About Protenus
Building trust through advanced analytics.
- Values
- Milestones
- People
Protenus is a world-class team of collaborative problem-solvers, all focused on the same mission: developing insightful solutions that remove barriers to the efficient, safe, and effective delivery of patient care.
Sound like you?
If you’re looking to join our team, you can view open positions on our Careers page.
Values
There’s nothing artificial about what we value.
Integrity
Doing the right thing in the face of difficult choices
Insight
Illuminating actionable information
Simplicity
Building elegant and thoughtful solutions
Shared Consciousness
Being transparent about priorities, goals, and performance
Delight
Building joy into our work
Humility
Recognizing and appreciating those around us
Thoughtfulness
Considering all the angles, collaborating deliberately
Milestones
We’ve come a long way in a short time, and we’re just getting started.
Acquired 1st customer
Closed 1st customer
First publication of Breach Barometer
First user conference (PANDAS)
Rock Health Top 50 in Digital Health
$11M Series B
$17M Series C
CB Insights Digital Health 150
People
Meet the people shaping the future of healthcare.
Nick Culbertson
Nick served eight years in the US Army and completed his service as a highly-decorated Special Forces operator (Green Beret). He was awarded two bronze stars during his service, one for extraordinary valor.
Nick attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he and co-founder Robert Lord saw firsthand how electronic medical records are used to improve patient care and share data more efficiently. They also observed that the electronic medical record created a whole new slate of serious security and privacy concerns. In 2014, Nick and Robert developed the initial prototype and algorithms that launched Protenus, fulfilling a critical need to better protect patient data in electronic health records.
Prior to Protenus, Nick spent four years as a biomedical researcher at Johns Hopkins University, where he participated in a variety of studies including synthetic biology, cellular engineering, and clinical outcomes. Nick holds a bachelor’s degree from Johns Hopkins University in Cellular Biology and helps run The 6th Branch, a veteran-led community service organization in East Baltimore.
Fun Fact: Nick loves breaking large blocks of concrete with sledgehammers in order to rehabilitate urban spaces, which he gets to do frequently with The Sixth Branch.
Robert Lord
Robert began his career designing and managing analytical systems for the world’s most successful hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates.
Robert attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where he and Protenus co-founder Nick Culbertson saw firsthand how electronic medical records are used to improve patient care and share data more efficiently. They also observed that the electronic medical record created a new slate of serious security and privacy concerns. In 2014, Robert and Nick developed the initial prototype and algorithms that launched Protenus, fulfilling a critical need to better protect patient data in electronic health records.
Prior to co-founding Protenus and his time at medical school, Robert worked at the world’s largest and most successful hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates, where he designed and managed systems to analyze global markets. Bringing this quantitative and systems-based background to tackle the problem of health data security was a natural transition. Robert advocates for the improvement of Maryland’s business ecosystem, teaches at Johns Hopkins, and is a published clinical researcher. He is a frequent speaker on Health IT, cybersecurity, patient privacy, analytical systems, and entrepreneurship. Robert holds an A.B. in Social Studies, magna cum laude, from Harvard College.
Fun Fact: Robert is an avid comic book collector. His favorite series is Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles.
Cosme Adrover, PhD
Cosme is a Nature-published particle physicist by training and earned his Ph.D. working at CERN. His specialty is isolating meaningful signals from noisy data.
While at CERN, he gained expertise in extracting insights from billions of noisy data records using machine learning and statistical algorithms. During his doctoral research, he made major contributions to the LHCb collaboration, which recently materialized in a Nature publication. Following his Ph.D., Cosme continued in academia as a post-doctoral researcher at Penn State University where he transitioned to the role of Data Scientist within the Center of Infectious Disease Dynamics. There he conducted an analysis of 40 million Twitter entries containing keywords related to HIV; through his research, Cosme was able to identify Twitter users posting about the side effects caused by HIV medication. This work earned him a first place poster prize at the Informs Big Data Conference in 2014 and resulted in a peer-reviewed publication in JMIR. Cosme joined the Protenus team to apply his training to tackle the important challenge of protecting privacy in healthcare.
Cosme was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Data Science at Penn State University. He holds a Ph.D. in Particle Physics from Aix-Marseille Université, France and a Master’s Degree in Physics from Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain. Cosme also has a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Universitat de les Illes Balears, Spain.
Fun fact: Cosme’s obsessions include siestas, jogging, and constantly checking the weather during storms.
Ellen Ambrose, PhD
Ellen followed her passion for data analysis from experimental science into the data science field. After studying math and chemistry as an undergrad, she earned a PhD in Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University studying how neural activity represents experience in brain systems related to memory formation. Ellen was drawn to Protenus by the enormous potential in healthcare data and the desire to extract meaningful and useful signals from this data.
Ellen is a proud UNC Tarheel and North Carolina native although she’s called Baltimore home for many years. She’s been deeply engaged in the Baltimore community through nearly a decade volunteering in Thread, a program which builds support networks around students and young adults facing significant challenges.
Fun fact: Ellen has 18 years of ballet training, including having performed nearly every role in the Nutcracker Ballet over 13 consecutive seasons.
Hailey Aranowicz
As the Accounting Manager, Hailey oversees the daily operations of the accounting department. Prior to joining Protenus, Hailey was the Senior Accountant at Redwood Capital Investments, where she oversaw financial reporting and liaised with external business partners. Before Redwood, Hailey was a Senior Associate in Assurance Services at Ernst & Young, LLP serving primarily private equity, technology and manufacturing clients.
Hailey earned a B.S. degree in Accounting and a minor in Information Systems from the Sellinger School of Business at Loyola University Maryland. She is an active Certified Public Accountant.
Hailey is from Lancaster, PA but currently lives in Canton with her younger sister.
Heather Arthur
Heather has over eight years of regulatory compliance experience ranging in industries from telecommunications, financial institutions, and healthcare. She has an extensive background in compliance and has worked, as an Internal Auditor and Vendor Manager. Before joining Protenus, Heather worked at a large academic medical center where she was the HIPAA Compliance Coordinator and was an end user for the Protenus platform.
At Protenus, Heather focuses on helping customers with Privacy monitoring through the Professional Services products. She plays an integral part in set-up of the program for customers, as well as serving as an extension of the customers Privacy Office by providing on going case reviews and annual privacy health check-ups.
Heather holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting and a Master’s in Business Administration from Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, MD. While there, she was a member of the women’s swim team.
Heather has visited one of the seven wonders of the world – Taj Mahal in Agra, India. While there, she got a picture in the same location as Princess Diana. Heather lives in Abingdon, MD with her husband, two daughters, and golden retriever!
Alexander Baca
Alex is a Venture For America Fellow, talented big data engineer, and a co-founder of SOS4 Cancer, a non-profit organization that supports teens fighting cancer.
