Office of Strategic Alliances



Peter Kotsonis, PhD

Interim Vice Chancellor of Business Development, Innovation and Partnerships
Office of Strategic Alliances

Peter is a PhD-neuroscientist and drug hunter who has worked in both academic and corporate innovation settings. He joined UCSF in 2013, primarily responsible for developing novel business models and, a partnering vision for the campus eco-system that drives towards commercialization.

Peter has experience in pre-IPO academic start-ups (vasopharm GmbH) and larger global organizations (Novartis Ag and Dainippon Sumitomo Pharma Co, Ltd). Whilst at Julius-Maximilians University of Wurzburg (Wurzburg, Germany) he was the project leader and co-inventor of Ronopterin, a novel medicine for traumatic brain injury that is currently in Phase III clinical development and with Orphan Designation. For the resulting work, he and the team were awarded the 2000 Phoenix Pharmacy Ag Pharmazie-Wissenschaftspreis (Munich, Germany). At the Novartis Institute for Medical Science (London, UK) he led a CGRP migraine program. At Sepracor Inc. (MA, USA) he was the head of operations for Discovery and Early Clinical Research, which included aspects of strategy, portfolio management and external innovation. There he also completed the exclusive licensing of a first-in-class antipsychotic, Ulotaront, from a strategic partnership with PsychoGenics Inc. Ulotaront is currently in Phase III clinical development and received FDA Breakthrough designation in 2019.

Peter completed his studies at the University of Melbourne (BSc HONS) and Monash University (PhD). He is the recipient of the prestigious CJ Martin Fellowship from the Australian NH&MRC and, has been a member of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute for over 25 years.

Aenor Sawyer, MD

Director, Innovator Enrichment Program
Office of Strategic Alliances

Dr. Aenor Sawyer, has more than two decades of experience in development and evaluation of health technologies, telemedicine and remote medical management. Dr. Sawyer’s experience in remote medical management includes 15 years as an Expedition Medic and Medical Advisor for extreme ocean rowers. She also conducts research with the Australian Antarctic Division on remote medical monitoring. She has expertise in remote care and Space Health/Medical management as the Director of the UC Space Health Program and previously served as the Chief Health Innovation Officer for the Translational Research Institute for Space Health, a NASA-funded program.

She is a member of the UCSF IT Governance Committee, Co-Founder and Co-Director of the UCSF Center for Advanced 3D+ Technologies, Co-Founder of the Center for Digital Health Innovation, and a UCSF HEALTH HUB board member. External roles also include Chair of MCRI HealthTechnology Advisory Board, Advisor to UCSF Invest Fund, Advisor to ANDHealth, External Advisory Board Member of the Scripps Translational Sciences Institute, and prior Associate Editor of Nature’s Digital Medicine Journal.

As a UCSF Orthopedist, she is Founder and Director of the Skeletal Health Service where she combines her background as an Orthopaedic Surgeon, Physical Therapist and Exercise Physiologist enabling pediatric to geriatric patients optimize their bone health across the lifespan. Dr Sawyer's career includes 10 years as a Physical Therapist, after which she received an M.S. in Human Physiology and her M.D. from the University of California, Davis. Upon completion of her Orthopaedic Surgery residency at Stanford University, she completed fellowship training in Paediatric Orthopaedic Surgery and Paediatric/Adolescent Sports Medicine, both at Boston Children's Hospital, in the Harvard Orthopaedic program

Jon Brown, PhD

Business Development & Alliance Manager
Office of Strategic Alliances

Jonathan Brown joined the Office of Strategic Alliances as an Alliance and Business Development Manager in June 2022. Previously, Jon was a Senior Licensing Associate at the University of Southern California where he focused on moving technologies from the benchtop to market through out-licensing and start-up formation. Jon received his PhD in Chemistry from UCLA where he studied the influence of local cage environment on porous, catalytically active materials. He has experience as a licensing professional from time spent at UCSF’s OTMA, USC and Sandia National Labs and has completed numerous deals with both industry partners and venture capital backed start-ups. Jon is also a registered Patent Agent from his time at Wilson Sonsini.

