Matthew Rabinowitz, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Matthew Rabinowitz has had dual careers in industry and academia. He completed his B.A., M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees at Stanford University, receiving both the Levin and Terman Awards — the highest academic honors offered respectively in engineering and physics — and a graduate fellowship to the school of engineering. While completing his dissertation, Dr. Rabinowitz co-founded an intelligent online merchandizing company, Panop.com, which later sold for $100M. Shortly after, Dr. Rabinowitz started his second company, Rosum, which developed a location technology using TV signals to augment GPS. Rosum received the World Economic Forum “100 Technology Pioneers” award when he was CTO.
In 2003, Dr. Rabinowitz’s life took a turn. A family member had a child born with a genetic disease and the child died. Dr. Rabinowitz experienced firsthand the trauma, stress, and devastation that an unexpected diagnosis of genetic disease can bring to a family and he was moved to action.
Drawing on expertise from his seemingly unrelated background, Dr. Rabinowitz embarked on a journey with the goal of ensuring that other families need not experience similar pain wrought by the inability to have a healthy child. Bringing together a team of experts in medicine, engineering, statistics, and genetics, along with his own skills in optimization, signal processing, informatics, and entrepreneurship – Natera was born.
Dr. Rabinowitz is now an authority in the field of prenatal and preconception informatics-based genetic testing. He has served as the Principal Investigator on six research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health from which multiple publications have emerged in the leading journals of the field such as Bioinformatics, Human Reproduction, and Molecular Human Reproduction. He actively presents at medical conferences around the world, including at the annual meeting of the American College of Medical Genetics, American Society of Reproductive Medicine, and Fetal Medicine Foundation World Congress.
Dr Rabinowitz is a board member, advisor, and angel investor for multiple technology companies in the fields of biotech, communications, cleantech and healthcare. He has received the Scott Helt Memorial Award from IEEE and was selected by MIT Technology Review Magazine as one of the top 35 technology innovators under 35 in the US.
Natera’s results have been no less than remarkable. Dr. Rabinowitz and the entire Natera team share a dedicated passion to bringing the breakthrough Parental Support technology to those who need it most in their pursuit of a healthy family.
Mr. Sheena is company co-founder and an experienced entrepreneur with proven success in technology innovation. Before co-founding Natera, Mr. Sheena founded PocketThis which has offices in the UK and the US and sells cutting edge server technology to mobile networks worldwide. Mr. Sheena’s background is in personalization technology. While a graduate student at MIT, and in partnership with the Associated Press, Reuters, Knight Ridder, ABC, and the New York Times, he built the first web based personalized newspaper called “Fishwrap”. The technology was licensed by and deployed to newspapers worldwide, most notably the San Francisco Chronicle. After MIT, Mr. Sheena worked as a lead architect at Firefly, a pioneering company in online community, personalization and collaborative filtering. Firefly was purchased by Microsoft, where Mr. Sheena then worked to bring online the largest running personalization and online identity system used by tens of millions of people around the globe. He holds both M.S. and B.S. degrees from MIT as well as a number of patents in internet and mobile technology.
Mr. Chapman joins Natera from Genzyme, where his team was responsible for over 70 million dollars of revenue in the Northeastern United States. Mr. Chapman established the largest network of physicians in the world routinely screening Fragile X and led Genzyme’s sales initiative into population screening for Fragile X. Mr. Chapman proved to be a visionary in 2005 when he brought carrier screening of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) to the forefront of efforts at Genzyme. He played a critical role in the groundbreaking launch of SMA carrier screening in 2008 and was responsible for over 35% of the initial uptake in the United States during the first 6 months of the launch. Steve has been the direct recipient of 27 sales awards, most notably a two-time winner of the prestigious Alpine Award, which was given to one person throughout Genzyme Corporation, which has over 8,000 employees world wide. This award recognized outstanding achievement and innovation, and the recipient was hand selected by CEO Henri Teermer. Prior to joining Genzyme, Mr. Chapman was at UCLA in the Department of Human Genetics working on Multiple Sclerosis. During his time at UCLA, he contributed to the selection process and design of oligo nucleotide arrays used to identify SNP’s associated with Multiple Sclerosis. Steve holds a Bachelors of Science in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics from University of California, Los Angeles.
Ms. Keller has fifteen years of clinical and business experience in the healthcare and biotech industries. She is a board certified genetic counselor with extensive experience in prenatal, pediatric, and adult genetics, with a particular emphasis in genetic screening program delivery. Ms. Keller began her career at the Genetics Clinic at Stanford Hospital where she coordinated the California state Expanded AFP Screening Program and provided patient care for prenatal genetic indications. After completing her M.B.A., Ms. Keller transitioned to healthcare consulting and biotechnology marketing for companies including Kaiser Permanente, Cord Blood Registry, and Genentech. She has been responsible for the design and execution of a number of physician marketing programs and has past experience in forecasting, program analysis, and market planning. Ms. Keller holds a B.S. from San Francisco State University, an M.S. in Health and Medical Sciences from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Irvine.
Ms. Pettersen is a board certified genetic counselor who has worked in the field of clinical genetics for over 26 years. She has extensive experience in prenatal, pediatric and adult genetics, including hereditary cancer, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders. Prior to joining Natera, she has held genetic counseling positions at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Stanford University Medical Center, and Kaiser-Permanente Medical Center and her own private practice. Ms. Pettersen has also served as the clinical consultant for the Northern California Kaiser Regional Molecular Genetics Diagnostic Laboratory and has particular expertise in the clinical applications of genetic testing. She has a strong interest in PGD and other technologies that can help families in their quest to have children free of serious genetic conditions. She is actively involved in the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC), has served two terms on the board of directors, was awarded the NSGC Regional Leadership award, and has been co-author on a number of NSGC-sponsored Genetic Counseling Practice Guidelines. She is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the American Board of Genetic Counseling (ABGC) and was Chair of the ABGC Certification Examination Committee from 2007 through 2010. Ms. Pettersen holds a B.S. in Psychology and an M.S. in Medical Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.