Alex is an interdisciplinary engineer whose broad range of skills allows him to contribute to a wide array of engineering challenges. Prior to Protenus, he worked at the successful cybersecurity startup ZeroFox where he architected and engineered asynchronous Scala-based systems. He brings his problem solving skills, security experience, and enthusiasm to Protenus.
Alex has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Washington and Lee University, and is pursuing a Master’s Degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Fun Fact: Alex’s favorite board game to play on a Thursday is Smallworld.
Samantha Barber
At Protenus, Samantha focuses on growing and scaling the company’s People Operations function. She plays an integral role in implementing new ideas to support Protenus employees and make it a great place to work.
Prior to Protenus, Samantha worked at multiple technology companies of varying sizes, mainly in the payroll and benefits realms. Most recently, she worked at Squarespace in New York City as a member of the People Operations team, where she supported nearly 700 employees on day-to-day operations and longer term strategic projects.
Samantha holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management and Marketing from the University of Maryland, College Park. While there, she was a member of the women’s lacrosse team.
Fun Fact: Samantha is an avid traveler and even spent a month backpacking through Europe. The next destination on her travel list is Dubai.
Andrea Belmore
Andrea has extensive experience in data mining, reporting, visualization, and privacy auditing.
Before joining Protenus, Andrea spent 12 years at an integrated healthcare delivery system as a compliance, information security, and information services analyst. She has expertise in evaluating organizational risk, and delivering improvement strategies based on regulatory requirements and best practice standards.
Andrea has a B.A. in Health Information Management from The College of St. Scholastica and is certified as a Registered Health Information Administrator and Health Data Analyst. She is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Health Informatics.
Fun fact: Andrea successfully promotes the mini-van “cool factor” using convenient sliding doors, sweet shades, and jamming good tunes. Yes, my kids enjoy it most of the time, you may ask. Stay tuned though, that may change.
Megan Blotzer
Prior to joining Protenus, Megan spent 5 years working in Sales Operations as the Salesforce Administrator for a2z, Inc., an events management and optimization platform for event planners and show organizers. She also has experience as a Territory Sales Manager for Nixon Medical, an apparel & linen service for outpatient healthcare facilities.
Megan has a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She also holds 3 Salesforce Certifications (so far!) and is passionate about learning more about the Salesforce platform.
Fun fact: Megan’s most heart pounding moment ever was bungee jumping in Acapulco, Mexico. None of her friends would jump with her, so she convinced a random person on the beach to join!
Teresa Burns
Teresa has over 30 years of legal experience spanning practice areas that include healthcare, litigation management, contract negotiation, and real estate. Most recently, she served as the Deputy Privacy Officer for the Johns Hopkins Health System for eight years, handling all aspects of healthcare and patient privacy.
Teresa initially planned a career in journalism but opted to concentrate in the legal field, beginning her career as a paralegal in several local Baltimore law firms. She spent 15 years in-house at The Rouse Company and 11 years in-house at Johns Hopkins.
Teresa holds a BA, magna cum laude, from Towson University, where she was a competitive speaker and debater.
Fun fact: Teresa has a great love for gems, gemstones, and other natural stones. She considers herself a self-taught “armchair gemologist,” studying and collecting various stones and items of jewelry.
Kira Caban
Kira is an expert in developing and executing marketing strategy and has a Masters degree in Marketing Management.
As a Senior Marketing Strategist, Kira has executed marketing strategy across a diverse portfolio of brands including ServiceBench, M-Edge Accessories, and the University of Maryland Medical Center. Over the years, she’s worked with big box retailers including Target, Walmart, and Amazon to execute successful marketing initiatives to increase brand awareness. Kira’s background has provided the ability to use out-of-the-box thinking to create unique ways to reach business goals. She speaks Japanese and was trained as an EMT.
Kira holds a master’s degree in Marketing Management from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) and a bachelor’s degree in in Psychology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
Fun Fact: Kira has a professional boating license for the state of New York, from her college days driving boats for a youth camp. Which means she can technically drive a barge into New York City…not that anyone would actually let her.
Christa Carey
Christa brings a passion for people to her role as a People Operations Coordinator, she offers a wealth of customer service experience.
Prior to her start, she spent 4 years at Wegmans Food Markets. There, Christa worked within Store Operations and Customer Service, where she was recognized for ability to use knowledge based service to drive sales. Christa has also spent time focusing on social equality, serving as an Investigative Intern at the Public Defender Service and as a Housing Specialist at a housing mobility non-profit.
Christa most recently graduated from Towson University in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and Anthropology.
Fun Fact: Christa spent 4 months living in Rome, Italy and was able to travel to 6 different countries in Europe.
Connor Chin
Originally from California, Connor earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduation, Connor decided to pursue his interest in technology and software while still incorporating his science background.
Prior to Protenus, Connor worked as an Application Consultant for a healthcare software company that specializes in automated physician scheduling. He was primarily involved in implementations and technical support.
When he’s not hard at work, Connor enjoys playing in Baltimore’s recreational sports leagues, board games, and skiing. He also rescued a puppy and enjoys taking her on walks along the Baltimore promenade.
Fun fact: Connor is a certified scuba diver and has been diving off the coast of Santa Barbara and all around Thailand. While in Thailand, he even went diving off of “The Junk”, a liveaboard vessel that was featured in the 1974 James Bond film, “The Man with the Golden Gun”.
Tamanna Chopra
Tamanna is a software professional with diverse experience coding in various programming languages, utilizing multiple frameworks and APIs, and interacting with cutting-edge technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), and stream processing.
Prior to Protenus, she worked at Microshare/Point.io, where she led the technical side of projects from proof of concept to development to production. Additionally, she has developed several award-winning solutions at coding competitions.
She earned Bachelor’s Degree in Information Systems from Drexel University in Philadelphia.
Fun fact: Tamanna’s “twin” sister is actually two years younger than her.
Matthew Collins
Matt has been working in the healthcare space for about 7 years in various disciplines, including health tech, diagnostics, and business administration. The companies he has worked for range from over 25,000 employees to small, local start-ups. In each case, the goal has been to bring awareness to innovative technologies and services in order to improve the healthcare system as a whole.
In his past roles, he has developed deep expertise in fields such as EHR workflows, medical reimbursement, and privacy, compliance, and drug diversion. At Protenus, he leverages his background as a trusted guide to bring value to clients and their institutions, ensuring they have the best resources at their disposal.
Matt is a graduate of the Pennsylvania State University and is currently working towards his MBA at Georgetown University.
Fun fact: Matt has moved 18 times in the last 20 years. He is exceptional at packing and unpacking, but has retired from that job and now leaves it to the professionals.
