40 Under 40


Class of 2020

Georgia Tech’s impact reaches every industry, every part of the globe and every aspect of people’s lives through the work of our esteemed alums. Our first class of 40 Under 40 spans the far reaches of the world, representing a wide range of industries with a diversity of ideas.

Press Release

Banafsheh Azizi, IA 04, MS IA 08
Chief Operating Officer | Bayt Abdullah Children’s Hospice (BACCH) and Kuwait Association for the Care of Children in Hospital (KACCH)
On her bucket list is having a “foodie vacation” in Italy.
Maithili Appalwar, IE 18
CEO | Avana
She once followed a professor around until he gave her a waiver to enroll in his Medieval Literature class.
Braxton Davis, EE 06
Patent Attorney | Amin, Turocy & Watson, LLP
Braxton matriculated through the Dual Degree Engineering Program where he received a degree in physics from Morehouse College and a degree in electrical engineering from Tech.
Candace Mitchell Harris, CS 11
Co-Founder & CEO | MYAVANA 
She would love to own a neighborhood restaurant that cultivates community and can be a place where families celebrate their milestones.
Shawna Khouri, BME 12, MBID 14
Managing Director, Biolocity | Emory University & Georgia Institute of Technology 
She fell off a skateboard outside the Klaus building on her way back from a lab and ended up needing several dental implants. “This is unofficially a world record for the nerdiest skateboarding injury,” she says.
Robert “Bobby” Henebry, ME 03, MBA 06
Partner | DM Capital Management, LLC 
He’s officiated four weddings (his younger brother and three good friends—two whom are GT grads).
Ignacio Montoya, MBID 18
Executive Director | HINRI Labs
With a love for salsa music, he helped create his high school’s first-ever salsa club and wrote songs and performed them in Spanish nightclubs throughout Atlanta.
Christopher Hermann, BME 06, MS ME 11, PhD BioE 12
Founder & CEO | Clean Hands-Safe Hands
 He has worked as a captain and divemaster in the British Virgin Islands for a company that ran live-aboard sailing and diving programs.
Arnab Chakraborty, BME 13
Chief Technology Officer, Co-Founder | Flow MedTech International Corp.
Aside from being an engineer, his passion for fashion, art, and design has led to scholarships to participate in related courses from the Parson’s New School of Design.
Dhaval Bhandari, PhD ChE 10
Planning Advisor | ExxonMobil
He never gives a “yes” or “no” answer immediately—not even to his 4-year-old son. He prefers thinking deeply about any question before answering.
Matthew McDowell, MSE 08
Assistant Professor in the G. W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and the School of Materials Science and Engineering 
He once hiked across the Sierra Nevada Mountain range in California and then hiked back because he only had one car (this was pre-Uber).
Kathryn Lanier, PhD Chem 17
Director of STEM Education Outreach | Southern Research
She has a reoccurring dream of getting stuck in the tunnels beneath the Biotech Quad. While it changes each time, her favorite version has been one where she meets and mingles with the legendary George P. Burdell.
Samirkumar Patel, PhD ChE 11
President & CEO | Moonlight Therapeutics 
I like to grow vegetables. I come from a family of farmers and while in India I spent time on the family farm. I feel like my early joy in farming is linked to my later joy in being an entrepreneur/ creator/ builder.
Emily Woods, ME 10
COO & Co-founder | Sanivation 
She started playing rugby at Georgia Tech in 2006 and has since played the sport competitively in nine different countries including playing on the National Kenya Women’s Rugby team.
Graham Thorsteinson, ChBE 06, MS ChE 07
Chief Technology Officer | Energy One Consulting 
He and his wife have seen five of the seven wonders of the world. Some of his favorite memories traveling include being charged by a Rhino and being tricked out of granola bars by monkeys in Cambodia.
Kamil Makhnejia, MBID 15
Co-Founder, COO | Jackson Medical 
He’s a bookstore person. Ordering online just won’t do. Perusing the aisles becomes an Easter egg hunt for new and interesting books.
Ryan Graciano, CS 04
Co-founder & CTO | Credit Karma
Growing up, he wanted to pursue a career in comedy writing. His ambitions shifted toward technology after his neighbor showed him a computer program that blew his mind.
Joy Buolamwini, CS 12
Founder | Algorithmic Justice League
She’s a former pole vaulter with aspirations for the Olympics.
Kathy Pham, CS 07, MS CS 09
