Cohort 2024 - Chain Reaction Innovations

ANGELA FELDHAUS

Angela Feldhaus is COO and co-founder of Rarefied Technologies, a national security and aerospace startup developing near-space platforms for persistent sensing in the upper atmosphere. Rarefied’s technology builds on Feldhaus’ graduate research at Harvard in photophoretic levitation, which led to the company’s core patent-pending approach. She helps lead the company’s strategy, product development, partnerships, and commercialization, with a focus on translating early-stage physics into deployable missions for atmospheric sensing, space domain awareness, and defense-relevant applications. Her background includes experience at Sandia National Laboratories. She is a co-inventor on Rarefied’s technology and has been recognized as a former NSF Graduate Research Fellow, Clarendon Fellow, NASA NIAC fellow, and Harvard Business School innovation and entrepreneurship fellow.

RAREFIED TECHNOLOGIES

HAINING GAO

Haining Gao was mostly recently a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received her Ph.D. (’22) in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT. She is the co-inventor of the proposed technology (patent pending) and lead author on all related publications. She is a recipient of the MIT Kavanaugh Translational Innovation Fellowship (2022) and the MIT Graduate School of Engineering Evergreen Innovation Fellowship (2021). She was the team lead of an MIT Deshpande Center project and was the entrepreneurial lead in an NSF I-Corps Teams project. She co-founded Halogen Technology based on her postdoctoral research.

HALOGEN TECHNOLOGY

BERK DILER KOVOS, GRADUATED

Berk Diler Kovos received his Ph.D. in Quantum Science and Engineering—one of the first in the nation—from the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School for Molecular Engineering. During his tenure, Kovos worked on transition metals as optically addressable qubits in the Awschalom Lab and later worked on commercializing this technology. To that end, Kovos formed SynthBits, recruited team members, and led them through I-Corps and Compass accelerator programs. Currently, Kovos was previously employed by Quantum Machines, one of the fastest-growing quantum startups as a solutions engineer, to lead technical sales operations all across the quantum ecosystem.

SYNTHBITS TECHNOLOGY

JHANA PORTER

Jhana Porter is CEO of frakktal, Inc., a Houston, TX-based materials company developing polymers built from plant overages as an alternative to fossil fuel-based feedstocks, specifically for the built environment. Porter has more than 20 years in the biotech industry with a focus on building processes and systems and matching technology with business needs. She was selected as a member of the IMPEL+ 2023 cohort and presented at the 2023 Peer Review of the Building Technologies Office (BTO) as well as the 2023 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Innovative Housing Showcase. She holds an M.B.A. from the University of Houston.

FRAKKTAL TECHNOLOGY

SCOTT SVADLENAK

Scott Svadlenak received his Ph.D. from Oregon State University. Along with Konstantinos Goulas, he co-authored a patent for upcycling PVC waste and published the findings in Applied Catalysis B. Svadlenak also participated as team leader in two accelerator programs, the OSU Advantage Accelerator and VentureWell E-team programs. During these programs he led student teams focused on identifying the challenges to scaleup for their PVC recycling technology as well as business model development for a PVC recycling startup. He now serves as the Research Director at the startup company Renewcat.

RENEWCAT TECHNOLOGY