Who We Are
We are a team with diverse backgrounds and experiences across medicine, engineering, computer science, law, and management brought together by our passion to addressing some of the starkest disparities in access to healthcare in our world today.
Song Kim
CEO
Song spent her career as a civil rights lawyer amplifying voices of immigrant workers through litigation, direct services, and policy advocacy throughout the U.S. She has built programs to increase access to legal services for marginalized communities, and brings expertise in strategic partnerships, navigating complex local and international systems, and community-centric programs to KovaDx. Song has also worked in Seoul, Korea and Kolkata, India in politics and human rights. Song received her MBA from the Yale School of Management, JD from NYU School of Law, and BA in Sociology from USC.
Yaw Ansong Jnr
CSO
Yaw is a physician-scientist from Ghana who immigrated to the U.S. for graduate school. During his practice, he was struck by the lack of diagnostics and treatments for treating patients with Sickle Cell Disease. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Bioengineering at UC Berkeley and has published peer-reviewed papers on the use of 3D Quantitative Phase Imaging and Machine Learning in medical diagnostics. Yaw has an MD from the University of Cape Coast, and an MS from the University of New Haven.
Tim Adamson
CTO
Tim is a Computer Science PhD candidate at Yale University, and has a strong background and experience in AI and Machine Learning. He has been coding since high school and now uses machine learning and computer vision on a regular basis for his research. Tim has a BS in Civil Engineering from the University of Washington.
Our Story
Our story begins with Yaw, and his medical practice in Ghana. He used to treat children whose parents brought them jaundiced, crying, and writhing in pain. He suspected they had Sickle Cell Disease given the symptoms and prevalence in the area, but diagnostics were too expensive for parents to afford. Experiences these gaps first hand, and as a carrier of the trait, he brought with him his passion for SCD when he came to the U.S. for his PhD.
We as a team learned about all the ways racism and systemic injustices in our healthcare system in the U.S. and globally has led to underinvestment and lack of progress in improving the care for people living with the disease. Listening to the community of Sickle Cell Warriors, we set out to use the skills and experiences at our disposal to build a tool to fill some of the stark gaps in our healthcare system for the treatment and management of SCD.
With Support From