Aria Corti
Aria brings her passion and curiosity to her position as a front-end developer at Protenus.
Prior to working at Protenus, she was a fullstack engineer for Movatic, a teaching fellow at an immersive coding bootcamp, and a pastry chef at a number of organizations.
Aria holds degrees from the Natural Gourmet Institute and the Culinary Academy of Long Island in culinary and pastry arts, respectively. After deciding on a career change, she attended the Grace Hopper program at Fullstack Academy in New York City.
Fun Fact: Aria once spent six months traveling around Southeast Asia where she appeared as an extra in a couple of Coke commercials, a Bollywood film, and a Malaysian action flick.
Margaret Culbertson
Margy has extensive first-hand experience participating in and analyzing clinical workflows in various aspects of healthcare.
Margy started her career as a Registered Nurse which provided her various clinical experience including, but not limited to, emergency medicine, open-heart surgery, optometry, behavioral health, and intensive care. Margy has also completed advanced coursework in Legal Nurse Consulting and HIPAA compliance.
Before joining Protenus, Margy worked as a global surveillance scientist at Eli Lilly. Working closely with regulatory agencies, she researched and analyzed the safety of post-marketed pharmaceuticals.
Fun fact: Margy, aka “Miss Margarite” paid for college teaching ballet and tap in her own studio.
Sherrod Davis
Born and raised in Baltimore, Sherrod demonstrates his passion for the city by supporting a number of startups in the area to facilitate growth and contribute to the burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Sherrod studied Philosophy at Davidson College where he was also a member of the football team before getting his master’s degree from Wake Forest University. After graduation, Sherrod stayed in Winston-Salem, NC to work as a Client Value Manager at Inmar, a large analytics and consulting firm. He then had the opportunity to be a co-founder at an advertising technology company with some friends back home in Baltimore. AdWap created an advertising engine that transformed marketing dollars into charitable donations. After AdWap, Sherrod served as the VP of Operations at a data privacy startup, TrackOFF before they were acquired by Avast Software.
As the Chief of Staff at Protenus, Sherrod supports the team from both a strategic and operational capacity, helping Nick and the team advance our healthcare compliance analytics vision.
Fun fact: Despite not knowing how to swim, Sherrod risks his life everyday by taking the water taxi to work.
Chanan Delivuk
As the Visual Designer, Chanan is consistently working to elevate the Protenus brand across multiple platforms. Prior to joining Protenus, Chanan owned a small graphic and web design company working for various clients, including hospitality and restaurant groups, law firms, commercial real estate companies, and health & wellness firms in the Washington, D.C., Baltimore and New York City metro area. Additionally, Chanan has taught college courses in design and videography for the past 9 years, and most recently taught with the Goucher Prison Education Partnership in Jessup, Maryland.
Chanan holds a master’s degree in New Media from The George WashingtonUniversity and another master’s degree in Intermedia + Digital Art from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC).
Fun Fact: Chanan has 4 chickens and 2 dogs. One dog is named Chicken Wang. One chicken thinks she is a dog and has gone for walks around the block with the dogs and ventures into the house when she can. Chanan does not live on a farm (though she would like to), but in the Mount Washington neighborhood of Baltimore City.
Matthew DiMatteo
Matt has a decade of experience focused on security, privacy, and compliance in healthcare. He entered the healthcare space with a keen focus on operational effectiveness and the use of data analytics to improve the delivery of care. He has advised clients on efficient ways to improve their security postures and the effectiveness of their compliance programs.
Matt takes tremendous pride in his service expertise, working with some of the nation’s most respected health systems to support strategic information security and privacy service plans over time. He is intimately familiar with the challenges that clients face while trying to keep up with an ever-changing landscape and channels his efforts in supporting client partners to overcome these challenges.
He is a critical member of Protenus’ sales success, contributing to the growth and continued support of key Protenus partners.
Fun fact: Matt is an avid fisherman and enjoys floating around Narragansett Bay (RI) where he lives. He took his first summer job on a commercial fishing boat when he was 11 years old
Daniel Dutrow
Dan is an experienced leader, researcher, and developer of innovative technical solutions.
Prior to Protenus, Dan worked at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and government contractors. He led multidisciplinary teams facing wicked problems in national security, including missile defense, cybersecurity, bioterrorism, and autonomous systems.
Dan earned a Master’s Degree in Systems Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering at the University of Maryland. He is a board member of Camp Opportunity, a non-profit organization that provides abused and neglected children with a spirit-building summer camp.
Fun Fact: Dan is completing his third whole-house renovation and isn’t afraid of getting dirty, dusty, or wet.
Megan Emhoff
Megan has more than a decade of people operations leadership experience spanning healthcare and emerging technologies.
Megan initially planned to pursue a career in journalism, but quickly found her interview skills being put to good use as a healthcare recruiter. She went on to join a medical staffing services startup as a founding member of the leadership team. There, she led people operations and talent acquisition for healthcare staffing programs at Army and Navy medical facilities across the United States.
Seeking to expand her skillset, Megan served as an executive search consultant and international recruiting manager for several notable non-profit organizations.
Megan holds a bachelor’s degree from University of Maryland, College Park.
Fun fact: Megan spent nine months at the White House as a photography intern where she tripped a cabinet member with a tripod, was nipped by the First Dog, and broke a lamp. All on her first day.
Matthew Ford, PhD
Matt is a Senior Engineer at Protenus where he applies his extensive background in modeling and simulation of physical phenomena to the challenge of understanding user behavior in healthcare systems and expanding our platform’s machine learning capabilities.
In previous roles, Matt worked with the Air Force Weather Laboratory, and had a lengthy stint in the Oil & Gas industry, developing software to ensure that pipelines were as safe as possible. He has developed systems on both ends of the computational spectrum — those requiring weeks to month to compute a single calculation and those that need to be solved in less than a second
Matt got his bachelors degree in chemical engineering with a computer science minor from the University of Delaware. He received his Ph.D. at University of Massachusetts Amherst in chemical engineering. He is also a licensed professional engineer in the state of Maryland.
Fun Fact: As a teenager, Matt was both a Boy Scout and a Girl Scout. Also, he is licensed to fly high powered amateur rockets.
Monica Giffhorn
Monica has over 20 years of leadership experience in marketing roles at organizations ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies.
Before joining Protenus, Monica led sector marketing for Government Healthcare & Services and Global Transportation at Conduent. Prior to that, she was a Digital Marketing Lead for Health & Public Service at Accenture, where she helped to launch the Accenture Federal Services brand. She also held marketing management roles at two successful high-tech start-ups.
Monica holds an MBA from Johns Hopkins University with a concentration in Marketing Management, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Villanova University in Communications with a minor in Political Science.
