Sam co-founded Sequest, where he is now a senior technical advisor. Originally from South Africa, he completed a PhD in Computer Science and an M.A. in Philosophy at Brown in 2026, with research focused on deep learning. Before Brown he took his undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Science at the University of Pennsylvania, and worked at the Boston Consulting Group in its Boston office. His hobbies include soccer, running, and triathlon.
At Brown, Sujith studied Computer Science-Economics and Biology. Sujith is passionate about all things biology, whether it’s start-up biotechnology companies or conducting biological research. Sujith has spent time growing fungal materials in a biology lab at NASA and, on campus, walso also a Project Lead for the Collegiate Consulting Club and a member of Brown Badmaash and Tempo Performance Company. In his free time, you can find Sujith learning trending TikTok dances or playing volleyball.
At Brown, Julia concentrated in Environmental Science and Business Economics. She is interested in startups, especially those working in the environmental space. Julia is the cofounder of Friend in Me, a nonprofit that connects kids with disabilities and student volunteers through Zoom. She also played for the Brown Women's Water Polo Team and was involved with EP and Scholars of Finance. She currently works as an Investment Banking Analyst at Bank of America. In her free time, she loves surfing, traveling, and trying new foods.
At Brown, Sunav concentrated in Applied Mathematics–Computer Science. He’s worked in credit investing at D. E. Shaw and in early-stage, data-infrastructure investing at Race Capital. He is returning to D.E. Shaw to work full time, and in his free time he’s interested in history, football, and the environment.
Laysa is from Brazil and Massachusetts and concentrated in Business-Economics at Brown, with an interest in the intersection of profit, social good, and entrepreneurship education. She co-founded an initiative to establish an entrepreneurial bridge between Brazilian academia and the market, and is working with Beautiful Day, a Providence social enterprise helping refugees adjust to life in America. In her free time, you’ll find Laysa barbecuing with BRASA, playing soccer or club basketball, and watching beach sunsets.
Ioannis is investing at Clearhaven Partners. Originially from Greece, he concentrated in applied mathematics and economics at Brown University. During his time there, he actively participated in the Hellenic Student Association, and in the fall of 2022, he was a member of the Innovation Dojo program. He has completed internships at Ajeej Capital, a Dubai-based asset management firm, and at Eurobank in Athens, Greece. In his free time, he enjoys watching films, going to the theater, and sailing
Mason is a Deployment Strategist for Palantir, working on their Hospitals team. At Brown, he studied Applied Math-Computer Science and led Van Wickle Ventures as a Co-Director from 2024-2025. In his free time, he likes to read, lift, and banter with friends. Originally hailing from the Central Valley of California, he enjoys working the land whether that be gardening or building fences in his backyard.
Abby spent her time at Brown studying the intersection of finance and the environment. She explored this via research, climate tech startup consulting, and with business development at EVgo and BlackRock. In addition to typical diligence procedures, she devoted her time at VWV heavily to the comms team, publishing the weekly Bulletin on relevent topics in VC. She is moving to NYC postgrad to join BlackRock full time, but hopes to return to investing sometime in the future.
Viktor is an Analyst at Goldman Sachs in the Apex Group. From Brown, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics-Economics with a focus on Mathematical Finance. Outside the classroom, Viktor helped lead Van Wickle Ventures, BIG, and was an active Teaching Assistant across the MATH/ECON/ENGN departments.
At Brown, Ben studied computer science and co-led Van Wickle Ventures, the university’s student-run venture fund, where he sourced and led early investments in companies like Fishwife, Quiltt, Ghia, and Apprenta. He also co-founded Brown’s first undergraduate long/short fund, backed by Steven A. Cohen, and served as Co-President of Brown Investment Group. During his summers, Ben worked across finance and technology — from enterprise strategy at Capital One to software engineering at Axonius in Tel Aviv. He also gained early-stage experience as a Fellow at J-Ventures and built sales and product skills at Rocket Alumni Solutions. Today, Ben is an Investor at Insight Partners, focusing on diligence and growth strategy.
