harvard-physics
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Jake Taylor
Jake Taylor is a physicist turned founder and the CEO of Axiomatic AI, a Cambridge, Massachusetts startup building 'Axiomatic Intelligence' - AI that combines frontier models with formal mathematical and physics-based verification so engineers can design and prove out hardware like semiconductors and photonic chips. Before Axiomatic, Taylor spent 16 years at NIST as a Fellow and ran the first U.S. effort to coordinate quantum science, serving as the inaugural Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he architected the National Quantum Initiative. He holds a PhD in physics from Harvard, has authored more than 200 publications, and his honors range from the Presidential Early Career Award to the Service to America Medal. In March 2026 he led Axiomatic to an $18M seed round.
Misha Herscu
Misha Herscu is the co-founder and CEO of Cake, a New York based platform that bundles more than 100 open-source AI components into managed, production-ready infrastructure so mid-market teams get the control of a build with the ease of a buy. A Harvard physics graduate turned full-stack engineer, he previously founded the radiology AI marketplace EnvoyAI (McCoy Medical Technologies), which TeraRecon acquired in 2018. After running over 200 customer-discovery calls as an operator in residence at Primary Venture Partners, he started Cake in 2022 with CTO Skyler Thomas and raised a $13M seed round led by Google's Gradient in late 2024.
Sonia Kastner
Sonia Kastner is the Co-Founder and CEO of Pano AI, a San Francisco-based climate technology company building AI-powered wildfire early detection and response infrastructure. Combining 360-degree mountaintop cameras, satellite imagery, and deep learning AI with a 24/7 human intelligence center, Pano AI monitors 24-30 million acres across the U.S., Australia, and Canada - alerting first responders to over 100 fires annually. Named to TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies of 2025, recognized on BBC's 100 Women 2023, and a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Kastner brings a Harvard physics degree, Stanford MBA, and deep hardware/supply chain experience from Nest, PAX, and NYC government to the frontier of climate resilience.