Monica loves competing in trivia contests and even made it to the World Series of Trivia a few years ago. Sadly, her team didn’t make it to the top despite a valiant effort.
Erica Ginsberg
Erica has served in various Sales & Marketing roles in the healthcare space since 2004. During her career, she has represented many disruptive, best in class technologies. At her previous company, Erica was intimately involved in the successful launch of the world’s first disposable bronchoscope which enhanced clinician workflows, improved patient safety & reduced risk in healthcare organizations.
Erica enjoys the process of building the market for new technologies that break the mold of traditional methods and practices. She prides herself in serving as a partner to her customers throughout the journey of their discovery & selection process.
Erica graduated Magna Cum Laude from Towson University where she received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration/Marketing.
Fun Fact: In her spare time, Erica likes to breathe new life into old furniture and has started a small collection of antique heriz rugs. She also enjoys a really good cup of coffee and makes a point to visit the local cafes during her travels.
Andrew Griffin
Andrew has 10 years of experience in Healthcare and Technology sales, both as a single contributor and manager. Before joining Protenus, Andrew had a very successful 7 years with a revenue cycle software company based out of Atlanta, Ga, where he worked with some of the nation’s largest and most complex health organizations. During his tenure, he secured over $13M of annual recurring revenue and was consistently the top salesperson. Andrew holds a B.S. in Biology from the College of Charleston and an M.S. in Immunology from Georgia State University. He lives in Atlanta, Ga with his wife and 2 sons.
Andrew crashed Chuck Norris’s wedding in Texas when he was 17, at the height of Walker Texas Ranger.
Dave Handy
Dave is an expert software developer, with over ten years of experience in big data analytics and data visualization.
Dave has built some of our nation’s most secure analytical platforms, working with the Department of Defense and three-letter agencies. While at Booz Allen Hamilton, he developed and led four major Java Enterprise projects, overseeing the team build from prototyping to full product maturation. Dave has a particular focus on building REST-based web tiers with modular architectures.
Dave holds a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Fun fact: Dave brews habanero ginger beer because the commercial stuff just isn’t up to his standards.
Aaron Haurwitz
Aaron brings a decade of software engineering experience to the table, including a passion for front end architecture and user experience.
Previously, Aaron has helped build a leading Spanish-English dictionary site, get an advertising-focused SaaS platform off the ground, and contribute to high-tech military training and simulation.
Aaron earned a B.A. in Computer Science and Mathematics from Tufts University. During this time he spent a semester studying at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago.
Aaron’s first job was being a model for high school textbook photos. He wisely decided not to pursue this as a career.
Brian Holtmeier
Brian is an experienced leader with a strong background in finance and accounting roles at leading technology businesses.
Prior to joining Protenus, Brian spent 15 years working for IBM. He began his career as a staff accountant and progressed to become IBM’s corporate head accountant, collaborating closely with senior leadership. From there, he shifted his focus to finance, holding leadership positions that included CFO of Silverpop and CFO of Security Systems. These years gave Brian in-depth experience supporting software, hardware, services, and SaaS businesses, as well as time spent working both international and domestic M&A deals.
Brian holds an MBA from the New York University Stern School of Business with a concentration in Economics and Corporate Finance, as well as a bachelor’s degree from Clemson University in Finance with a minor in Accounting.
Fun Fact: Brian once spent six months in Australia for a college study abroad program. While there, he had some amazing experiences including scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef, backpacking around Tazmania, and being stranded with a broken down car in the Australian Outback.
Jennifer Humphrey
A former medical student—just like Protenus’ cofounders—Jenn has worked in sales with some of the most disruptive, rapidly growing startups in Healthcare Information Technology for over nine years. From inpatient and outpatient quality and financial analytics to building coordinated care networks to address the social determinants of health; Jenn is an expert in improving health outcomes, tackling disparities, and reducing unnecessary utilization for hospitals and integrated delivery networks across the country. Through her deep domain experience in both the clinical and business realms of healthcare, Jenn has always seen the need for healthcare compliance analytics, but only recently found the answer with Protenus!
Prior to her roles within HIT, Jenn completed internships at the National Institutes of Health, Center for Cancer Research, and University of South Carolina Cancer Genetics Lab, as well as served as the Clinical Research Coordinator for international nephrology drug development trials. Jenn loves building lost-lasting relationships with her clients and serving as a trusted advisor within healthcare technology; she is not satisfied until she knows every client has the best resources to improve the lives of their patients and providers. With multiple publications, including her NIH research published in the peer-reviewed “Journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation,” Jenn is a Cum Laude graduate of the top-ranked University of South Carolina Honors College, with a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences and Medical Humanities.
Fun Fact: Jenn is an avid traveler who loves to optimize hotel and flight points and miles! Her favorite things to “cash out” for are concerts in unique venues, yoga retreats, and scuba diving in exotic locations where drinks are served in coconuts!
April Hyacinth
April is an experienced Scala developer with a passion for concurrency and the JVM.
April worked at SSATI, a small contracting company, where she helped design and develop a cloud recommender for a customer using enterprise Java frameworks. At the same time, she began learning Scala, and within a year made her first contribution to Scala. She continues to contribute to Scala in her spare time, and brings that experience to work at Protenus.
April has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science with a concentration in Cybersecurity from UMBC.
Fun fact: April can find the relevant XKCD comic for almost any situation within twenty seconds.
Christopher Jeschke
“Protenus is solving one of the most challenging problems in the healthcare industry—ensuring patient privacy. I feel privileged to be working with such a talented team of engineers, scientists, healthcare experts and advisors to develop a genuinely great product offering in this space.”
Chris is an experienced technical leader and an expert in engineering high-performance software solutions.
As a Senior Lead Engineer with Booz Allen Hamilton’s premier Strategic Innovation Group, Chris specialized in the design and delivery of big data analytics solutions for the healthcare industry and defense agencies. Previously, he was the technical manager and system architect for advertising.com’s online AdServing platform.
Chris is a full stack software engineer with an extensive background in DevOps, leading technical teams, and engineering high-performance software solutions. He has built and managed solutions for our nation’s top three-letter agencies and the Department of Defense. Chris is a certified Hadoop Developer from Cloudera, Inc. Chris holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park, and is now pursuing graduate studies in Computer Science at Johns Hopkins with special focus on Data Science, AI & Information Retrieval.
Fun fact: Chris and his wife took ballroom dance lessons for 6 years, working up to the Bronze 3 level. They can ChaCha, Rumba, and Waltz, but sorry….no Pachanga.
Erem Kazancioğlu, PhD
Erem is an evolutionary biologist by training who enjoys using his analytical skills and expertise in mathematical modeling to tackle important problems.
