Instructional Team (MEMSI 2024)

Marina Chan

Executive Director, MEMSI
Head of Education, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Marina leads entrepreneurship program development and content creation at the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node, working with corporates, universities and high schools to fuel the entrepreneurial mindset. She received her master’s degree in education from Harvard University in 2014, where she studied emerging models of educational innovation and is a member of the Dean’s Leadership Council at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Previously, she co-founded a social enterprise which aims to nurture creative problem-solving for young students, which was awarded by the HKSAR Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fund. In an earlier part of her career, she was vice president in the Asia Pacific equities business at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, and prior to that, worked at Nortel Networks in Canada in the optical networks division as a financial analyst. She sits on the board of the Hong Kong Red Cross Hospital Schools and is a CFA charterholder.

Charlotte Lam

Education Program Manager, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Passionate about creating social impact and purpose, Charlotte focuses on program development, communications and marketing at the Node. As a creative individual and a believer in the growth mindset, she is interested in enhancing the entrepreneurial and innovative spirits of our future generations to solving real-world challenges. Prior to joining the Node, she worked at the Li & Fung Foundation for three years to help drive employee and community engagement globally for the Fung group, focusing on internal campaigns, communications and events. From environmental to health & wellbeing related social issues, she has implemented numerous global campaigns to raise awareness and encourage behavioural change in order to make a difference. Charlotte graduated from the University of Edinburgh with a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and completed her dissertation on “Cognitive Planning in Young Children”, where she collected and analysed eye-tracking, EEG, behavioural data as well as IQ test results from 6 year olds, 9 year olds and adults to look into how children learn in comparison to adults. She also runs her own online cake business on the side and enjoys dancing in her free time.

Nick Tsang

Project Manager, MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node

Nick graduated with a Bachelor’s degree of Art in International Affairs and Political Science from Northeastern University. Unconventionally passionate in technology, creative ideas and problem solving, Nick has been working within the entrepreneurship ecosystem throughout his career. Prior to joining the MIT Node, Nick was a member of the Inno Space team of Hong Kong Productivity Council, and had worked with startups, local schools and students to push forward the progress of the STEM education network in Hong Kong. During those 2 years, Nick had coordinated various STEM and startups events, including co-organized MIT Node events, which helped build a strong relationship between him and MIT Node.

After that, Nick joined an A.I. startup, specialized in the NLP technology in Hong Kong as a Marketing Associate. Currently, Nick is developing his own startup company, responsible for business development and marketing, as well as supporting the development of education programs at the Node. He’s hoping to utilize the experience from both sides to improve himself and the startup scene in Hong Kong.

Tuan Phan

Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Hong Kong Business School

Dr. Tuan Q. Phan is an Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Business School, in the Marketing Area and in Innovation & Information Management (IIM) Area. His research uses large and population-size datasets and spans multiple disciplines including economics, marketing, consumer behavior, computer science, and statistics. His expertise covers various industries including FinTech, retail and e-commerce, logistics and transportation, social media, news and video media, technology and consumer products, and education. His research has been published in leading scientific and management journals including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), Havard Business School Publishing (HBSP), Marketing Science, Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), and Information Systems Research (ISR). Dr. Phan was previously at National University of Singapore (NUS) for nine years where we received tenure in the Department of Information Systems & Analytics (School of Computing), and the Department of Analytics and Operations (Business School). He was also a Research Team Lead at the Institute of Application of Learning Science and Educational Technology, and affiliated with the Business Analytics Centre. He received his doctorate from Harvard Business School, and an undergraduate from MIT. He is also an entrepreneur, expert witness, sits on the boards of several companies, and frequently consults industry leaders.

Advisors

Charlie Sodini

LeBel Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Faculty Director, Hong Kong Innovation Node

Charles G. Sodini received the B.S.E.E. degree from Purdue University in 1974 and the M.S.E.E. and the Ph.D. degrees from U.C. Berkeley in 1981 and 1982. Charlie was a member of the technical staff at HP Laboratories from 1974 to 1982 then joined the EECS faculty at MIT in 1983. His research interests are focused on low-power medical electronic systems for monitoring and imaging. Dr. Sodini was a co-founder of SMaL Camera Technologies and has served on a variety of IEEE Conference Committees, including IEDM where he was the 1989 General Chairman. He has served on the IEEE Electron Device Society Administrative Committee and was president of the IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society from 2002-2004. He serves on a variety of industry boards and is a Fellow of the IEEE. Most recently, Dr. Sodini founded and leads the Medical Electronic Device Realization Center (MEDRC); which works to establish a partnership among the microelectronics industry, the medical devices industry, medical professionals, and MIT. Working together, MEDRC seeks improvements in the cost and performance of medical electronic devices similar to those that have occurred in personal computers, communication devices and consumer electronics using advanced technology with wireless sensors.