Raghav is a member of the Quantitative Portfolio Management team at AQR Capital Management. At Brown, he studied computer science, where he served as a teaching assistant in the department and conducted research with the Visual Computing Group. He also gained venture experience with Van Wickle Ventures and built industry experience as a software intern at Tesla.
Aayush is an Investor at Insight Partners, focusing on opportunities at the intersection of health and bio. While at Brown, he combined entrepreneurship and research, serving as Co-External Managing Director of Van Wickle Ventures and mentoring student founders through the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship. He also held roles as an Investment Analyst at MagpieX MedTech Accelerator and built post-investment management pipelines for VWV’s portfolio. Alongside his venture work, Aayush conducted computational neuroscience and machine learning research at Rhode Island Hospital, studying deep brain stimulation in Parkinson’s patients and surgical outcomes in the Spinal Outcomes Lab, and served as a teaching assistant in both linear algebra and medical innovation.
Cecile is an Equity Research Associate at Evercore, where she covers Global Chemicals & Battery Materials, following a prior summer with the firm’s Sustainable Technologies & Clean Energy team. At Brown, she studied Business Economics and History with a focus on modern China, co-directed Van Wickle Ventures, and co-taught a for-credit course on venture capital titled “From Shark Tank to Sequoia.” She also gained early-stage investing experience as a Venture Intern at Harlem Capital.
Ria was a summer analyst at Buoyant Ventures, an early stage venture fund investing in digital solutions to climate risk. At Brown, she was a Co-Director of VWV, a developer for Full Stack at Brown, a volunteer for Brown Refugee Youth Tutoring and Enrichment, and a singer in a few Brown A Capella groups.
Luc works at Goldman Sachs as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Cross Markets Group. He helps run the organization, Mouthful.org, and is an avid electronic music producer signed by a number of European labels. He also ghost produces for acts in the US and EU.
Zach is currently an Investor at Insight Partners. He previously led product as an early employee at portfolio company MediCircle. Prior, Zach spent time as a software engineer at TMRW Life Sciences, a scale-up building IVF storage automation devices. At Brown, Zach studied computer science, led Innovation Dojo, and was closely involved with VWV.
Amanda is currently a Product Engineer at Footprint, a tech startup that focuses on security-first onboarding. At Brown, she was a Co-Director of VWV....
Casey is a Deals Strategy Associate at Strategy&, where he advises on transaction strategy and value creation. He began his career in investment banking at Fluential Partners in Los Angeles and previously interned with Strategy&’s New York office. At Brown, Casey was an Associate at Van Wickle Ventures, the student-run venture fund, and served as a small-cap pharmaceutical analyst with the Brown Healthcare Investment Group, conducting equity research and pitching investments across biotech and healthcare.
Lauren is currently a consultant at Bain & Company. Prior, she founded Figured, a service that helps people with afro-textured hair find the best personal hair routine and product lineup for their lifestyle and hair characteristics. At Brown, Lauren majored in Business, Entrepreneurship, and Organizations and was involved in VWV as well as the Brown Technology Review.
Olivia Tulkoff works at Goldman Sachs as an Investment Banking Analyst in the Real Estate Group. At Brown, she was a Public Policy and Entrepreneurship major as well as Co-Director of Van Wickle Ventures. Before coming to Brown, Olivia spent two years living in Israel where she served in the IDF as a shooting and marksmanship instructor and then lived in Tel Aviv and worked at a startup. In Providence, Olivia headed up Brown’s accelerator for student startups, Innovation Dojo for two years, founded her own company, fette, and joined another Brown-founded startup, Rocket Alumni Solutions, as a VP of Operations and Growth.