Erem earned his Ph.D. from Yale University, where he studied the evolution of sex change in fish using mathematical models and phylogenetic analyses. Following his graduate work, he spent two years at Uppsala University in Sweden, designing and conducting a long-term selection experiment on seed beetles.
Prior to joining Protenus, Erem was a senior manager at comScore where he led a team of data scientists to develop comScore’s next-generation methodology for measuring television audiences.
Fun Fact: Erem is an avid practitioner of Aikido and holds a first-degree black belt.
Brittany Keller
Brit brings to the team a track record of driving sales, revenue and customer engagement for leading edge technology, information and analytics products and services. Before joining Protenus, Brit was the Chief Operating Officer at Yet Analytics, a learning analytics firm in Baltimore. Prior to that, she led HR operations and diversity & inclusion (D&I) strategy at Dun & Bradstreet and was a Vice President at AOL, where she was responsible for managing client services and operations for AOL’s digital advertising business.
Brit has always believed in giving back to her industry and community through service, which has included serving on the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC), serving on the Board of Directors for the Towson University College of Business and Economics, and serving on the Advisory Board for the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Advertising Operations Council. Brit is particularly active with women’s mentoring programs, including the Women in Media Mentoring Initiative (WIMMI), the Lean In Foundation, and AOL’s women’s mentoring program. She was honored for her work in women’s leadership with the 2018 Daily Record’s Leading Women award and 2014 MAKERS@AOL recognition. Brit has also led the community outreach programs for Dun & Bradstreet and AOL Baltimore, including AOL’s annual Monster Help Day.
An avid skateboarder, Brit currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Baltimore County Skateboard Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to building skateparks for County youth.
Don Kennedy
Don leads the overall go-to-market strategy and execution for the Protenus revenue team. An accomplished sales and operations leader over the past 20 years, Don previously led global sales at Advertising.com, which sold to Aol in 2004 for $435MM. He then served as President of Advertiser Platforms at Aol, where he played a major role in the company’s 2015 sale to Verizon for $4.4B.
Fun fact: A lifelong (albeit reasonably tortured) Philadelphia sports fan, Don lives in the Annapolis, MD area with his wife and three sons.
Theodore Laster III
Theo was born and raised in Baltimore and is a proud graduate of Morgan State University.
Theo has years of experience in the billing and collections field and brings his expertise to his role as a Cash Applications Associate at Protenus.
Prior to entering accounting, Theo worked in radio production.
He is currently pursing a CPA.
Fun fact: Theo’s passion for music is strong. He is a DJ and frequently DJs around Baltimore on weekends.
Kristin Latter
Kristin brings more than a decade of experience in marketing and operations to her role as Customer Success Manager. She also offers a wealth of experience in customer-facing operations, including account management, customer service/support, training, and product development.
Prior to joining Protenus, Kristin spent four years working in operations at OrderUp, an on-demand food-delivery platform. There, she was a liaison between customers and the legal, product, and support teams to maintain and improve relationships with her accounts. She also worked as the Tech Success Manager at Fixt, another Baltimore-area startup, where she hired and trained hundreds of technicians and contributed to the strategic direction and oversight of the national technician network.
Kristin graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a double degree in marketing and dance. She remains a diehard fan of all things Maryland.
Fun fact: Kristin has saved more than 40 lives by donating blood through the American Red Cross.
Wendy Lewis
Wendy is a solutions-oriented sales professional who has spent her career building long-term relationships with clients. She comes to Protenus with a decade of healthcare software experience and over 20 years of professional inside sales experience. She specializes in building rapport with remote clients.
At Protenus, Wendy plays a critical role in building trusted relationships with significant clients. She has impeccable follow-up skills to ensure client satisfaction with a keen ability to identify new opportunities to increase sales.
Wendy considers herself to be a lifelong learner who thrives in environments where she can make a positive impact on those around her.
Fun Fact: For over 20 years, Wendy has facilitated energy healing sessions. Wendy is a curious and passionate explorer of human existence and the nature of reality.
Natalie Liles
Janice Lynch Schuster
Janice is an award-winning writer who has covered medicine, public health, and health policy for more than 20 years, with a focus on improving care for vulnerable patients and their families.
She is a co-author of several books on improving care at the end of life, including “Handbook for Mortals: Guidance for People Facing Serious Illness” (Oxford University Press) and “The Common Sense Guide to Improving Palliative Care”. Her Health Affairs essay on pain management is featured in “Narrative Matters: Writing to Change the Health Care System” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020). Her op-eds and articles have run in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Baltimore Sun, and The Sun Magazine. She has written for non-profit organizations, academic institutions, and businesses; and for online outlets of AARP, Maria Shriver’s A Woman’s Nation, and others.
She has a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Guilford College and an MFA in creative writing from American University, where her master’s thesis was inspired by the life of the Russian mathematician, Sofya Kovalevsky.
Fun fact: Janice’s poetry collection, “Saturdays at the Gym,” describes her years boxing at a Baltimore gym.
Fazal Mahate
“Protenus is every data engineer’s dream come true when it comes to playing with data! Plenty of data to splice, massage, and coalesce! And I haven’t even mentioned the ‘big’ word!”
Fazal has extensive experience in enterprise architecture, software development, and building scalable, high-performance systems in secure environments.
Fazal’s technical leadership experience includes requirement analysis, architecture, data and object modeling, design, development, and verification phases of Information Technology (IT) projects. Fazal’s key strengths are leveraging leading-edge technologies and architecting solutions by mapping customer business problems to reusable end-to-end technology solutions.
Before joining Protenus, Fazal worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM, and RWD Technologies. Fazal has a M.S. in Information Systems from the University of Maryland.
Fun fact: Fazal loves a particular country so much that he took three weeks to travel across half of it…can you guess the country?
Cary Maister
Cary has vast experience building scalable, performance-sensitive backend and middleware systems in highly-secure and mission-critical environments.
At JP Morgan, he developed grid computing APIs and tools to share and monitor Nvidia GPUs. With AOL, Cary built backend systems to support ad servers and advertising data management platforms, along with data quality monitoring tools. As a technical team leader, Cary is experienced at finding solutions that bring people and technology together in an efficient manner.
Cary earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science at Yeshiva University, where he also worked as a research assistant and teaching assistant.
Fun fact: Cary’s wedding took place in Walt Disney World and he can draw you a detailed map of EPCOT from memory.
Ben Markowitz
Ben has a unique, diverse background in visual design, user experience, and product design.
Previous experience with a national e-commerce retailer allowed him to develop his design skill set. He has also worked with research, development, and design for a firm that provides marketing and data analysis to colleges and universities across the country, and as a Director of UX at an agency where he worked directly with clients like ADP and Amazon.
Ben holds a Bachelor’s degree from James Madison University with majors in in Computer Science and Interactive Multimedia.
