Falling Walls Lab 2025

Widya Mulyasasmita, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of BEVC. Widya has been drawn to interdisciplinary science and building things from a young age, which led her to study Bioengineering and Materials Science at UC Berkeley. She co-founded her first medical device company while pursuing her PhD in Bioengineering at Stanford, before joining McKinsey & Co. to tackle business problems in the healthcare, energy, and materials sectors. Following her curiosity, Widya developed a passion for startups and innovation, leading her to roles in early-stage deal making, NewCo creation, venture capital, and eventually to co-founding BEVC. Before BEVC, Widya led life science investing at B Capital group, and was part of the founding investment team at Red Tree VC. She was the founding Chief Business Officer at InterVenn, a pioneer in AI-powered glycoproteomics. Earlier, she held a business development role at Johnson & Johnson Innovation, focusing on pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Widya has served on the boards of multiple healthcare companies across research and commercial stages.

Lea Shanley, Ph.D. is the Director, President, and CEO of the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley, California. Dr. Shanley previously served as a White House Presidential Innovation Fellow under the Obama Administration while working at NASA and GSA 18F; a founding co-Executive Director of the NSF South Big Data Innovation Hub; Director of the Wilson Center’s Commons Lab; an AAAS Congressional Science Fellow and science advisor in the US Senate; and co-founder of an open science community across the federal government, which resulted in Citizenscience.gov, a White House Memorandum, a federal statute, and team recognition as a finalist for the 2017 Ash Award by Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Wolfram Schrimpf, Ph.D. is Head of School at the German International School of Silicon Valley. Following his PhD in Chemistry, he held leadership positions at German international schools in Shanghai and Tokyo, as well as public high schools in Leverkusen and Göttingen. He is passionate about bilingual education, school development, and fostering creative learning environments. Outside of education, he is an avid guitarist and pianist.

Olga Holtz, Ph.D. is Professor of Mathematics at UC Berkeley. She received her Diploma [1995] in Applied Mathematics from Southern Ural State University in Chelyabinsk, Russia, and her PhD [2000] in Mathematics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the guidance of Hans Schneider. She held a postdoctorate research position [2000-2002] at the Computer Science Department of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Humboldt fellowship [2002-2003] at the Institute of Mathematics of Technical University Berlin, a Morrey Assistant Professorship [2004-2007] and an Associate Professorship [2007-2010] at the Department of Mathematics of the University of California-Berkeley. She is a Sofja Kovalevskaja awardee [2006], a member of the Junge Akademie of Germany [2008], and a European Mathematical Society Prize winner [2008].

Julianne McCall, Ph.D. is the CEO of the California Council on Science and Technology. As CEO, McCall serves as the lead liaison to state and national leaders in policy, philanthropy, and science and technology related issues. As such, she is responsible for developing responsive programs and services to provide science, engineering, and technical advice to the State of California’s government—listening and engaging to advance CCST’s role as a thought leader in the science policy community. McCall is also the chief executive responsible for CCST’s administration, fundraising, budgeting, and overseeing the CCST Science & Technology Policy Fellowship. Working with the board of directors, she will be the point person for CCST’s ambition to further deepen the ties between the state government and CCST’s partner institutions.

Oliver Schramm heads the German Consulate General in San Francisco. From 2017-2021 he served as Minister for Economic and Global Affairs at the German Embassy in London. From 2014-2017, he served at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Berlin as the Head of Division for German Schools Abroad and International Sports Cooperation. His various roles within the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs have stationed him in Seoul, Boston, Washington/DC, Rome, Lima and London. Oliver began his professional career in 1991 working first in the Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bonn and then in the Federal Chancellery as a member of the Chancellor's speech-writing group from 1995-98. He studied at Harvard from 2001-2002 and received an MPA from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.