Gabriela Fernandez-Cuervo Velasco

Alliance and Business Development Manager
Office of Strategic Alliances

Gabriela joined the Office of Strategic Alliances as an Alliances and Business Development Manager in June 2021. Previously, Gabriela was an Intellectual Property Technology Specialist at MyoKardia – a wholly owned subsidiary of Bristol Myers Squibb, where she focused on internal proprietary and scientific research to evaluate intellectual property issues impacting business strategy. She received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences with a focus on Drug Discovery and Development from the University of Arizona as a HHMI Gilliam Fellow. Her thesis work centered in designing MR imaging small molecule probes and developing them into companion diagnostic tools as enzyme-activated contrast agents. Her highly interdisciplinary work led her to continue postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine where she secured funding as a recipient of the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign MedTech Grant. Gabriela’s scientific background is strongest in drug discovery and medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, and biomedical imaging.

Amy Gryshuk

Associate Director
Office of Strategic Alliances

Amy joined the University of California, San Francisco, as the Associate Director of the Office of Strategic Alliances for the department of Innovation Ventures in July 2022. She received her PhD in Molecular Pharmacology from the State University of New York at Buffalo – Roswell Park Cancer Institute. She has experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining tailored action plans and partnering strategies for multidisciplinary research collaborations and agreements with government, industry, academia, and philanthropy partners. 

Previously, Amy served as a Lead within the Strategic Science Engagements Office for the Physical and Life Sciences Directorate at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where she coordinated high-level efforts across various Department of Energy (DOE) labs and the National Cancer Institute and was recognized in 2017 by the United States Department of Energy for the Secretary’s Appreciation Award for responding to the Vice President's Cancer Moonshot. She has focused on the application of computational predictive biology in oncology, drug discovery, and neurodegenerative efforts resulting in numerous publications and external funding. 

Sean Karlin

Senior Brand & Communications
Office of Strategic Alliances

With an education in film, a passion for adventure, and the good fortune to work with organizations like Greenpeace, Amazon Watch and Sea Shepherd, Sean has spent much of his life travelling and documenting the environmental movement. In 2005 he settled in San Francisco, joined Beyond Pix Studios to cover the world’s biggest technology innovators, including Apple, LinkedIn and Amazon. Along with new priorities came new skills that included commercial production and design.

Working with an incredible team of creative professionals, Sean led commercial campaigns for local and national broadcast television, which was honored with a pair of Emmy Awards for directing ad campaigns in 2009 and 2014.

In 2016, he began working with the University of California designing and producing educational media projects, and today you can find him wandering the ivy walled campus of UC San Francisco tending to brand and visual communications with the Innovation Ventures team.

Aleksandra Kijac, PhD

Business Development and Alliance Manager
Office of Strategic Alliances

Aleks comes to UCSF after almost a decade at Verily, a precision health company where she worked on multiple diverse programs beginning with the company’s inception as a moonshot project at GoogleX. Notable examples of her experience at the intersection of health and biotech include research on diagnostic and therapeutic nanoparticles, and product management of Virtual Stainer, a digital pathology platform for tissue imaging and deep learning-based histological staining. She has a passion for early-stage product development and building meaningful partnerships that accelerate the commercialization of new technologies. 

Aleks received her Ph.D. in Biophysics and Computational Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC).

Olivia Roberson, PhD

Senior Alliance and Business Development Manager
Office of Strategic Alliances

Olivia joined the Office of Strategic Alliances in November 2018 as an Alliances and Business Development Manager. Previously, Olivia worked as a scientific advisor where she focused on protection of biotechnology intellectual property. Olivia received her PhD in Immunology from Mayo Clinic School of Biomedical Sciences where she studied the endogenous antiviral mechanisms in the domestic cat. Subsequently, Olivia was awarded an NIH institutional research and academic career development award to pursue her postdoctoral studies at UCSF in the laboratory of Dr. Melanie Ott. A focus of her postdoctoral research was to identify the molecular mechanisms contributing to transcriptional repression at the HIV-2 promoter. During her tenure as a UCSF postdoctoral fellow, she also worked as an immunology consultant, where she provided technical expertise to support a biotechnology litigation case. Additionally, Olivia was an intern in the Office of Technology Management where she conducted prior art searches for patentability and determined commercial assessment of UCSF technologies.

Inder Takhar

Project Coordinator
Office of Strategic Alliances

Inder joined the University of California, San Francisco in June 2022 to coordinator special projects for the Innovation Ventures team, specifically working with Strategic Alliances and the Entrepreneurship Center. Prior to joining UCSF, Inder worked at Morling Financial Advisors, SLAC National Lab, and the Global Engagement Office at UC Berkeley.

He has a background in executive public relations, partnership development, and communications. Inder graduated from the University of California, San Diego, and holds a BA in International Relations.  In his free time, Inder enjoys traveling, riding his motorcycles, and spending time at art museums.