Our Team
Many Backgrounds. Different Perspectives. Persistently Curious.
MEET THE TEAM
EMILY ENGEL
Senior Manager, Clinical Operations
GUNNAR ESIASON, MBA, MPH
Director of Patient Engagement
MARIO BARRO, PhD
Venture Partner, Head of Infectious Disease Team
KEVIN YANG
Software Engineer
CHRISTINE MASELBAS
Executive Assistant
ANURAG KONDAPALLI
Principal
EMILY ENGEL
Senior Manager, Clinical Operations
Emily Engel is a Senior Manager, Clinical Operations at RA Ventures (RAVen). Emily's primary responsibilities at RAVen are to support Clinical Operations and Patient Engagement efforts to identify and implement best practices in clinical trial operations in RA's newco's and portfolio companies. Emily was previously the Global Clinical Trial Manager at Amylyx where she managed Phase I-III clinical trials as well as Expanded Access Programs, providing new therapies for rare, neurodegenerative disorders at no cost to participants, including RELYVRIO®/ALBRIOZA™ for the treatment of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. Before Amylyx, she was the Clinical Project Manager at Eledon Pharmaceuticals where she managed a team overseeing the operations of several early-stage clinical programs including kidney and islet cell transplantation. She has prior project management and clinical trial experience at IQVIA. Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Emily has a BS in Public Health Services from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst.
GUNNAR ESIASON, MBA, MPH
Director of Patient Engagement
Gunnar Esiason is Director of Patient Engagement at Blackbird, a NewCo within the RAVentures Incubator. Gunnar is a cystic fibrosis and rare disease patient leader, who is passionate about early-stage drug development, patient empowerment, and health policy. Professionally, he is an accomplished patient advocate who has also developed a patient engagement platform for a medical nutrition company, built a venture philanthropy practice at the Boomer Esiason Foundation. He has consulted on clinical trial development, a real-world evidence population health study, and a cystic fibrosis-specific mental health and wellness screening tool. Gunnar holds an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, an M.P.H. from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, and a B.A. from Boston College.
MARIO BARRO, PhD
Venture Partner, Head of Infectious Disease Team
Mario is a Venture Partner, and Head of the Infectious Disease Team at RA Capital. In his Venture role, Mario is focusing on early-stage investment and company creation. As Head of the Infectious Disease Team, he is leading the RA vaccine team to support our evidence-based investment strategy. Mario is responsible for partnering with several of our portfolio companies as Board Member or Technical Advisor. Mario has more than two decades of experience in vaccinology, virology and immunology in large pharma, government, academy, and biotech settings. Prior to joining RA Capital, Mario was Associate Vice President for Advanced Research at Sanofi Pasteur and Head of the team executing a strategy for integrating influenza vaccine development with machine learning and antigen design. Mario held a Project Director position at BARDA working on Universal Flu Vaccine and leading the technical selection and completion of multiyear/multi million vaccine development programs. Mario received postdoctoral training at the NIH and Mount Sinai School of Medicine in innate immunity and bioinformatics, earned a PhD in microbiology at University of Chile and a MS in Nuclear Physics.
KEVIN YANG
Software Engineer
Kevin Yang is a Software Engineer at RA Capital Management. Kevin’s primary responsibility is to help guide internal software development to support competitive landscapes of drugs and medical devices across a range of disease indications and capabilities. Prior to RA Capital Kevin gained experience at StubHub, where he helped design and implement a new ad-serving engine responsible for delivering high quality advertisements to millions of customers. Prior to that he worked at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab where he focused on an AI fairness paper and generalization techniques for out of domain data. He holds a BS in Computer Science and a Master of Engineering in Computer Science form MIT.
CHRISTINE MASELBAS
Executive Assistant
Christine Maselbas is an Executive Assistant at RA Capital Management. Christine's primary responsibilities at RA Capital are to coordinate calendars, events, and company meetings for the Investor Relations division. She worked as an executive assistant at various firms, most recently at Three Cairns Group, a private-family office dedicated to climate-focused investing. Prior to Three Cairns Group, she cultivated a 16-year career at Evercore contributing to several departments over the years including supporting the Head of Business Development and the CEO of Evercore Trust Company. While at Evercore, she initiated volunteer programs within the community through NY Cares and served on Evercore’s volunteer committee. She graduated from Saint Michael’s College with a BA in Journalism.
ANURAG KONDAPALLI
Principal
Anurag Kondapalli is a Principal on the Investment Team at RA Capital Management. Anurag works on both public and private investments with a focus on Healthcare, Technology, and Services. Prior to this role, Anurag was at Orbimed Advisors where he served as Vice President, Structured Growth Capital and Royalty Opportunities. While at Orbimed, he drove proprietary deal sourcing, diligence, negotiation, and investment decisions for growth stage companies and determined valuation ranges for companies and products with a focus on technology platform value, commercial potential, and binary catalysts such as clinical and regulatory milestones. Anurag holds a BSE in Biomedical Engineering and a BS in Economics from Duke University.