Fun fact: Ben moved back to (just outside) his college town about 10 years ago where he lives and works.
Stacy McCloskey
Stacy has more than 22 years of experience in Health IT and is an expert in leveraging Health IT resources to help ensure exceptional patient care.
Stacy was one of two people to initiate Iatric Systems marketing department, making her instrumental in the growth of the company from a small LLC to a multi-million company. She managed a team of marketing professionals and implemented a comprehensive enterprise marketing platform.
She has a masters degree in Mass Communications from the University of Oklahoma.
Fun fact: In 1995, Stacy programmed Star Trek and Star Trek Next Generation at KFOR-TV. Due to an NBC programming conflict, she had to cancel the Star Trek marathon, leading a human chain of protesting ‘Trekkies’ to form around the station. Despite this, she has managed to live long, and prosper, and enjoys playing the piano.
Bree McGrath
Bree is an expert at implementing innovative programs and technologies that serve patients and providers and improve the overall quality of healthcare delivery. While working at healthfinch and UW Health, she proved to be an effective leader, especially as a communicator between technical and non-technical teams and an inventive problem-solver with a track record of strong program management, team leadership, and positive outcomes.
Developing lasting and significant relationships with Protenus customers and colleagues brings her the greatest feeling of achievement.
She holds a Masters of Science in Health Communication from Boston University and a Bachelors of Science from the University of Wisconsin Madison.
Fun fact: Bree has not done laundry in about eight years yet wears clean clothes every day! How is this possible?
Jason Medeiros
Over the past 20 years, Jason has gained expertise in EHR software development, implementation, and maintenance. During his career, he has led teams in software design, built a deployment and maintenance team, and managed multi-million dollar software implementation projects. He has built a solid reputation for exemplary customer service that blends his technical experience and customer handling skills.
Jason holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Westfield State University.
Fun fact: Jason enjoys vegetarian cooking as well as aging his own tequila and mezcal blends.
Pedro Medeiros
Pedro is an adaptive DevOps professional who is constantly looking to be challenged.
Prior to joining Protenus, where he has found an environment that consistently challenges him, he was a full-stack developer at Catalyte, a Baltimore-based AI company. At Protenus, he manages our SaaS infrastructure and application lifecycle, with an emphasis on CI/CD.
He attended Computer Science at Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia in Lisbon.
Fun fact: Pedro was born and raised in a town with its own castle that was built in the 11th century.
Kaitlyn Mortimer
Amy Much
Amy is a Maryland native who has worked as an in house lawyer for nearly all of her 20 year career.
Prior to joining Protenus, Amy worked at Under Armour for nearly nine years as its first, and only, Ethics and Compliance Officer, and as a commercial lawyer for the brand. She was corporate counsel at Prime Retail for several years focusing on commercial real estate matters, worked at Verizon managing litigation, and started her legal career as a litigation associate for a large mid-Atlantic law firm in its Baltimore office.
Amy earned her JD from the University of Maryland School of Law and her undergrad from UMBC.
My dream job is to be a regular cast member on SNL.
Gabrielle Nair
Gaby is an Associate Customer Success Manager where she cultivates strong relationships with customers and colleagues and builds trust in the product. She responds to customer needs as they arise, and also takes a strategic and dynamic approach to working across all Protenus teams to deliver value to our customers. She is a 2018 Venture for America fellow, gaining exposure to what is takes to grow a company.
Gaby studied political science and philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she wrote opinion pieces for the independent student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. She previously interned for Matter., a startup incubator and accelerator in New York City focused on media startups, and worked for the Louisville Metro Government on community engagement and development projects.
Fun fact: Gaby once spent 30 days in the wilderness in Washington State. Thankfully she didn’t have to hunt or forage, and she was able to bask in some amazing alpine views.
William Newkirk
Bill has over a decade of experience providing IT support and solutions for companies of all sizes. He evangelizes the “user experience” aspect of IT.
As an IT Specialist at a regional law firm, Bill wore many hats but focused on systems analysis of user workflows and business needs. He worked with different groups to apply technology that would increase efficiency and throughput or remove technological impediments. His ideas and implementations allowed users to work as efficiently and easily at home as they would in the office.
Bill holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).
Fun fact: Bill’s sons are still extremely impressed that he can name all of the Transformers. Hopefully this will last for a quite a few more years.
Darin Pederson
Darin started his career in the United States Air Force. After 6 years, he transitioned into a successful career in healthcare technology sales.
Over the past 14 years, Darin has been serving the needs of Privacy, Compliance and Information Security professionals, focusing on the automation of appropriate access monitoring. Through his experience in the field, Darin has a deep understanding of the healthcare technology landscape. He is also a sales leader, as he has helped build out successful sales teams across multiple organizations that led to successful market saturation.
At Protenus, Darin is a critical member of our sales success, leading efforts to improve internal processes and train our growing sales team.
Fun fact: Darin can be seen exploring the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of St. Petersburg (FL) where he lives with his wife and five kids.
Allison Pleasant
As a People Operations Associate, Allison is in charge of bringing in the best talent to the Protenus team. Working on employee metrics and our Applicant Tracking System, she is always looking for new ways to improve our systems when it comes to hiring. Since graduating college in 2017, she has been working for only local tech startups and helping them get to the next big stage. At her first company, Proof, she had the opportunity to experience Y-Combinator, the world’s largest accelerator program out in Silicon Valley. Outside of work, she currently serves on Anne Arundel’s Young Life Committee.
Allison graduated from Millersville University where she received a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communication. She currently resides in Annapolis, MD, with her husband, Ben, and their Samoyed.
Fun Fact: Allison was the only girl on her high school’s ice-hockey team. She now loves cheering for the local Capitals.
David Ramey
David is a software developer with over twenty years of experience developing software using SQL, CCL and Java.
As a software developer within the healthcare industry David was responsible for the creation of registration conversations, reports, requisitions, labels and assorted other health care documents within a Corner Millennium environment. David also developed web applications that integrated and presented data from assorted unrelated systems.
David is a graduate of a three-year Information Systems program at Fanshawe College, a community college located in London, Ontario Canada. The Information Systems program offered a practical education in computer science primarily focused on the needs of the business industry.
David is a fan of classic rock and spends a lot of time listening to Pink Floyd.
Brian Reavey
For over a decade, Brian provided thought leadership and operational expertise to the software engineering, business management, and executive leadership of AOL’s advertising business.
As Systems Architect at AOL/Advertising.com, Brian led the Technical Operations adoption program for Amazon Web Services, moving billions of daily transactions from AOL datacenters into the AWS ecosystem. Previously, he managed a team of systems administrators responsible for the ongoing maintenance and security of AOL’s advertising infrastructure.
Brian holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).
