carnegie Mellon University
- Meredith Meyer Grelli, Managing Director & Interim Exec Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship; Assistant Dean of Entrepreneurship Initiatives, School of Computer Science; Director, Project Olympus; Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Tepper School of Business
9:10 - 9:50 a.m. - Panel: Intelligent Systems & Advanced Materials for Industrial Transformation
Panel Moderated by Anita Jesionowski, Senior Director of Research Partnerships & Entrepreneurship, College of Engineering
- Reeja Jayan, Founder & CEO, SeaLion Energy; Professor of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering
- Brandon Lucia, Co-Founder & CEO, Efficient Computer; Kavčić-Moura Professor, ECE
- Carmel Majidi, Founder & CTO, Arieca; Clarence H. Adamson Professor, Mechanical Engineering
- Calum Munro, Associate Fellow, PPG Industries
- Andrew Tan, Managing Director, Salience Capital
10:10 - 10:50 a.m. - Panel: Embodied AI
Panel Moderated by Martial Hebert, Dean and University Professor of Robotics, School of Computer Science
- Katerina Fragkiadaki, JPMorgan Chase Associate Professor of Computer Science in the Machine Learning Department
- Han Hua, Stealth Angel Investor
- Changliu Liu, Founder, Instinct Robotics; Associate Professor, Robotics Institute
- Tuomas Sandholm, Founder, President, and CEO, Strategy Robot, Inc.
10:55 - 11:00 a.m. - Demo Video & Tech Talk Featuring Newell Washburn, Ansatz
- Newell Washburn, Co-Founder & President, Ansatz
11:00 - 11:40 a.m. - Panel: Agents Gone Wild: Robustness of Security & Reliability
Panel Moderated by Allison Lechnir, Partner, Hyde Park Venture Partners
- Matt Fredrikson, Co-Founder & CEO, Gray Swan; Associate Professor, School of Computer Science
- Yucheng Low, Co-Founder & CEO, XetHub (acquired by Hugging Face)
- Chris Martin, Senior Director, Responsible AI, BNY Mellon
- Pradeep Ravikumar, Co-Founder, Woodwide AI; Professor Machine Learning Department, School of Computer Science
- Norman Sadeh, Founding CEO, Wombat Security Technologies (Sold to Proofpoint); Professor of Computer Science, Software and Societal Systems Department; Co-Director, Privacy Engineering Program
12:00 - 12:40 p.m. - Fireside Keynote: Abhay Parasnis
Interviewed by Isabell Bajeux, Dean and Richard P. Simmons Professor of Finance, Tepper School of Business
- Abhay Parasnis, Managing Partner, Salience Capital; Founder & CEO, Typeface; Former CTO & CPO, Adobe
12:55 - 1:00 p.m. - Demo Video & Tech Talk Featuring Marios Savvides, Ultron AI
- Mario Savvides, Founder & CEO, Ultron AI; Bossa Nova Robotics Professor of Artificial Intelligence, Electrical and Computer Engineering; Director, CyLab Biometrics Center
1:00 - 1:40 p.m. - Panel: Next Frontier Intelligent Life Sciences
Panel Moderated by Alison Snyder, Senior Writer, Google DeepMind
- Keith Cook, Chief Strategy Officer, Advanced Respiratory Technologies; Professor and Department Head, Director of the Bioengineered Organs Initiative, Carnegie Mellon University
- Andrew Hudson, Senior Director of Tissue Therapeutics; Co-Founder, FluidForm Bio
- Anna Mamo, Director, Translational Sciences, UPMC Enterprises
- Jonathan Minden, Founder & CEO, Impact Proteomics, LLC; Professor, Department of Biological Sciences and Biomedical Engineering
1:40 - 1:50 p.m. - Closing Remarks
- Namrata Banerjee, Senior Director, CMU VentureBridge, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
- Meredith Meyer Grelli, Managing Director & Interim Exec Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship; Assistant Dean of Entrepreneurship Initiatives, School of Computer Science; Director, Project Olympus; Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Tepper School of Business
Fall 2025 Planning Committee
- Meredith Meyer Grelli, Chair, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship, Project Olympus, & Tepper School of Business
- Namrata Banerjee, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
- Jenny Belardi, School of Computer Science
- Cindy Chepanoske, Center for Technology Transfer and Enterprise Creation
- Matthew Christian, Office of Research
- Edward Dunlea, Mellon College of Science
- Sonya Ford, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
- Steven Guo, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
- Allyson Hince, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship
- Jim Jen, Corporate Startup Lab
CMU Lab to Market - Spring 2025
CMU Lab to Market - Spring 2025
Thursday, March 27, 2025
Pear VC, 1800 Owens St, San Francisco, CA 94158
11:30 - 11:35 a.m. - Welcome & Opening Remarks
- Theresa Mayer, VP of Research, Carnegie Mellon University
- Meredith Meyer Grelli, Managing Director & Interim Exec Director, Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship; Assistant Dean of Entrepreneurship Initiatives, School of Computer Science; Director, Project Olympus; Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, Tepper School of Business
11:35 - 11:55 a.m. - Breakthrough Research Across Verticals
Panel Moderated by Theresa Mayer, VP of Research, Carnegie Mellon University
- Alex Acero, Venture Partner, Cadenza; former Microsoft and Apple
- Larry Pileggi, Co-Founder & Chairman, Pearl Street Technologies; Coraluppi Head and Tanoto Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
- Arash Afrakhteh, Partner, Pear VC
11:55 - 1:30 p.m. - Lunch & Lightning Talks
Introduced by Justin Krauss, Managing Director, Head of AppliedTechnology, Innovation Economy, JP Morgan
- 12:20 - 12:40 p.m.
- Zach Lipton, CTO/CSO at Abridge
- Raj Reddy, Associate Professor of Machine Learning at Carnegie Mellon
- Hanseul Nam, Partner, Spark Capital
- 12:40 - 1:00 p.m.
- Anupam Datta, Co-Founder, Truera; AI at Snowflake
- Jerry Chen, General Partner, Greylock
- 1:00 - 1:20 p.m.
- Vyas Sekar, Co-founder/Chief Technologist Rockfish Data; Tan Family Chair Professor at Carnegie Mellon University,
- Anupam Rastogi, Managing Partner, Emergent Capital
- Priya Ramachandran, Founder & General Partner, Foster Ventures
1:40 - 2:25 p.m. - Deep Dive into a Horizontal: Robotics Applied
Panel Moderated by Matthew Johnson Roberson, Director, Robotics Institute; Co-Founder, Refraction AI
- Howie Choset, Kavčić-Moura CS Professor of Robotics; Co-Founder, JP Robotics
- Herman Herman, Director, National Robotics Engineering Center; Co-Founder & CTO, Carnegie Foundry
- Xiaoyu Kaess, Co-Founder & COO, Aquatonomy
- George Kantor, Research Professor, Robotics Institute; Co-Founder Bloomfield Robotics
2:45 - 3:30 p.m. - Trustworthy AI
Panel Moderated by Martial Hebert, Dean, School of Computer Science
- Zico Kolter, Co-Founder, Gray Swan; Open AI Board Member; Professor and Director of the Machine Learning Department with the School of Computer Science
- Graham Neubig, Chief Scientist, All Hands AI; Associate Professor of Computer Science
- Gauri Joshi, AI Edge; Associate Professor Electrical & ComputeEngineering
- Scott Dietzen, Co-Founder & CEO, Augment
3:30 - 3:40 p.m. - Closing Remarks
- Theresa Mayer, VP of Research, Carnegie Mellon University
Thank you to our Swartz Center Patrons
