Meet the Team
Instructor, Biolingual Program
Christopher is currently the coordinator of the Biology department at Vanier College. He is very passionate about bringing interesting research opportunities to students and received funding to work on projects in collaboration with some of his former colleagues at Concordia University and McGill University. Christopher continues to be rewarded by a career that allows him to bring the world of Biology into focus for students. Through his role as an instructor for the Biolingual program, he is training participants on the fundamentals of biology to help them get involved in Biotech.
Christopher completed his graduate work at Concordia University in the lab of Dr. Vladimir Titorenko. His thesis studied certain metabolic changes that lead to lifespan extension in eukaryotic cells on a calorie-restricted diet, which was published in the Journal of Cell Biology. After a brief but rewarding post-doc in the lab of Dr. Vincent Martin, Christopher was hired to teach at Vanier College.
Instructional Designer, District 3
Houda Jawhar designs and develops learning experiences at District 3 to help entrepreneurs acquire entrepreneurial knowledge, skills, and competencies effectively to move along the startup journey faster and better. Houda is passionate about innovative and disruptive pedagogies and the implementation of learning analytics to design learning experiences that impact individuals and their businesses.
Prior to District 3, Houda completed an MA in Educational Technology at Concordia University and was actively involved in the maker and innovation ecosystem at Concordia, studying how individuals develop and advance skills that are pertinent to the 21st century by collaborating with others across the ecosystem. Before that, she completed a bachelor’s degree in nursing where she worked as a neonatal intensive care unit nurse and as a nursing educator. She worked closely with multidisciplinary healthcare teams to evaluate and improve quality and safety guidelines and policies in clinical settings. She designed, developed, and facilitated learning experiences for future nurses and supervised and trained 300+ nursing students across various clinical settings.
Principal, Amplitude Ventures
Michael is a firm believer that the biggest impacts of the age of biotechnology are yet to be discovered. He is passionate about providing the necessary capital and entrepreneurial insights to pull visions of the future into reality. Having completed a Bachelor of Biosource Engineering from McGill University, he went on to a Doctorate in Biomedical Engineering at Boston University.
Michael formerly worked at Flagship Pioneering, based in conceiving, founding and building novel platform companies. He then went on to become the co-founder of Sana Biotechnology, a startup focused on creating and delivering engineered cells and gene therapies as medicines. At Amplitude, Michael aims to build world-class Canadian companies in precision medicine and next-generation medical devices.