Founders
Hannah Hensel, MBA
CEO
Hannah Hensel’s interest in improving healthcare and patient outcomes began when she participated in a sponsored healthcare project with the University of Michigan. Her team analyzed and created a strategic business plan for the introduction of a robotic (da Vinci) International Minimally Invasive Surgery (IMIS) global network. The assignment involved extensive travel and primary research in rural and urban healthcare facilities in India and inner-city Detroit, while also working with world-renown surgeons and industry leaders. Prior to becoming CEO of Brio Device, Hannah was a Managing Partner of an international healthcare consulting firm, BPL International.
Ms. Hensel’s career has required extensive sales and marketing skills to negotiate multi-million dollar agreements. She spent over fifteen years at the beginning of her career securing strategic partnership and sponsorship agreements for international organizations including the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, Olympic Properties of the United States, Paralympic Games, Special Olympics and the Seattle SuperSonics NBA Basketball team.
Ms. Hensel received both her Bachelor of Arts and Executive MBA degrees from the University of Michigan. In 2010, she was chosen as one of only four Fellows for the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center, which led to the formation of Brio Device.
Laura McCormick, Ph.D.
V.P. Technology
The motivation for Laura McCormick to lead the technological development of the products at Brio Device started during a fellowship year with the Medical Innovation Center at the University of Michigan. The innovation curriculum prepared Dr. McCormick and the other fellows to determine technical and commercial viability of a project. Once the intubation device passed this scrutiny, her team invested numerous hours in primary research to fully understand the factors preventing success in emergent intubations. The concepts and preliminary designs have been developed to address the identified success-limiting factors.
Dr. McCormick acts as project manager while providing the vision for employees and contractors working on product development alongside specialists in anesthesiology, mechanical engineering and computer science. Laura has previous experience in developing and testing skin perfusion sensors from bench-top through initial tests on humans, and understands the steps and resources necessary to accomplish a project of this nature. Pursuit of launching Brio Device, LLC is driven by her long-time personal goal to conduct translational work dedicated to medical devices.
Dr. McCormick holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and a Masters of Science in Electrical Engineering from Michigan Technological University as well as a Bachelor’s of Biomedical Engineering from the Catholic University of America.
Douglas Mullen, Ph.D.
V.P. Operations
Douglas Mullen received a Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering from Duke University in 2005. At Duke he was a Pratt Undergraduate Research Fellow and a member of the Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems. He began his graduate career in the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program at the University of Michigan in 2005 and became a member of the Banaszak Holl research group and the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences. In 2007 Dr. Mullen received a Master’s of Science in Engineering from the University of Michigan’s Program in Macromolecular Science and Engineering and in 2009 he completed the MBA Essentials and Entrepreneurship Program at Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He completed the Doctoral Program in the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program in 2010. His thesis work involved the development of targeted chemotherapeutic agents. He has received several awards including the Raymond C. Gaugler Award in Materials Science and Engineering at Duke, the Rackham Regents Fellowship at the University of Michigan, an award for Excellence in Graduate Polymer Research from the American Chemical Society, and the National Starch and Chemical Award from the Macromolecular Science and Engineering Program at the University of Michigan. Dr. Mullen spent a year as a Medical Innovation fellow at the University of Michigan’s medical school and was the first Fellow to hold the prestigious Dick Sarns Fellowship.
Dr. Mullen currently also serves as the Entrepreneur in Residence at the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences. In this role, he is working on translating a number of exciting new MNIMBS discoveries to commercial practice. He was previously a member of the Frankel Commercialization Fund focusing on pre-seed investments in healthcare companies.
Sabina Siddiqui, MD FACS
Medical Officer
Sabina Siddiqui began her professional pursuits as an elementary teacher, a position that she left behind only upon receiving a full-scholarship to medical school. Her original plans were to become ‘just’ a general surgeon and she would divide her time between academic general surgery in the United States and humanitarian missions abroad. She wanted to continue caring for children; rather than in the classroom, she would do so with children facing the difficult and foreign experience of illness and disease. Pediatric surgery would allow her to use her skills developed as a teacher and enjoy the best aspects of her two favorite jobs – curing surgical disease and educating and helping children.
Dr. Siddiqui received her education and training as a Fellow at the University of Michigan Medical School after completing her medical degree and general surgery training from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center College of Medicine. She holds dual-major bachelors degrees from George Washington University, a BS in Biology and BA in Communication.
In 2010, Dr. Siddiqui became a Fellow at the University of Michigan Medical Innovation Center. It was during this Fellowship year that she found yet another passion: identifying and creating the medical devices used to save children’s lives.
Dr. Siddiqui now serves as Medical Officer for Brio Device and also as Pediatric Surgical Critical Care Physician at University of Michigan Medical School.