Mike and Renée Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Ejnar Knudsen and AGR Partners sponsor the Big Bang’s Food + Agriculture Sector Award, along with the Gowan Co. The $10,000 award recognizes innovations in food and agriculture. Knudsen is founder and CEO of AGR Partners, and oversees the company’s investment strategy, providing capital to cultivate long-term growth in leading food and agribusiness companies.

In her current role, Hanna researches novel nanomaterials for targeted cancer diagnostics using extracellular vesicles and Raman spectroscopy, and she is the current president of the Biomedical Engineering Student Organization(BESA) and sits on multiple departmental committees.

Marrone Bio Innovations (MBI) is co-sponsoring the 2020 Big Bang! Business Competition’s First Place Award, given to the top innovation across all categories. Pam Marrone founded MBI in 2006 to discover and develop effective and environmentally responsible, biologically based products for pest management and plant health. In August 2013 she led the company IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange.

Naomi Ruiz is a third-year student at UC Davis, currently exploring interests in Chicana/o Studies, Theatre and Dance, and Education. Her passion for dance began with Baile Folklorico, and at Davis she has had the opportunity to explore contemporary, modern, ballet, and composition classes.

Suvan Sudan is a third-year international student majoring in mechanical engineering. He has a strong interest in visualization and the creative design process.

Haley Ali is a senior at UC Davis pursuing a major in genetics and a minor in technology management. Her interests include traveling, listening to history podcasts and participating in thoughtful discussion—she’s not afraid to play devil’s advocate.

Reece Guyon had grown, studied, worked and lived in England, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Germany before he entered UC Davis. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering and a minor in history in June 2020.  At UC Davis, Guyon has worked in campus security and is an intern at the UC Davis Coffee Center, the first multidisciplinary university research center to address the challenges and needs of the coffee industry through a holistic approach to coffee science and education. Today he is an associate optical field engineer at LightRiver Companies (Concord, Calif.) 

Sana Karimi graduated from the UC Davis College of Letters and Science with a B.A. in sociology and a minor in community regional development. Today she is an undergraduate academic advisor for the Psychological & Brain Sciences Department at UC Santa Barbara.  Karimi is a student of Taekwondo, a certified open-water diver, a reader and lover of nature. She participated in the first EQUIP program in 2019.

Mathew Magno combined his UC Davis education in computer science and technology management with his passion for entrepreneurship to co-found Japa Inc. with his classmate Charles Chen. “As a student it would take me 20 to 30 minutes sometimes to find a spot, circling parking lots and getting stressed out,” Magno recalls. “I decided to fix the problem of parking.” Magno is also the director and co-founder of PLASMA at UC Davis, the Aggie incubator that develops early stage startups into companies that can grow.

Karenna Rehorn is a current student studying biomedical engineering with an emphasis in cellular and tissue engineering. In the future she hopes to focus on helping individuals with autoimmune disorders. Rehorn is a DJ at the campus radio station, KDVS. Other interests include running, playing the flute, volunteering at the UC Davis farm and cooking. Today she is the president of the BioInnovation Group at UC Davis.