Our Team

Dr. Adam Zysk has over 20 years of research experience in academic and clinical settings. He has led engineering development and clinical studies efforts for multiple medical device efforts and continues to bring together multi-disciplinary teams focused on pursuing improvements in patient care. Additionally, Dr. Zysk is well versed in Class II and III medical device regulatory submissions in the US and EU. He has also been the PI of multiple NIH funded projects. He earned an MS and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University, was on faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology, and held an appointment at the Washington University in St. Louis.

David D. Limbrick Jr., MD, PhD, is the T.S. Park Chair and Chief of Pediatric Neurosurgery, and Executive Vice Chair of Neurological Surgery at Washington University. He also serves as Neurosurgeon-in-Chief at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Dr. Limbrick received his MD and PhD from the Medical College of Virginia and completed his residency in Neurosurgery and fellowship in Pediatric Neurosurgery at Washington University/BJH/SLCH. He is certified by both the American Board of Neurological Surgery and the American Board of Pediatric Neurosurgery. Dr. Limbrick’s research focuses on pediatric cerebrospinal disorders and is funded through NIH/NINDS and PCORI.

He has published more than 180 peer-reviewed articles and has led several federally funded clinical trials. Dr. Limbrick serves on the Editorial Boards of Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics, Neurosurgery: Online, and Fluid and Barriers of the CNS. For the past five years, he has served on the Children’s Medical Executive Committee and co-led Strategic Planning for Pediatric Neurosciences at WU/SLCH, observing growth in faculty and in clinical metrics, including surgical case volume. He has received numerous awards, including the Humanism in Medicine Award from Washington University and is among the Top 10% of Faculty Physicians for Patient Satisfaction.

His areas of interest include pediatric neurosurgery, epilepsy surgery, neuro-endoscopy, hydrocephalus, pediatric brain tumors, deep brain stimulation, radiosurgery and pediatric spine.

John has over 25 years of financial and operational experience in the pharmaceutical and medical device arenas. Prior to joining Alyve Medical, John was CFO of Bolder Surgical and led the M&A team during the successful sale of Bolder Surgical to Hologic, Inc. in December 2021. John also co-founded Micro-Imaging Solutions whereby he led the finance and business development efforts for over 15 years. Prior to that role, John spent most of his career as a finance executive with large, multi-national corporations including Akzo-Nobel NV, Amgen and Thermo Fisher Scientific. John is a graduate of both Colorado State University where he earned a BS in Accounting and the University of Colorado-Denver where he earned an MS in Finance. John is also a CPA.

Jim Surek is a seasoned Senior Executive and Growth Specialist with a proven track record in transforming corporate vision into profitable innovation. With extensive experience in building commercial teams, Jim has played a pivotal role in the successful acquisition or IPO of 6 medical device and digital health startups. Renowned for defining and executing strategic visions, Jim has effectively positioned businesses across various stages—from startups to creating brand new markets—for growth, turnaround, and market leadership. As a trusted advisor, Jim excels in developing growth strategies and financial performance objectives within highly complex markets. Jim excels at converting complex challenges into competitive advantages that have consistently driven industry-leading revenue and market acceptance of novel medical technology.

Jim earned a Masters of International Management from Thunderbird – The American Graduate School of International Management.

Chris Gornick has nearly 20 years of MedTech experience with a proven track record of building new markets and scaling high performing teams at both large companies and startups. Previously, he was Head of Marketing at Aerogen, where he built and led the North America Strategy, Marketing, Commercial Enablement, and Clinical Education teams. Chris and his teams were instrumental in driving record breaking high double-digit revenue growth year over year far surpassing the company’s targets. Prior to Aerogen, Chris held executive leadership positions at early-stage startups Avail Medsystems (acquired by Mendaera) and Outset Medical (NASDAQ:OM). During his time at these companies, they raised a combined total of over $300M in additional funding. Chris was instrumental in defining, developing and launching each companies’ scalable platform essential for building two new markets. Prior to Outset Medical, Chris spent 10 years at Medtronic in multiple sales, marketing, and strategy leadership positions. He also completed their 3-year Leadership Development Program during his tenure, a select program reserved for high potential leaders within the company.

Chris earned an MBA and Health Sector Management Certificate from Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business.

