Meet our team
We are FOXP1 parents with professional experience in healthcare and research. Our advisors are world renowned scientists, doctors, and pharmaceutical industry experts who will help take us from research to approved treatments for our children.
Dr. Samit Dasgupta
Co-founder
Samit is a Professor of Mathematics at Duke University, specializing in algebraic number theory. He earned his AB from Harvard University and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His research has been recognized with numerous honors, including a Sloan Fellowship, a Frontiers in Science Award, and the distinction of being an invited speaker at the 2022 International Congress of Mathematicians.
Samit and his wife, Smriti, live in Chapel Hill, NC, with their three children. In 2023, shortly after his first birthday, their son, Ishaan, was diagnosed with FOXP1 Syndrome. Since then, Samit has worked closely with scientists to advance research on FOXP1, with a particular focus on accelerating the development of treatments. He is excited to build upon this work through the FOXP1 Medical Research Foundation.
Mikhal Roman
Co-founder
Mikhal is a healthcare executive and entrepreneur with more than a decade of leadership experience. She was the Co-founder and CEO of Flora, a company improving access to care for women with pelvic floor dysfunction. Previously, she served as Vice President and General Manager at Quartet Health, leading operations that generated half of the company’s revenue and scaling mental health programs across 30+ states. Earlier in her career, she advised clients in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries at L.E.K. Consulting and helped launch an enterprise-wide patient-facing program for Specialty Pharmaceuticals at CVS Caremark. Mikhal holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA from Carleton College.
Mikhal lives in New York City with her husband, Alec, and their daughter, who was diagnosed with FOXP1 Syndrome in 2024 at 10 months old. She is excited to leverage her professional experience to find treatments and cure for FOXP1 Syndrome.
WENDY CHUNG,
M.D. / Ph.D.
Advisor
Chief of Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital / Harvard Medical School
Wendy Chung, MD, PhD is a clinical and molecular geneticist and the Chief of the Department of Pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chung directs NIH funded research programs in human genetics of pulmonary hypertension, breast cancer, obesity, diabetes, autism, birth defects including congenital diaphragmatic hernia and congenital heart disease.
Dr. Chung is a national leader in the ethical, legal, and social implications of genomics. She was the recipient of the Rare Impact Award from the National Organization of Rare Disorders, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Physicians. Dr. Chung received her B.A. in biochemistry from Cornell University, her M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and her Ph.D. in genetics from The Rockefeller University.
SIMON FISHER, Ph.D.
Advisor
Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor of Language and Genetics at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Simon E. Fisher is managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and Professor of Language and Genetics at the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Following his Natural Sciences degree (Cambridge University), and a doctorate in genetics (Oxford University), Simon carried out postdoctoral research at Oxford’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics on genomics of developmental disorders of speech, language, and reading, including discovery of the FOXP2 gene. From 2002-2010, Simon was a Royal Society University Research Fellow and head of his own group at the Wellcome Trust Centre, investigating how language-related genes influence brain development. In 2010 he was appointed by the Max Planck Society to establish a new department at the Nijmegen MPI, devoted to tracing functional links between genetics and language. Simon’s research adopts a multidisciplinary viewpoint, integrating data from genomics, psychology, neuroscience, cellular/developmental biology and evolutionary anthropology.
SHARYL FYFFE-MARICICH, Ph.D.
Advisor
Vice President of Molecular and Cell Sciences, Research at Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc.
Sharyl Fyffe-Maricich received her Ph.D. in Human and Molecular Genetics from Baylor College of Medicine where her work focused on a neurodevelopmental disorder called Rett Syndrome. Following her postdoctoral training at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Sharyl joined the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine faculty as a tenure track Assistant Professor of Pediatric Neurology. Her work was supported by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and NIH R01 funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Sharyl joined Ultragenyx in 2016 where she leads a research team focused on the preclinical development of several rare disease programs, including an AAV9 gene therapy for a rare developmental epileptic encephalopathy called CDKL5 deficiency disorder (CDD).
GENEVIEVE KONOPKA, Ph.D.
Advisor
Chair & Professor of Neurobiology, UCLA
Genevieve Konopka, Ph.D. became Chair of the Department of Neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in July 2025. She was previously Professor and Vice Chair of Neuroscience at UT Southwestern Medical Center, where she held the Jon Heighten Scholar in Autism Research and the Townsend Distinguished Chair in Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Dr. Konopka earned dual B.S. degrees in Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Biology from MIT and completed her Ph.D. in Neurobiology at Harvard. She pursued fellowships in developmental biology with Dr. Stephen Duncan and in neurogenetics with Dr. Daniel Geschwind at UCLA.
Her honors include the NIH Pathway to Independence Award, the Basil O’Connor Scholar Award from the March of Dimes, the INSAR Young Investigator Award, recognition as a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and awards from NARSAD and the James S. McDonnell Foundation.
The Konopka Lab studies the molecular pathways that shaped human brain evolution and how they are disrupted in autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Using human neurons, animal models, primate comparative genomics, and measures of neuronal activity, her team identifies human-specific, disease-relevant gene expression patterns. The lab also contributes to the Human Cell Atlas project, helping to map gene expression across all cell types in the body.
SIDDHARTH SRIVASTAVA, M.D.
Advisor
Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School/Boston Children's Hospital
Siddharth Srivastava is a pediatric neurologist at Boston Children's Hospital specializing in neurogenetics. His research involves studying different genetic causes of neurodevelopmental presentations with the goal of developing targeted treatments. At Boston Children's Hospital, he provides care to children in a variety of neurodevelopmental and neurogenetics clinics. He received his B.A. degree in biochemistry from Columbia University and his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He finished a combined residency in pediatrics and neurodevelopmental disabilities at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Kennedy Krieger Institute. He completed a fellowship in neurogenetics at Boston Children's Hospital.