Christopher Hugill, Senior Manager at CFAR, brings over 15 years of experience with mission - and margin-driven clients. He approaches his work with an entrepreneurial mindset, grounded in a sophisticated market understanding and diverse cross-industry knowledge. Drawing on his experience in higher education, original equipment manufacturing, healthcare IT, and live theater production management, Chris is skilled at creating customized strategic solutions that leverage opportunity within complex, evolving systems. He combines his interest in high-quality outcomes with rigorous analytical acumen, financial modeling skills, and market assessment expertise. He is especially interested in working with clients to achieve expectation-defying growth and to foster greater collaboration between team members across a client organization in the service of strategic goals.
Before joining CFAR, Chris was a solutions manager and business analyst for Anthurium Solutions, a healthcare technology solutions company. In this role, he constructed and updated financial analyses and developed pricing and market strategies for Anthurium’s healthcare platform products. Previously, he was a supplier development specialist for Oshkosh Corporation and a Strategic Project Fellow at Babson College, where he was project manager for an overhaul of the performance management system for the College’s employees.
He holds a BA in English from Reed College and an MBA from Babson College with a concentration in Global Management. He also completed the Business Bridge program at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.
Contact Chris at: [email protected]
Sunit P. Jariwala, MD, FAAAAI, FAMIA is a practicing Allergy/Immunology clinician, Professor of Medicine, Director of Clinical and Research Innovation, and Medical Director of Digital Transformation at Montefiore Einstein in the New York City borough of the Bronx. He serves as the Director of Allergy/Immunology Research and created several patient-facing mobile apps, which deliver personalized asthma and diabetes education to children and adults. He has been the Principal Investigator for 17 grants, and his digital health projects have been awarded over $3.5 million in grant funding from federal, foundation, and industry-based sources.
Dr. Jariwala has published over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts in high-impact journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and Lancet Respiratory Medicine. To train the next generation of clinical innovators, he created the Montefiore Einstein Innovation Biodesign Training Program, which launched in July 2020.
Dr. Jariwala is a board-certified clinical informaticist through the American Board of Preventive Medicine. He is currently an MBA Candidate with a Finance Concentration at the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Management. He is serving as Vice Chair of the Health, Equity, Technology & Quality Interest Section of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.
Contact Sunit at: [email protected]
David Shechter is a Professor of Biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he has been a faculty member since 2009. Trained at Cornell University, Columbia University, and The Rockefeller University, his research has defined molecular principles governing gene expression, genome stability, and metabolic regulation, with direct implications for acute myeloid leukemia (AML), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and aging. His work has been broadly cited, with publications in journals including Molecular Cell, Nature Communications, Nature Cell Biology and iScience. His group has also generated intellectual property, including pending patents spanning research technologies and small-molecule inhibitors for a novel oncology target.
In parallel, Dr. Shechter plays a central institutional role in shaping graduate PhD education at Einstein. As Chair of the Graduate Curriculum Committee, long-time course director, and co-chair of multiple school-wide AI committees, he has helped lead the development of frameworks for the responsible integration of generative AI into biomedical research and education. His approach to AI policy is grounded in scientific mentorship, curiosity, and critical thinking - a perspective he has articulated in talks such as “Using Generative AI as a ‘Brain Lever’ in Biomedical Research,” which emphasizes how AI can augment human judgment, creativity, and rigor.
Contact David at: [email protected]