nuclear-engineering
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Cameron McCord
Cameron McCord is the co-founder and CEO of Nominal, a defense-tech software company modernizing how the world tests and validates mission-critical hardware. A former US Navy nuclear submarine officer who logged 484 days underwater, he studied physics and nuclear engineering at MIT and earned an MBA at Harvard before building product at Anduril and investing at Lux Capital. Founded in 2022, Nominal reached a $1 billion valuation after raising $155 million in ten months, counting four of the five largest US defense contractors among its customers.
Caroline Shin
Caroline Shin is the CEO and co-founder of Vacatia, a San Francisco-based marketplace reinventing the $35 billion timeshare industry. A MIT nuclear engineering graduate who cut her teeth building Hotwire from the ground up and running global CRM at Starwood Hotels, she launched Vacatia in 2013 to apply technology-first thinking to an industry that had barely touched the internet. Under her leadership, Vacatia has raised $46.8M across multiple rounds, acquired several resort management companies, grown to 750+ industry partners, and expanded to manage 4,750 resort units across eight states.
Rachel Slaybaugh
Rachel Slaybaugh is a General Partner at DCVC, the deep tech venture firm, where she leads climate, sustainability, and energy investments. A nuclear engineer by training - she once operated a reactor as an undergrad at Penn State - she spent eight years as a tenured Associate Professor at UC Berkeley, ran the Cyclotron Road accelerator division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and served as a Program Director at the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E, where she created the nuclear fission program and helped fund over 30 companies. She co-founded the Good Energy Collective and the Nuclear Innovation Bootcamp, and now backs companies like Fervo Energy, Brimstone, Radiant Industries, Zap Energy, Fourth Power, and Equilibrium Energy at DCVC.
Spencer Applegate
Spencer Applegate is a technology operator and investor who built three software companies before becoming Vice President of Strategy & Business Operations and Chief of Staff to the CEO at Gainsight, the leading customer success platform. With a foundation in nuclear engineering from Georgia Tech and an MBA from Harvard Business School, he has moved fluidly between founding startups (Verusen, REscour, PainTheory), deploying capital at growth and buyout funds (M33 Growth, Pacific Lake Partners, Vector Capital), and now running strategy at a $1.25B enterprise SaaS company in San Francisco.