Fun fact: Brian loves to master board games, to the point where his wife won’t play with him anymore. His four kids haven’t caught on yet.
James Schaffer
As the VP of Product at Protenus James leads up all aspects of Product Management and Design at Protenus. He brings 10 years of product management experience to Protenus. Prior to Protenus, James worked at Cota, a real world data oncology startup where he led product development for providers and life sciences. During that time he worked with some of the world’s leading cancer minds and institutions such as Memorial Sloan Kettering, Novartis, and IBM’s Watson for Oncology. Most recently, James comes to us from the healthcare communications platform, Klara where he was VP of Product. While at Klara, James focused primarily on their EHR integration strategy.
James graduated from UMass Amherst, majoring in Political Science and Journalism.
Fun fact: My wife and I almost got struck by lightning on our honeymoon. She is still trying to figure out if it was a sign.
Eric Scholtz
Eric has more than 20 years experience in the healthcare space across a wide range of roles, including sales, software implementation, and customer support.
Before joining Protenus, Eric worked with hospitals and medical systems in implementing, integrating, and enhancing a web-based clinical documentation and charge capture platform while supporting sales efforts.
Prior to that, Eric worked as a hospital pharmaceutical sales representative. In this role, he worked with many clinical subspecialties along with hospital leadership to secure formulary additions and drive market share for products in targeted accounts.
Eric holds an MBA from Loyola University Maryland and a Master of Science in Information Systems from UMBC.
Fun fact: When Eric is not coaching or driving the kids to evening activities, he enjoys exercise, music, snowboarding, and going tubing with his family. He recently (finally) learned how to solve the Rubik’s cube, although his son can solve it much faster.
Kelyn Schuette
Kelyn has worked in Healthcare and SaaS sales for over 8 years, and she really loves it.
Kelyn received a B.S. in Merchandising and Business from Texas State University in 2006, and she has been building her career in sales and business development ever since.
Fun fact: Kelyn loves music. She was best-in-state classical pianist for two years growing up.
Samuel Shpuntoff
As an Associate Engineer, Sam contributes to the integration of various systems with the Protenus platform. Prior to working at Protenus, Sam developed Java applications as a government contractor in Virginia. Sam has a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Computer Science from Rochester Institute of Technology.
Fun Fact: Sam is a major donut enthusiast.
Mason Smith
At Protenus, Mason is a DevOps Engineer, where he works with others, builds great products, and expands his knowledge of new and existing technologies.
Previously, Mason worked at Catalyte, a Baltimore-based AI company, as a full stack developer. Additionally, he was contracted to Under Armour for over a year to build their e-commerce website.
Mason attended UMUC for Computer Science.
Fun fact: Mason loves spending time with his family. He and his wife recently had twins at the beginning of the year, and Mason enjoys seeing them grow together but be completely different from each other.
Eric Southern
For nearly 20 years, Eric has built and maintained healthcare software and solutions.
Eric started his career in healthcare software at London Health Sciences where he led the development and deployment of a wide variety of systems that required high levels of integrity due to the sensitive nature of the data. He led the testing of a CPOE implementation and worked with many stakeholders to ensure that requirements were fulfilled. He then moved to Iatric Systems where he provided reporting and training on the Cerner EMR.
A strong passion for problem solving led Eric through two undergraduate degrees, one in Computer Science and the other in Software Engineering. He then completed a Master’s in Software Engineering focusing on security and integrity in medical wireless network systems.
Fun Fact: Eric is civically minded and ran for Mayor of the city of London Ontario.
Aaron Stahl
Aaron is a skilled technology professional, with over 10 years experience running high performance, high visibility web applications in on-premise datacenters and the public cloud.
As a Lead Systems Engineer at AOL / Advertising.com, Aaron led the daily technical operations of their static and real-time bidding fleets globally. He spearheaded the migration of ad delivery infrastructure from AOL datacenters into Amazon Web Services, helping to expand the business while reducing costs. Additionally, he worked within a team developing automation to speed deployment and delivery of code across the OneDSP ecosystem.
Aaron holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems from the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC).
Fun fact: Aaron loves to understand how things work. In fact, his favorite TV show is “How It’s Made”.
William Streckfus
Bill has over thirteen years of full-stack software development experience which he applies to both front and back-end product development for Protenus.
Prior to Protenus, he worked for the Strategic Innovation Group at Booz Allen Hamilton. He served as the technical lead on a product designed to lower the barrier to entry for data science applications, pioneered big data analytics for the U.S. Department of Defense, developed interactive sales dashboards for the pharmaceutical industry, and engineered a motion-capture application that allows MLB managers to track pitchers’ mechanics in real time.
Bill has a BS in Computer Science and is a certified Java Professional and Hadoop Developer.
Fun Fact: After a long day, Bill unwinds by jamming along on guitar to Tracy Chapman.
Karen Sunderland
Before joining Protenus, Karen spent nearly 30 years in the healthcare industry. She has an array of experience working in both small and large integrated healthcare delivery systems as a HIM director, IT team lead, privacy officer, senior information security auditor, project manager, and trainer. Karen has experience in managing large, multidisciplinary projects, evaluating organizational risk, increasing quality through team building and delivering improvement strategies based on regulatory requirements and best practice standards. Karen was a Protenus end-user before joining the Protenus Professional Services team and is an advocate for Protenus customers.
Karen is an active American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA) member and holds a dual certification as a healthcare privacy and security professional (CHPS). The CHPS is the only combined privacy and security certification available in the healthcare industry. Being distinguished with this special expertise signifies a lifelong commitment to advancing privacy and security management practices.
Fun Fact: Karen enjoys “glamping” in her 5th wheel RV and loves the outdoors. She also loves to sing and volunteer her musical talents at local nursing homes. She adores her two Labrador retrievers, Brooke & Rocky!
Philip Surgala
Phil has 20 years of experience in healthcare and technology across a wide range of roles, including sales, management, recruiting, software and customer success. Before joining Protenus, Phil worked with hospitals, health systems and management companies in implementing, integrating, and enhancing a SaaS charge capture and care coordination platform managing sales efforts. Prior to that, Phil was a Principal at an information technology staffing company. Phil graduated from Elon University in NC.
Fun Fact: While in college Phil took a semester to be a Marketing intern at Disney World in FL. Phil lives in Atlanta GA wife Katie and three kids.
Jeffrey Sweeney
As an associate software engineer, Jeff works with various EHR systems, mapping each unique model to the Protenus data model and developing software capable of ingesting a wide variety of files provided by the customer.
Prior to his career transition, Jeff worked as a warehouse manager at Beltway Industrial Supply for more than 5 years. After returning to school, he taught discussion sections for Sophomore level computer science courses and interned as a software developer at G3 Technologies.
