The team
behind the science

Our Values

Operations

Katerina Spranger, PhD

CEO & Founder

Katerina is a Royal Academy of Engineering Fellow. She holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Oxford and has previously worked in AI research at the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Paris. She was named a “founder striving to change the world” by Forbes, and “Young Innovator of the Year 2013” at Falling Walls Conference on Future Breakthroughs in Science and Society.

Katerina Spranger, PhD

CEO & Founder

Katia Mandaltsi, PhD

Head of Strategy and Clinical Partnerships

Katia holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Oxford which involved modelling the mechanobiology of aneurysm evolution. She spent 3+ years in a boutique marketing research consultancy shaping go-to-market strategy for emerging products in biotech and pharma. With a blend of technology and commercial experience, she focuses on business strategy development.

Katia Mandaltsi, PhD

Head of Strategy and Clinical Partnerships

Zayneb McDonald, MSc

Head of Ops and Non-Clinical Partnerships

Zayneb holds an MSc in Theory of International Relations from the LSE. She has close to 10 years’ experience helping organisations grow and operate effectively. Her areas of expertise are around innovation, change management, strategy and operational excellence. She is responsible for the running of our internal operations and successful delivery of all of our projects.

Zayneb McDonald, MSc

Head of Ops and Non-Clinical Partnerships

Katarina Demeter, MA

Head of Legal & Regulatory Compliance

As a medical paralegal, Katarina is in charge of quality assurance and regulatory matters as well as looking after patient and public involvement. She is a University of Warwick LLB graduate with an MA in Medical Law and Ethics from King’s College London.

Katarina Demeter, MA

Head of Legal & Regulatory Compliance

Professor Yiannis Ventikos

Scientific Advisor

Yiannis Ventikos is the Kennedy Professor and Head of the Mechanical Engineering Department at University College London. He is a leading specialist in medical devices design and optimisation.

Professor Yiannis Ventikos

Scientific Advisor

Dan Harris

Growth Lead

Dan holds a BSc (Hons) in Sport Science & Psychology from the University of Northampton. With 23 years of experience in the medical devices industry, he has played a key role in expanding the technical and commercial business in the fields of Cardiology and NeuroRadiology. In recent years, Dan has focused on specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration and adoption in clinical settings. Dan is responsible for driving commercial growth within the company.

Dan Harris

Growth Lead

Eleanor Mackle, PhD

Clinical Communications Manager

Eleanor holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from UCL, where she developed physical models of human vasculature for medical device development and clinical training. Prior to joining Oxford Heartbeat, Eleanor worked as the Digital Health editor at Nature Communications. She is responsible for our clinical communications, including work on our ongoing clinical trial, and supports the rest of the Operations team.

Eleanor Mackle, PhD

Clinical Communications Manager

Development

Alister Lam

Development Lead

Alister has 20+ years experience leading technical development in software, hardware and advanced system laboratories projects. His experience spans multiple industries, including time at Philips Semiconductors (Optical Systems, NFC, advanced product prototyping), and using augmented reality, BLE and wireless motion controller technologies in the 3D digital creative industries.

Alister Lam

Development Lead

Feico Ulrici, MSc

Head of Product

Feico holds an MSc in Healthcare Management and a BSc in Human Movement Sciences. He has worked for ChipSoft – the largest Dutch electronic patient record manufacturer – where he specialised in minimally-invasive cardiac interventions.

Feico Ulrici, MSc

Head of Product

Kori Lucas, BSc

Software Tester

Kori has over 20 years experience in software testing, working in a variety of different sectors, including e-commerce telecommunications and antivirus. She holds a BSc in Computer Science and is an ISEB certified tester responsible for extensive testing of every release of PreSize®.

Kori Lucas, BSc

Software Tester

Akash Lal, PhD

Computational / Algorithmic Engineer

Akash holds a PhD in Machine Learning from Imperial College London, and MSc in satellite engineering from the University of Surrey. He has 20+ years of experience in professional software architecture, design and development in various industries, and is a specialist in machine learning and algorithm optimisation.

Akash Lal, PhD

Computational / Algorithmic Engineer

Marco Camurri

Full-stack Engineer

Marco’s experience developing backend and data-exchange applications goes as far back as the 1990s. His past projects range from creating APIs to support multiplayer apps, to building CMSs for social networks. Moving on from Java, PHP, Database design, IoT, and REST API architecture, he is now responsible for our back-end and security infrastructure in the cloud.

Marco Camurri

Full-stack Engineer

Mirko Bonfanti, PhD

Lead Research Engineer

Mirko holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on personalised hemodynamic simulations of aortic dissection. Prior to joining Oxford Heartbeat, he was a postdoctoral researcher at University College London. He is responsible for the validation of algorithms at Oxford Heartbeat.

Mirko Bonfanti, PhD

Lead Research Engineer

Róger Bermúdez-Chacón, PhD

Image Processing Engineer

Róger holds a PhD in Computer Vision from EPFL Switzerland, and an MSc in Bioinformatics from ETH Zurich. He has close to 10 years of professional experience in software architecture, design and development, and is a specialist in medical image segmentation and machine learning.

Róger Bermúdez-Chacón, PhD

Image Processing Engineer

Artem Gerassimoff, MSc

Computational Mechanical Engineer

Artem holds an MSc in Physical Engineering and a BSc in Physics. He has worked for BAM – a senior scientific and technical federal institute, with responsibility to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Germany – where he specialised in structural mechanics and FEM computations.

Artem Gerassimoff, MSc

Computational Mechanical Engineer

Hannah Pybus , PhD

Research Engineer

Hannah holds a PhD in Mathematics from the University of Nottingham, where she developed mathematical models of asthmatic airways alongside collaborators' experimental investigations. Prior to joining Oxford Heartbeat, Hannah was a Research Associate at Imperial College London, where she developed mathematical models of allergic asthma onset in children, integrating collaborators' experimental and clinical data. At Oxford Heartbeat, she is responsible for the development and validation of mathematical models and algorithms.

Hannah Pybus , PhD

Research Engineer

A day in the life

Zayneb McDonald, MSc

Head of Ops and Non-Clinical Partnerships

Katia Mandaltsi, PhD

Head of Strategy and Clinical Partnerships

Mirko Bonfanti, PhD

Lead Research Engineer

Feico Ulrici, MSc

Head of Product
Careers

Join the team that makes a difference

If you are a driven individual who would like to join a team of innovators changing the future of surgery, we would love to hear from you.