Adriana Carreno serves as the Life Sciences Cluster Manager for the Florida High Tech Corridor, where she works with startups, researchers, healthcare organizations, investors, and industry leaders to help strengthen Central Florida’s innovation ecosystem. Through the Corridor’s Cenfluence initiative, she supports emerging and established companies across life sciences, healthcare, and health technologies by connecting them with strategic partnerships, regional resources, and growth opportunities. With a B.S. in Sports Medicine and Fitness Technology and a background spanning program management, startup support, and ecosystem building, Adriana is passionate about fostering meaningful collaboration between industry and academia while helping companies scale and thrive in Florida’s innovation economy.

‍

Dr. Aurélie Joly-Amado is an academic researcher at the University of South Florida working on chronic and neurodegenerative diseases,with a focus on preclinical models of Alzheimer’s disease and translationaltherapeutics. Through this work, she developed a deep understanding of the gapbetween promising scientific discoveries and their progression into real-worldtreatments. At the same time, she became increasingly interested in theunderexplored opportunity to innovate in veterinary medicine, particularly forage-related diseases that mirror human conditions and founded Blue ZoneTherapeutics, a startup aiming at developing innovative therapeutics forchronic diseases in pets.

Evan Erickson is the Senior Director of Partnerships & Events at Embarc Collective, a nonprofit startup hub that providescoaching, connections, and resources to help early-stage technology companiesgrow and scale. She works with founders, investors, corporations, universities,and community organizations to create opportunities that support the growth of technology startups. Evan leads strategic partnerships across Florida’s innovation ecosystem, building relationships that strengthen support for startups and foster collaboration among key stakeholders. She also oversees Embarc Collective’s public-facing events and community engagement initiatives, helping connect entrepreneurs with the people, resources, and networks they need to scale.

Shannon Pastizzo is the Director of USF CONNECT, leading innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives for start-ups at the University of South Florida. She also serves as Secretary for the Florida Business Incubator Association. With over 20 years of experience, Shannon is an expert inleadership, business development, and strategic planning. Previously, she was the Director of Business Development at Synapse. She holds a BS in Accountingfrom the University of Connecticut.

Elizabeth Nelson is the Director of Florida High Tech Corridor at USF, where she works on behalf of the The Corridor to bridge the gap between the university's research and innovation community and the region's high tech ecosystem. With more 15 years of experience in strategic communications, economic development and public sector funding, Elizabeth specializes in building applied research partnerships that help high-tech companies develop, validate, and commercialize their innovations — while connecting students and faculty to real-world applicationsof their work.

Bethany Corbin, JD, is a nationally recognized lawyer and women’s health ecosystem builder dedicated to transforming the landscape of digital healthcare. As the Managing Partner of Women’s Health Innovation Consulting and CEO of FemInnovation, she champions health equity and drives innovation across the femtech sector. Her mission is to foster sustainable growth and investment in women’s health technologies, ensuring that care is patient-centered, evidence-based, and accessible to all.

‍

Through her leadership, Bethany has become a prominent voice in the movement to reclaim women’s right to quality healthcare. Her book, The Femtech Revolution: Harnessing Technology to Supercharge Women’s Healthcare, introduces readers to her SAFE method—a framework designed to help individuals become confident, informed users of digital health tools. The book serves as both a call to action and a practical guide for navigating the evolving world of femtech.

‍

Bethany’s impact has been widely recognized. She was named one of the Top 200 Trailblazing Leaders in Women’s Health and Femtech and received the 2023 Champion in Healthcare Award from the Global HEaL Awards.

‍

Her thought leadership has been featured in major media outlets including Forbes, Fortune, Bustle, NPR, BBC, Cosmopolitan, and Teen Vogue. She also contributes regularly to industry publications such as Entrepreneur, Med Device Online, and MedCity News.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to work with numbers. I took finance and economics while attending university and I started my career in financial services by working at a small credit union while still in school. In 1998, I graduated from McMaster University in Canada with a Bachelor of Commerce with an Economics minor and immediately began working for one of the national banks there.

My passion for finance resulted in quickly moving up the ranks within the bank and I took the necessary courses to become accredited as a Financial Advisor by the age of 24. It was definitely challenging convincing clients to trust their life savings with a kid, but my focus, service and growing knowledge allowed me to build one of the most successful practices within the bank.

When I speak with people about why I started Life Science Wealth and why I have a passion for helping professionals in this field, the answer is simple. My father Albert is my mentor and idol, and I almost lost him at a young age due to cardiac issues. He is still with us today due to the work and advancements made by professionals within the life sciences. My talents lie in wealth management, not sciences, and I find it extremely motivating and satisfying to take the weight of financial decisions off industry professionals so that they can do what they do best and concentrate of scientific advancement. In doing so, I feel that I am doing my small part in helping make sure that someone else’s mentor and loved ones will continue to be with them for years to come.

Ms. Flégeau began working in regulatory affairs while living in Paris, France. She has spent over 20 years in the medical device field working in diverse international companies both small and large, focusing on a variety of medical devices such as cardiac, orthopedics, catheters, active implantable devices…etc. She is an expert in CE marking, FDA submissions and international registrations. Her expertise includes regulatory strategies, submissions, technical files and creative problem solving.

Ms. Flégeau has worked directly with regulatory agencies in Canada, EU, China, Japan, Korea, France, and Brazil.

Ms. Flégeau holds a BA in International Business from Illinois Wesleyan University, and a Leadership Certificate from Kellogg School of Management. She is fluent in French.

Ms. Flégeau oversees the Florida chapter of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society (RAPS). She currently is Associate Director of Regulatory Affairs at Johnson and Johnson – Sterilmed division.

‍