Jeff graduated with a bachelors degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland, College Park in Spring 2019.
Kylie Taylor
Kylie has spent the majority of her career partnering with healthcare organizations—from Critical Access Hospitals to some of the country’s largest health systems—to support the acquisition, retention, engagement, and experience of both patients and caregivers. In addition to working directly with clients, Kylie has spent the last several years leading and developing sales and client management teams within several healthcare consulting and technology organizations. Kylie holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Healthcare Services Management from the University of Maryland and resides in Annapolis, MD, with her husband, Rob, and their two dogs.
Fun fact: Kylie is obsessed with any activity in or on the water, including swimming, kayaking, paddle boarding, boating, and fishing.
Vicki Toy-Edens, PhD
Vicki is a former astronomer turned data scientist. She specializes in investigating large datasets to identify and understand underlying patterns and trends.
Vicki received her Ph.D. in Astronomy from the University of Maryland, College Park and her Bachelors in Physics from the University of California, Berkeley. Her Ph.D. research focused on using bright gamma-ray bursts to study some of the earliest stars and galaxies in the Universe. During her tenure at the University of Maryland, she worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where she built an imager/spectrometer to rapidly track and monitor these objects.
Prior to joining Protenus, Vicki worked at PreciseTarget, a retail data analytics startup, as a Data Scientist/Data Engineer.
Vicki owns over 50 board games and can choose a game for any audience.
Brian Tracey
Brian spends his time at Protenus guiding our customers through successful and efficient onboarding journeys, a process that is critical for ensuring their optimal long-term use of the Protenus platform.
In his previous job, Brian was an administrator for a music school where he managed academic affairs, awarded the annual scholarship budget, and supervised department support staff. He is an expert at meeting the needs and supporting the goals of customers, whether they be hospitals or music students.
Brian has a bachelors degree in Music Education from West Chester University of Pennsylvania, and a masters degree in Music Performance from the Peabody Institute. He is currently also on the faculty at Peabody where he teaches clarinet.
Fun fact: Brian enjoys woodworking in his spare time. He has built cabinets, cutting boards, chairs, and more.
Michael Trotta
Mike began his career developing EHR software at Epic, so he is very familiar with electronic health data.
More recently, Mike worked in a Computational Neuroscience lab at the National Institutes of Health, where his research focused on finding meaningful signals in large datasets using computational techniques. He is excited to bring his background in data analysis back to the field of healthcare as an engineer at Protenus.
Mike graduated summa cum laude from the College of William and Mary, with double majors in Mathematics and Computer Science.
Fun Fact: Mike is an avid runner and enjoys volunteering with his Back on My Feet running team.
Nicholas Vandenberge
At Protenus, Nick devotes his time to building lasting relationships with clients, developing resources that expand their knowledge base, and providing world-class customer support.
Prior to joining Protenus, Nick was a Customer Success Engineer at ANCILE Solutions, where he managed customer inquiries regarding ANCILE’s user adoption software. He also wrote and published customer facing articles that promoted knowledge sharing amongst end users and helped to decrease incident resolution times.
Nick earned his BS in Computer Information Systems with a focus in forensics from Stevenson University.
Fun fact: Oscar Mayer is part of Nick’s family tree. Oscar married into Nick’s family back in the late 1800s.
Christa White
Christa brings 10+ years of leadership and experience in customer engagement, training, and support for software platforms.
Prior to Protenus, she spent eight years at Booz Allen Hamilton as a Senior Technologist. Her experience there ranged from managing a support team for thousands of global users to developing and delivering precision technical documentation for DoD clients. At Protenus, she leads the Customer Success and Support teams in the Customer Experience division. Her role involves collaborating across the revenue, product, and technical operations teams to streamline and optimize the customer journey, and crafting meaningful customer relationship management initiatives. You will also always see Christa at our PANDAS (People and Analytics) user group events!
Christa holds an MBA from the combined University of Baltimore/Towson University program. She received her BS in Applied Mathematics with a minor in Economics from Loyola University Maryland.
Fun Fact: Christa is named after Christa McAuliffe, the teacher who died in the Challenger accident in 1986. Christa is one of Christa’s personal heroes!
Ethan Wolkowicz
Ethan has built his career in SecDevOps, mastering the emerging art of building and automating security solutions for large-scale data centers and cloud environments, thanks in no small part to his tenure securing data centers and AWS presence with an advertising technology company.
He comes equipped with a knowledge base spanning traditional network and endpoint security, SecDevOps in AWS, technical operations monitoring and management, and customer support—the latter giving him a very pragmatic perspective on how security practices need to blend seamlessly with human workflows. Good security is both transparent and effective, improving uptake while keeping client data safe and enabling Protenus to fulfill its mission.
Ethan holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Resource Management from Wilmington University and has recently started Masters studies in Business & Technology Management at Stevenson University. He is, of course, an avid security news “junkie,” staying atop the latest developments in IaaS providers’ security posture, CVEs, and the myriad of malware curiosities befalling the general public.
Fun Fact: While not building new SecOps pipelines, automating audits, and evaluating antivirus vendors, Ethan enjoys DIY home projects. Currently he is remodeling his house, which gives him a great sense of accomplishment and an excuse to buy new tools.
Emily Woodward
Emily is a strategic communicator and problem solver with a strong creative eye. As a member of the marketing team, she works to maximize the impact and reach of the Protenus brand.
She has a passion for working to solve problems in her community and beyond. In the past, she has worked on a Baltimore mayoral campaign, developed social media and marketing content for several local nonprofits, and has helped her mother build a small business.
Fun fact: Emily is an avid fan of film and television. She once waited in line for 18 hours for tickets to a showing of Saturday Night Live.
Bi Yoo
Bi a software engineer with experience in designing and developing many web-based applications.
Prior to working at Protenus, he worked as a UI developer & designer at PreciseTarget, a retail advanced data analytics startup. In this position he played a substantial role in designing and implementing applications for serving the data science team’s models to assist retailers and customers.
Bi is currently pursuing a master’s degree in computer science and holds Bachelors degrees in product design and digital communication.
While working at the Washington Post, Bi’s caricature illustration of Judd Aptow, Jane Lynch and Jay Pharoah was featured in their magazine cover and Judd Aptow personally tweeted about his caricature looking better than himself.
Penny
Penny is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever who specializes in crunching the pet-a-bytes.
A.k.a. “the Cupric Canadian,” Penny has 6 years experience identifying suspicious intruders in her domain. Before joining Protenus, Penny studied the behavior patterns of both red and grey squirrels indigenous to the Maryland area. She is known for her calm temperament, her soft, silky fur, and her bright pink nose.
Fun fact: Penny loves to run, and has even won the canine version of the Marine Corps Marathon in Washington D.C.