Alumni Profile: Kayla Boortz Young, PhD, Commercialization Program Manager, Life Science Washington
The article was originally published in Results & Discussion, Issue 6, Fall 2017.
By Kendra Oliver, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow
Kayla (Boortz) Young, Ph.D., is living the dream in Seattle, Washington. Previously a Commercialization Program Manager at Life Science Washington, she ran a mentoring program for early-stage life science companies (medical devices, pharma, health IT, global health) that entailed identifying promising start-ups and pairing them with experienced mentors. She also oversaw educational bootcamp events for entrepreneurs. In this role, she was also instrumental in creating resources for entrepreneurs such as guidebooks, templates, worksheets, and pitch deck templates to help them in their journey to launch a new business. Young also sits on multiple angel investment screening committees where she evaluates the science for non-science-based investors. Recently, Young became the Director of Operations at Phase Genomics. We spent some time with Young exploring her experience in the life sciences entrepreneurial ecosystem.
