Theme: Igniting Inspiration

TEDxMontaVistaHighSchool is holding its annual spring conference on Friday, April 14th from 3:30-4:30 pm in the Monta Vista Black Box.

Monta Vista Black Box
21840 McClellan Rd.
Cupertino, California, 95014
United States

Jennifer Cheng

Founder, CEO at PTM Therapeutics, Inc.

Jennifer Cheng, Ph.D., J.D. is the CEO and Founder of PTM Therapeutics, Inc., a biotech startup developing therapies for gastrointestinal diseases such as Inflammatory Bowel Disease and colorectal cancer. With over 15 years of experience, Dr. Cheng is a biotech industry veteran and has experience in a variety of roles in drug development. Most recently, Dr. Cheng has been the vice president of legal affairs and general counsel at Adverum Biotechnologies from 2015 to 2019. Previously, Dr. Cheng was patent counsel with Allergan, where she was responsible for developing and implementing patent strategy. She also served as the senior patent counsel for MAP Pharmaceuticals until it was acquired by Allergan in 2013. Prior to that, Dr. Cheng was the manager of intellectual property for Solazyme, Inc. and patent counsel at Raven Biotechnologies.

Jill Escher

Autism Research Philanthropist

Jill Escher wears many hats in the autism world. She is a prominent research philanthropist (Escher Fund for Autism), President of the National Council on Severe Autism (NCSA), Past President of Autism Society San Francisco Bay Area (SFASA), host of the Autism Confidential podcast, co-chair of the Adult Autism Conference at Stanford University, a provider of affordable housing for more than a dozen adults with developmental disabilities, and, as Events Chair for SFASA, an organizer of more than 50 events per year for the Bay Area autism community. A graduate of Stanford University and UC Berkeley School of Law, she lives with her husband and their two children with nonverbal autism in San Jose, California.