Board of Directors

The BioVentures Board comprises a select group of individuals from the realms of business, education, philanthropy and the investment community. The Board advises BioVentures on policies and practices to facilitate basic, medical, clinical and translational research; develop information, products and processes resulting from such research; invest and manage assets to meet priority needs of UAMS and BioVentures.

Retired Vice President of Strategic Innovations and Investments Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield and Executive Vice President of USAble Corporation.

Chairman/CEO/Founder Cassava Sciences. Mr. Barbier helped in the growth or founding of Exelixis Inc. and ArQule, Inc., both publicly-traded drug development companies, and EnzyMed, Inc., a chemistry company sold to Albany Molecular Research, Inc.

Executive in Residence Austin Technology Incubator: Since its inception 30 years ago, ATI has had a dual purpose: to serve the university as an education and research laboratory for entrepreneurship and technology venturing, and to serve as a regional catalyst for economic development.

Stephanie Gardner

Pharm.D., Ed.D.

Provost and Chief Academic Officer of UAMS. She provides leadership to coordinate academic programs in partnership with the Deans and other campus officials. Dr. Gardner oversees a number of departments and programs that promote academic excellence and enrich the campus’ intellectual environment.

Amanda George, CPA is the vice chancellor for finance and chief financial officer of UAMS. George previously served as associate vice chancellor for clinical finance and CFO of the integrated clinical enterprise. George joined UAMS in 2013 as administrator for the Department of Internal Medicine, then in 2015, became administrator for the Medical Specialties services line.

Kevin Heyeck is a Venture Partner at 6 Dimensions Capital, a leading China and U.S. focused investment group specializing in healthcare and life sciences formed out of the merger between Frontline Bioventures and WuXi Healthcare Ventures.

Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation at UAMS.  Since 2005, Ho was the Jacob G. Schmidlapp Professor and chairwoman of the Department of Environmental Health, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.

CEO for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Medical Center and senior vice chancellor for UAMS Health, both in Little Rock. Professor of internal medicine at the UAMS College of Medicine and serves as chair of the board of directors of the Baptist Health-UAMS Accountable Care Alliance.

Managing Director of the Paula and Rodger Riney Foundation, General Partner in Cultivation Capital Life Sciences Fund II, a St. Louis venture fund; and President and CEO of Euclises Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a private oncology company.