Team – Big Ideas Contest

Meet the Team

Daniel Fletcher

Faculty Director

Phillip Denny

Director

Contact: Email

Contact: Email

About Dan

Dr. Dan Fletcher is the Chatterjee Professor of Bioengineering & Biophysics at UC Berkeley and Faculty Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He and his laboratory, The Fletcher Lab, study membrane and cytoskeletal organization and develop optical and force microscopy technologies, with applications to immunology, virology, and cancer biology. They also build mobile phone-based microscopes that are being used to detect infectious diseases in developing countries. Dr. Fletcher has been involved with the Big Ideas Contest since 2007 when a team of students, under his mentorship, received a Big Ideas award to test the idea that a camera in a cell phone could be used for low cost, remote, microscopy. The latest version of CellScope, called LoaScope, has proven effective in Cameroon, where it is being used to combat River Blindness (Onchocerciasis), a Neglected Tropical Disease.

About Phillip

Phillip Denny serves as the Senior Program Director of the Blum Center for Developing Economies, a position he assumed shortly after the Center was established in March 2006. Through his leadership of Big Ideas, Phillip has encouraged and supported approximately 3000 interdisciplinary teams to develop creative solutions to today’s most pressing social challenges. Under his direction, the Big Ideas Contest has helped secure millions of dollars in seed funding for student start-ups and recruited over 1,500 industry, government and non-profit experts to judge ideas and mentor participants. He has also been integral in developing key partnerships across academia, private sector organizations, and entrepreneurship networks to strengthen social innovation initiatives across the 10-campus University of California system. As recognition for his leadership of Big Ideas, he received UC Berkeley’s Chancellor’s Outstanding Staff Award in 2015.

Brittney Byrd

Marketing Specialist

Contact: Email

About Brittney

Brittney Byrd is the Marketing Specialist for the M.DevEng Program and the Big Ideas Contest. She joins Blum with more than 6 years of education enrollment management experience. Britt specializes in content strategy, social media marketing, video production, photography, print design, public relations, project and vendor management and event support. She obtained her BA in Journalism at Baylor University, completed her minor in History at the University of Maastricht and earned an MA in Strategic Communication from Texas Tech University. Outside of Blum, Britt is a certified Pilates coach, and you can catch her at a Cal football game! Go Bears!

Karenna Rehorn

Program Manager

About Karenna

Karenna Rehorn is the Founding Manager of the Health Tech CoLab and the Program Manager for the Big Ideas Contest. They graduated from UC Davis with a bachelors in Biomedical Engineering and a minor in Technological Management. Karenna is passionate about supporting students in developing their social innovations with diversity, access, inclusion, and belonging at the forefront. In their spare time, you can find them exploring new restaurants, hiking, or trying out a new recipe.