Meet Our Leadership

A distinguished leader in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry sectors, Damien is recognized for his vision, strategic planning, and corporate leadership. With a career spanning more than 30 years, he has served in multiple executive leadership and board roles. Prior to Aspen, Damien was CEO of rare diseases company Akcea Therapeutics, Inc., acquired by Ionis Pharmaceuticals in 2020. He has also served in senior executive roles at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Acadia Pharmaceuticals, and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. Damien earned his B.A. and Ph.D. at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, and completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, Texas A&M.

As Chief Financial Officer, Dalen Meeter brings more than two decades of finance and accounting experience to his role at Aspen Neuroscience. Prior to Aspen, most recently he served as CFO of Singular Genomics. After guiding Singular’s finance transformation from a private, development-stage startup to a publicly traded, commercial-stage company, he then led as CFO of the public entity.

Before joining Singular, Dalen also spent many years in Finance leadership at Illumina, as well as in auditing during his time at KPMG. He has also held leadership positions at Websense, Inc., and Captiva Software.

A certified public accountant (CPA), Dalen earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his MBA from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business.

As Chief Scientific Officer, Xiaokui is leading the company’s current scientific programs, as well as future platform and pipeline investments for the autologous iPSC platform company.

Before joining Aspen, Xiaokui served as the Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Celularity Inc., overseeing discovery, candidate development, preclinical, translational, process development and CMC activities to develop placenta-derived allogeneic, off-the-shelf cell therapy product candidates for immuno-oncology and functional regeneration applications, and serving as a member of the senior leadership team that took the company public in 2021. Xiaokui has also held various positions of increasing scope and responsibility at Celgene Cellular Therapeutics, and prior to Celgene, Xiaokui led a gene discovery team at Helicon Therapeutics and conducted target identification studies in cognitive disorders.

Xiaokui’s research in functional characterizations of JAK-STAT signaling pathways and placental progenitor cell differentiation has resulted in numerous patents and publications in highly ranked journals including Science. She has also served as a mentor to early-stage professionals in the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT) and is the honoree of New Jersey Liberty Science Center Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Award.

Xiaokui received her undergraduate degree in Physiology from Nanjing University, Jiangsu, China, and her doctorate in Molecular Cell Biology from the Rockefeller University, New York, with further post-doctoral training in Functional Genomics at Novartis Pharmaceuticals.

Kim has deep global experience in the cell and gene therapy industry, biologics and medical device spaces, with a distinguished track record of innovation and implementation of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). Prior to joining Aspen Neuroscience, Kim served as Chief Manufacturing and Technology Officer and a member of the executive team at AVROBIO, a Boston-based leader in the gene therapy space. Before Avrobio, Kim was vice president of operations for Nikon CeLL innovation Co., Ltd, a Japanese contract development and manufacturing organization. During his tenure, he established the company as the preferred provider of custom process development and manufacturing services for cell and gene therapy products in the Japanese market. Previously, Kim held management positions at Lonza, serving as the business director for cell therapy contract manufacturing operations in Singapore for five years, and prior to that as director of operations at Lonza’s Maryland facilities. Kim was also previously the senior manager of the Tissue Processing Lab at CryoLife Inc. He holds a B.S. from the University of Miami and an MBA from Kennesaw State University.

As a board-certified physician executive with over 20 years of experience leading global clinical development in the biopharma industry—including multiple roles as Chief Medical Officer, Revati has deep expertise in neuromuscular and CNS diseases, orphan indications, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, and gene therapy. She has a proven track record of advancing programs from pre-IND through to registration, successfully navigating global regulatory pathways, and shaping clinical and medical strategy for venture backed companies.

Prior to Aspen, Revati served in senior clinical roles at Cystetic Medicines, Excision BioTherapeutics, Bright Minds Biosciences, and Soleno Therapeutics, among others.

Revati received her medical education from Armed Forces Medical College in Pune, India. She held faculty appointments at Columbia University and Stanford University before working in the biopharma industry.

Ana Sousa brings a depth of expertise to her role as Chief Regulatory Officer and Head of Quality Assurance & Control for Aspen Neuroscience. With twenty years of experience in global regulatory affairs, Ana combines large company experience with the agility of a small biotech mindset. Prior to Aspen, Ana led Global Regulatory Affairs and Quality for Principia Biopharma, where she focused on bringing transformative therapies to patients with serious immune-mediated diseases by changing the way small molecules are developed. As a member of the leadership team, she was instrumental in developing the regulatory and corporate strategy resulting in one of the most successful IPOs in 2018 with the subsequent acquisition of the company by Sanofi in 2020. Prior to Principia, she held positions of increased leadership with Immune Design, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and Genentech-Roche.

