Mina Mekhail, PhD
CEO and Founder
Dr. Mekhail is a bioengineer by training, and completed his PhD at McGill University in 2014. He has 16 years of experience in biomaterials innovation with 15 publications in top scientific journals, 32 awards, and multiple patents. During his career he successfully secured >$5M in public and private funding. He successfully built partnerships with multi-billion dollar companies in Canada and abroad. In addition to his scientific expertise, he has over 9 years of entrepreneurial experience, and 5 years as a project manager and innovation consultant. His extensive technical knowledge in biomaterials and strong business acumen make him well-equipped to lead Impactful Health R&D towards success.
He is also passionate about encouraging scientists to pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career path. He has written about this topic, his own entrepreneurial journey, and more on Medium. He also gets invited frequently to speak at incubators, accelerators, student societies and universities.
He is also passionate about encouraging scientists to pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career path. He has written about this topic, his own entrepreneurial journey, and more on Medium. He also gets invited frequently to speak at incubators, accelerators, student societies and universities.
Rafael Castiello, PhD
Director of R&D
Dr. Castiello started his career as a Chemical Engineer developing research projects within the food industry which involved repurposing waste from industrial processes into high-value commodities. He completed a M.Sc. in Material Science from UNAM and a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Engineering from McGill University in 2019. He has 9+ years of research experience in materials science and biomaterials with 7 publications in top scientific journals. As Director of R&D his goal is to lead the R&D team to bringing IHRD's Actipack film closer to commercialization and expand the use of the core technology into other applications.
Logan Craik, BEngChemical Engineer
Logan obtained his Chemical Engineering degree from Dalhousie University with the highest Engineering Honors and his team were the recipients of the 2020 Engineers Nova Scotia Senior Project Award. At IHRD, Logan is utilizing his knowledge in materials and the food industry to develop mathematical models of the Actipack™ film and conduct experimental work to bring Actipack closer to market.
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Mindy-Lee Romo, BScMicrobiologist
Mindy obtained her BSc in biology at Saint Mary’s University with an Honors distinction and the Presidential Academic Excellence award. Mindy is passionate about biology, but her expertise lies in microbiology and plant study. At IHRD, Mindy is involved in testing the antimicrobial properties of the Actipack™ film to help optimize the response and extend knowledge into other areas of film application.
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Kyle Medd, BScLab Technician
Kyle completed a combined major degree with Honours distinction at Dalhousie University in both Microbiology and Immunology as well as Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His research on recombinant SARS-CoV-2 Spike proteins won him the top Honours thesis award. At IHRD, Kyle works closely with our R&D team to accelerate experimentation using our Actipack™ Technology.
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Sovi Chawla, BTechBusiness & Grants Coordinator
Sovi is an innovative food technologist with 14 years of experience in Food Safety, Quality Assurance and New Packaging Development in India, Australia and Canada. She completed her BTech with Honours in 2008 from India. At IHRD, Sovi is involved in establishing QA and Food Safety documentation, and assists in grant writing and other business matters.
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Summer 2021 COVE Interns
Success Wokili, BEngIndustrial Engineer
Success is an Industrial Engineer that worked closely with the IHRD team to put together a blueprint of the equipment needed, and a list of suppliers, to build a small scale coating line to manufacture Actipack film.
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Tay Barnabe, UndergraduateChemical Engineering Student
Tay is a Chemical Engineering student that worked with the R&D team to further develop SOPs related to measuring and tracking chemical spoilage in fish and other fresh proteins.
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