Ananya Chadha

Infinite Learner. Stanford University.

Welcome to my corner of the web. I’m Ananya. Nice to e-meet you. I was born in Madagascar, and grew up in Toronto, Canada.

In highschool, I did a variety of things: When I was 13 years-old, I shadowed in my first biology lab. Dr. Ana Andreazza’s lab, investigating biomarkers for psychiatric disorders. From there, I shadowed in Dr. Cohn’s genetics lab for two years learning about CRISPR and advanced biology. This lab ended up curing muscular dystrophy in mouse models, and seeing the mouse go from hobbling around to gaining back its functionality, with just genetic changes, was extremely transformational.

When I was 14 years old, I also started taking flight lessons and worked my way towards my pilot’s license. I also started a toothbrush company selling biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes internationally. When I was 16 years old, after spending time with genetics, I built a platform called g-nome.org that enabled users to anonymously share genetic data, and won the cryptochicks hackathon with this project. It made me realize I could build things to help people, and landed me my first job at ConsenSys. Then, I became deeply obsessed with neurotech. I spent a few months and developed brain-controlled RC cars, mind-controlled prosthetics sponsored by Microsoft. I won the Grand Prize at Impossible Science Challenge by Engineering.com for this work, which led me to speak all over the world about neurotech and emerging technologies. From Spain to Japan to New York, I travelled and networked wtih industry-shapers globally discussing futuristic technologies. My neurotech projects were demonstrated on Discovery Channel, CBC, Global News, the Globe and Mail, Yahoo News, Empodera Live, Channel News Asia, and many others. I signed two 2 speaking agencies and speak at conferences to inspire people about the potential of innovation and futuristic technologies to improve the world, like Fortune Brainstorm Finance, APDC Portugal, CDO Summit NYC, DEVCON, EDCON, and many many more. I also shadowed at Babel Ventures when I was 16, to help with diligence and theses.

Then, I became fascinated by machine learning so I spent a year throughout school with IBM doing AI, sat in too many UofT classes, and spent the next year with the Canadian Military doing data science and machine learning.

From there, I came to Stanford University for my undergraduate degree. With the help and mentorship of Shivon Zilis, I interned at Elon Musk's Neuralink my freshman summer, led invasive and non-invasive neurotech research projects on campus, interned at Mercuria, one of the world’s best trade shops, because of the amazing gesture of Marco Dunand, as well as Goldman Sachs, a place that speaks for itself, thanks to the advocacy of my mentor Jordan Bender. I am deeply grateful for these experiences and wonderful mentors along the way.

My B.S. is Electrical Engineering & Neuroscience, with a minor in Computer Science, and a M.S. in Electrical Engineering. I also ended up taking the entirety of the mechanical engineering product design core, and computer science core clases, you can find my coursework here. I learned welding, milling, lathing, CAD, circuit design, PCB, Digital Systems, Verilog, Cadence Virtuoso, programming in python, C, C++, React, how to make microfluidic chips, plasmid design and more.

Now, I am founding a company that is revolutionizing biology and geology. If you are amazing at engineering, science, business, please consider working with us.

My goal is to push humanity forward, through developing futuristic bioengineering. I want a world where I can plant an acorn and it can grow into a house. Where I can plant a flower that will manufacture Nickel and remove the world’s carbon. I believe there will be a genetics revolution, just like programming, but for living things. I am excited to work towards a future of bioengineering. I want such a detailed understanding of genetics that we can look inwards and begin to ponder our own consciousness.

Separately, I also have my motorcycle license, fly planes, appreciate good style, aesthetics, enjoy science-fiction, flowers, humor, fruit, jewellery, fashion, physics, manufacturing, photonics, spectroscopy, poetry, and am an extreme adrenaline junkie, to my own detriment at times.

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