Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Matthew Tsang is a biological systems engineering major at UC Davis. A first-year student, he knows he wants a career in biotech, in particular leading advancements in gene therapy and agriculture. 

Haley Ali is a senior at UC Davis pursuing a major in genetics and a minor in technology management. Her interests include traveling, listening to history podcasts and participating in thoughtful discussion—she’s not afraid to play devil’s advocate.

Sana Karimi graduated from the UC Davis College of Letters and Science with a B.A. in sociology and a minor in community regional development. Today she is an undergraduate academic advisor for the Psychological & Brain Sciences Department at UC Santa Barbara.  Karimi is a student of Taekwondo, a certified open-water diver, a reader and lover of nature. She participated in the first EQUIP program in 2019.

Eilee Shahidi is a junior-year business/managerial economics major, a marketing intern for UC Davis Undergraduate Admissions and a social media representative for Victoria Secret Pink for the UC Davis campus team. She is a 2021 EQUIP alumnus.

Mathew Magno combined his UC Davis education in computer science and technology management with his passion for entrepreneurship to co-found Japa Inc. with his classmate Charles Chen. “As a student it would take me 20 to 30 minutes sometimes to find a spot, circling parking lots and getting stressed out,” Magno recalls. “I decided to fix the problem of parking.” Magno is also the director and co-founder of PLASMA at UC Davis, the Aggie incubator that develops early stage startups into companies that can grow.

Anna Sadovnikova, MPH, M.A., IBCLC started her career in public health and is now a M.D./Ph.D. candidate in mammary gland biology and breastfeeding medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine. Sadovnikova is a NIH-funded investigator, receiving a 5-year F30 fellowship from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to define the molecular mechanism by which stress negatively impacts lactation.

Throughout her career, Christy Serrato has made her mark in Northern California—and especially at UC Davis and in Sacramento. Serrato is the founder and CEO of Pair Anything Inc. and the program director and a founding fellow of the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy. She obtaining a B.A. in economics from UC Davis and later returned to campus to compete in the 2019 Big Bang! Business Competition, taking home the $10,000 Food + Agriculture Sector Award. Most recently, PairAnything has been featured on Good Day Sacramento and in the Davis Enterprise to showcase how the digital platform became even more relevant during COVID-19.

Michael Vilardo is the co-founder, president and COO of Emile Learning. He won the $10,000 Technology Sector Award in the 2020 Big Bang! Business Competition while an MBA student at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. His venture, VHomes, which Vilardo scaled up with guidance from mentors at the Anderson Venture Accelerator, turned vacant and distressed motels and other locations into weekly and monthly rentals for budget-minded travelers and tenants. “It was profitable from Day 1 and won many competitions,” Vilardo says. A year after launching, he sold VHomes to a Bay Area short-term rental company and became a minority owner of that technology platform, now called NomΛd, which pays him monthly revenue.

Andy (Che-An) Wu graduated with a B.S. in computer science. Andy’s career goal is to become a tech-entrepreneur and make a huge difference in this world. He is always looking for opportunities to become a better programmer and to make connections with other passionate individuals. Wu’s interests include software engineering, app development and artificial intelligence. Today he is a software engineer at Zscaler.

Shail Trivedi graduated from UC Davis with a B.S. in mechanical engineering and hopes to work with mechatronics/robotic systems or mechanical design of devices. “I love to learn,” he says, “and I find myself curious to learn more about the types of roles mechanical engineers play in today’s world and where I can best find my fit.” Today he is a mechanical design engineer at Tesla. Outside his work, Trivedi enjoys reading, traveling, cooking and spending time with family/friends.