Dr. Shabnam Eghbali is a resident physician at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and a champion for healthcare innovation and gender equity in entrepreneurship. As co-founder of Theia, a nonprofit that supports women in healthcare ventures, she has built a global community, produced a podcast series spotlighting women leaders in biotech, and created an open-access framework for launching healthcare startups.
In addition to her clinical training, Dr. Eghbali has gained venture experience through fellowships at 5AM Ventures and Scion Life Sciences, where she conducted diligence on early- and late-stage biopharma investments.
For the 2025-26 academic year, she will serve on Vanderbilt's Catalyst Fund Review Committee in the Bioscience and Healthcare category, reviewing applications from faculty members seeking financial and translational research support for their innovations." This is probably worth mentioning, but since she's not the only Ambassador serving on the ICF review committee, it might make sense to do this in a uniform manner on all the profiles– perhaps as another line in the titles/department space under the Ambassador names. Her work bridges medicine, entrepreneurship, and venture capital to drive more inclusive innovation in the life sciences.