Ana received her undergraduate degree at Pace University, Lubin School of Business, and her Master of Science in Jurisprudence (MSJ) degree with a concentration in Health Law and Intellectual Property at The Seton Hall University School of Law.

An industry leader with more than 30 years of experience, Lisa is a senior drug development, clinical and commercial expert. Lisa has successfully led programs across the entire product life cycle, including in medical affairs, clinical development, product development, portfolio planning and new product strategy for organizations from small biotechs to large pharmaceutical companies, including as the Global Dermatology Portfolio Leader, for Merck, head of Global Commercial Pharma Centers of Excellence and head of Early Pipeline Commercial Strategy for GSK, and the head of New Product Strategy for Akcea Therapeutics and Ionis Pharmaceuticals. Lisa is a board director at Assembly Bio and Tracon Pharma, and is the board chair of Young People in Recovery.

Lisa received her B.S. and M.D. degrees from Howard University, with further post-doctoral training in Internal Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Medicine.

Jeff Boerneke serves as General Counsel and Secretary at Aspen Neuroscience, where he leads the company’s legal strategy and oversees corporate governance, compliance, and transactional matters in support of Aspen’s continued growth and advancement toward Phase 3 development.

Jeff previously served as Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary at Gossamer Bio, where he was a member of the executive team and led all legal functions, including corporate governance, public company reporting, financings, partnerships, intellectual property, and clinical and commercial contracting. He also played a key role in the company’s initial public offering and strategic global partnership activities.

Earlier in his career, Jeff held roles at Amgen, supporting corporate finance, governance, and global operations, and was a corporate associate at Latham & Watkins LLP, where he advised on capital markets transactions, mergers and acquisitions, and licensing agreements.

Jeff holds a J.D. from UCLA School of Law and a B.S. in Chemistry from Point Loma Nazarene University.

As Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, Samantha (Sam) Murphy leads corporate and business development, investor relations, and alliance management functions at Aspen. With 20 years of experience across academia and industry, she combines her technical background with strong business acumen to support the corporate objectives and growth of the company.

Previously, Sam held a number of leadership roles at San Diego biotech companies, including Gossamer Bio, Locanabio, Primordial Genetics, and Arcturus Therapeutics. She has managed her own consulting business, supporting teams’ financings, pharma partnerships, and strategies for growth, and served as co-founder and investor of Intrinsic Medicine. Prior to her transition to corporate development, she served as a Research Scientist and Group Leader at Kyowa Kirin, Inc.

Sam received her Ph.D. in Biology from the University of California San Diego, performing graduate studies at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. She received her B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Arizona.

As Vice President of HR, Jen leads the overall human resources strategy for our rapidly growing company. Prior to joining Aspen in 2021, Jen has served in HR leadership roles in a wide variety of organizations with patient-focused missions, including most recently as Director of Talent Management at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute, where she also co-led the organization’s development of its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program. Jen spent nearly a decade in progressive management positions within Northwestern Medicine, a nationally recognized academic medical center headquartered in Chicago, covering benefits, HR systems, compensation, recruitment, and project management as the organization grew from 1600 – 3500 employees, as well as partnering on post-merger, integration and people programs. Jen started her career at Waldron & Company, a boutique human resources consulting firm headquartered in Seattle and with offices on the west coast.

Jen received her B.A., cum laude from the University of Washington in Speech Communication and Spanish. She holds a Certified Compensation Professional (CCP) designation from World at Work and a PHR-CA certification from HRCI. She is a certified trainer for Crucial Conversations and has an Instructional Design Certificate from the Association of Talent Development.

Andrés is the Co-Founder and leads the research and development at Aspen Neuroscience. He served as a post-doctoral fellow in Jeanne Loring’s lab where he helped develop the core technology producing dopaminergic neurons from iPSCs that formed the basis for the creation of Aspen. Andrés also served as Senior Science Advisor and Director of Research and Development at Summit for Stem Cell Foundation during which he led a team on the pre-clinical development of an autologous cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease. Andrés obtained his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of Washington.