Dr. Siddharth Krishnan obtained undergraduate and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and a doctorate in Materials Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has broad experience in the design, manufacture and testing of soft, wearable biosensors. Dr. Krishnan is also on the 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 list for science and on MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list for 2020.

Dr. Amit Ayer completed neurosurgical residency at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an MBA at Kellogg School of Management, and is currently pursuing fellowship training in epilepsy and functional neurosurgery at Stanford University. He has authored over 25 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts and book chapters in leading basic science and clinical journals, including Science Translational Medicine, Nature Digital Medicine, Journal of Neurological Surgery and the Journal of Immunology. Dr. Ayer has been recognized by funding from the Pediatric Hydrocephalus Foundation, the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, among others. He was awarded the Cisco Global Problem Solver Prize and shortlisted as a finalist for the “Innovator of the Year” award by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS).

Dr. Alex Burton started his biomedical engineering career 8 years ago developing algorithms to extract physiological responses collected with body worn devices to determine behavioral and environmental impacts on the wellbeing of patient and office workers. Since then, he has transitioned into implementing medical device designs to interface with the central and peripheral nervous system. He has >10 published works including peer-reviewed papers and review articles on fully implantable wireless, battery-free, electronics and patent on non-invasive techniques to map current density patterns from deep brain stimulators. He earned both his BS and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Arizona specializing in mechanics and medical device sensors.

Chase Correia began his career at the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics as an undergraduate researcher contributing to the development of soft, flexible biosensors. He has broad experience in the electromechanical design of wearable devices and physiological data analysis. He earned his BS in Biomedical Engineering and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University specializing in wearable computing.

Dr. Jenna Koschnitzky brings over 20 years of basic and clinical science experience working in diverse research areas including plant and sensory biology, neuroscience, clinical trial development, and patient engagement. Her interest in hydrocephalus stems from eight years directing the research department at the Hydrocephalus Association, a health non-profit organization.

During that time, Dr. Koschnitzky developed and executed multiple research programs while cultivating relationships with clinical and basic researchers as well as with dozens of industry partners. This work included collaborating with and supporting the activities of multicenter clinical research collaboratives, the Hydrocephalus Clinical Research Network (HCRN) and the Adult HCRN, and developing and running a basic science network the Hydrocephalus Association Network for Discovery Science. Concurrently, she developed and ran multiple annual research grant programs, developed and deployed the first hydrocephalus focused community powered registry, and developed community- based hydrocephalus research priorities using the James Lind Alliance methodology. Dr. Koschnitzky also served on the Board of Directors for the Health Research Association.

Dr. Koschnitzky is currently the Senior Director of Neurosurgery Research of Rhaeos, Inc. and a science consultant. She graduated summa cum laude and is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society (Wake Forest University). She holds a PhD in neuroscience (Northwestern University).

Dr. Mitali Stevens has >20 years of experience in clinical pharmacy and market access in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Working collaboratively with cross-functional partners, she has developed and helped to execute systematic evidence and reimbursement strategies for several companies that integrate health economics, outcomes research and market access solutions across all stages of the product life cycle to ensure competitive advantage and commercial success. Dr. Stevens received her Doctor of Pharmacy from The Ohio State University. She is a licensed pharmacist and holds a Board Certification in Pharmacotherapy Specialty.

Ms. Shannon McKay is a product development engineer at Rhaeos specializing in electronics and thermal testing. Ms. McKay earned her B.S. degree in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University. During this time, she worked in the John Rogers lab assisting in the development of nerve cooling devices.

Blake Parsons focused his undergraduate career at Northwestern University on developing an extensive understanding of the mechanical design and testing of medical devices, and applied this knowledge to a variety of wearable sensor academic projects, leading to multiple publications. Blake also spent part of his undergraduate career as a co-op at Ethicon, where he was able to further develop his mechanical design skills and gain an increased understanding of the regulatory processes necessary to successfully launch a product. He brings his knowledge and experience to the mechanical design of Rhaeos systems and devices. Blake earned a BS in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University in 2021.

Mr. Scott Odland has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. Throughout his engineering career, Scott has expressed a passion to build, starting with making his own wooden surfboards and skateboards. At Northwestern, he continued to explore his passion in areas such as robotic manipulation, algorithm development, and sensor fusion. At Rhaeos, Scott has utilized these experiences to push software and firmware development forward.