Fellow and Faculty at Harvard, Lead of Mozilla Responsible Computer Science
She finds a book more enjoyable when she reads the ending first.
Idicula Mathew, BME 17
CEO & Founder | Hera Health Solutions
He loves to cook and even started on his own quarantine times cookbook, but he absolutely can’t stand the taste or smell of raw onions.
Chris Lee, PhD BME 12
Founder | Woodbridge Foundation & Chairman & CEO | Huxley Medical, Inc. 
You would never guess with such an outgoing personality now that he was extremely shy as a child. He began opening up in high school and eventually became social chair and president of his fraternity.
Arush Lal, BA 17
International Consultant | PAHO/World Health Organization 
He was once a contestant on America’s Got Talent.
Marcus Cappelli, AE 03, MS AE 04, PhD AE 07
Chief Engineer, Black Hawk Modernization | Lockheed Martin
He loves spending weeknights in the kitchen with his two children inventing new recipes to cook.
Chaunte Lowe, ECON 08
4-Time Olympian and American Record Holder | U.S. Olympic Team 
Her husband proposed to her 15 years ago on the Georgia Tech track! She went into labor with their first child during a finals review session for computer science.
Maria Soto-Giron, PhD BI 18
Translational Bioinformatics Lead | Solarea Bio 
She used to play underwater hockey (yes, you can play hockey underwater) back in Colombia.
Nashlie Sephus, MS ECE 10, PhD ECE 14
Applied Science Manager | Amazon AI 
She was a flag football referee as a work-study job as an undergraduate at Mississippi State University.
Allen Chang, BME 08
Project Engineer | NuVasive
He served in AmeriCorps NCCC, primarily in the post-Katrina region of the Gulf Coast.
Evren Ozkaya, PhD IE 08
Founder & CEO | Supply Chain Wizard, LLC 
He considers time his most valuable asset, so he tracks every hour of his time 24/7 to learn how to improve his time management.
David Sotto, BME 09, PhD BioE 15
Senior Strategy Officer | Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
He’s an avid rugby fan, writes poetry, and loves to cook.
Sheereen Brown, IE 13, MS HS 14
Senior Business Analyst | The Task Force for Global Health
This jet-setting humanitarian dreams of becoming a kindergarten art teacher in retirement.
Gregory Kolovich, EE 04
Co-founder & Chief Medical Officer | OXOS Medical 
He taught himself how to play guitar and piano and has been playing regularly for 20 years. He’s recently started teaching his 7-year-old son to play piano, too. 
Nseabasi Ufot, Psy 02
CEO | New Georgia Project
She’s an avid gamer and speaks four languages.
Jacob Tzegaegbe, CE 11, MS CE 2013
Senior Transportation Policy Advisor | City of Atlanta
He once hosted an MTV countdown show at Tech called Dean’s List where he counted down 10 music videos and got the chance to interview the head of NASA and CEO of IBM.
Jennifer McKeehan, IE 05
SVP, Integrated Supply Chain at Peloton
She was part of the Yellow Jacket Marching Band in college, which cemented her love for Georgia Tech football and “Game Day!”
Xiaohang Li, PhD ECE 15
Assistant Professor | King Abdullah University of Science and Technology
He’s a big fan of the NBA and if he doesn’t have time to watch a game, he still watches the highlights.
Jasmine Burton, ID 14
CEO, Executive Director & Founder | Wish for WASH
She’s summited Mount Kilimanjaro and is a traditional dancer of the Nanticoke Nation with the tribal name Bright Smiling Sage.
Lauren Troxler, BME 12
Staff R&D Clinical Engineer | Abbott
She’s a true crime podcast-junkie and she once kept a cooler full of pig hearts in her apartment ahead of a conference presentation.
Kabir Barday, CS 09
CEO | OneTrust
He once ran with the bulls in Spain and got leveled by a bull.
Jordan Rackie, Mgt 08
CEO | Keyfactor 
He now knows how to completely navigate his computer using just keyboard shortcuts after accidentally spilling liquid on his laptop during the last three weeks of a study abroad experience.
George P. Burdell
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, George was paged over the PA system more times than any other foreign dignitary. It happened so often that The Today Show’s Katie Couric wondered on air who this Burdell person could be.
Banafsheh Azizi, IA 04, MS IA 08
IA 04, MS IA 08, COO Bayt Abdullah Children’s Hospice and Kuwait Association for the Care of Children in Hospital

Through her work, Banafsheh Azizi provides a sense of normalcy to children with terminal illnesses so that kids can be kids no matter the health challenges they’re facing.