Herbert is from Austria and the US. He has been interested in finance since high school, when he lost $100,000 in fake dollars going bullish on silver in a bear market. Determined never to repeat that mistake, he immersed himself in finance, founded a stock market club, and joined Brown’s Socially Responsible Investment Fund. Excited by venture capital and entrepreneurship, he joined Van Wickle Ventures in January 2021. Beyond his studies and VWV, Herbert was an active member of the university’s international community as an international student mentor (IMP), a peer advisor for both sophomores and first-years, and a member of the university chorus.
Asif is currently an associate at Las Olas Venture Capital, based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. At Brown, Asif studied economics and computer science and was a co-director of VWV. Over his summers, Asif held internships at Blackstone and JP Morgan.
Danny is currently the co-founder of Collective, an NFT platform whose mission is "to unf*ck the Internet." Collective does this by accelerating the adoption of decentralized communities. At Brown, Danny studied Computer Science and even TA'd Brown's blockchain and cryptocurrency class. For two summers in college, Danny interned at Meta as a software engineer working on the translation team in FAIAR, exploring hyperparameter gradients & refactoring model training workflow.
Chase is the founder and CEO of Rocket Alumni Solutions, a no-code touchscreen software creation platform that serves 250+ institutions across North America with hundreds of touchscreen deployments. Prior, Chase was in Investment Banking at Harris Williams. At Brown, Chase majored in Business & Economics and was involved in VWV, Brown Healthcare Investment Group, and Club Lacrosse.
Ved currently works in growth investing at Insight Partners. At Brown, Ved studied Computer Science. Outside of class, Ved was a founding member of VWV and eventually went on to become Co-Director. He was also an active member of the Brown Daily Herald and the Brown Derbies a capella group.
Sophie is currently an investor at Insight Partners, a software-focused growth equity fund in NYC. Sophie co-founded Van Wickle Ventures after seeing an unmet need in the Brown ecosystem through her work as co-president of the Brown Entrepreneurship Program and with Hult Prize at Brown. Previously, she helped early-stage startups fundraise at the equity crowdfunding platform SeedInvest and worked with entrepreneurs in emerging markets at Endeavor. When she’s not talking about startups, you’ll typically find her searching for or making her own bagels and coffee. VWV was the most fun and rewarding part of her time at Brown and she looks forward to seeing it grow in the future.
John is currently an investor at Stripes, a growth equity fund in NYC. John was a VWV co-founder and co-director. Some of his favorite VWV memories include investing in 305 Fitness, taking a 305 class led by Sadie, and learning from his VWV teammates. He hopes that VWV continues to be a way for students to meet kickass founders, discover problems they want to work on, and understand the “other side of the table.”
Kanika works as a PM at Bloomberg and spent her last two summers on campus working in the entrepreneurship space—the first at a cold brew startup in NYC and the latest at a software startup within Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator (ERA) in Manhattan. Both experiences built her fascination with the idea of building a company from the ground up based on a vision of change, and at VWV she got to leverage her early-stage startup experience to work on the investor side of things. At Brown, you could always catch her browsing Indiegogo or carrying her red violin case around campus.
At Brown, Rhaime studied computer science. She worked on a fintech idea for a year and was selected as a participant in Brown’s summer accelerator B-Lab. As a senior, Rhaime worked with Nomad Rides, a Y Combinator startup tackling the rideshare space. During her gap year, Rhaime helped build SuperCharger Fintech Accelerator from scratch as team member #1, and served as the deputy Chief Marketing Officer at a secondary fund.
Alexandra (Alex) Wong is a second year MD-PhD student with a focus in Computational Biology. After graduating from Brown University, Alex spent a year working as a Full Stack Software Engineer at Yelp. During her undergraduate years, Alex founded Fiction for Kids, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that publishes short works of children's fiction for donation to children in need. She also participated in the Innovation Dojo, conducted computational cancer genomic research, and taught piano to local elementary school students. On the weekends, you can find Alex curled up with a new book, on a hike, or playing classical piano.
