EnterpriseTECH programme team

Rebecca joined the Entrepreneurship Centre in 2018 intending to build educational programmes on entrepreneurship that serve the research community. The first was EnterpriseTECH in 2018, which has had close to 450 students attend. Then came EnterpriseTECH STAR in 2019 to help researchers begin the journey towards forming their own new ventures.

For close to 20 years, Rebecca’s home was the Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge. She is an organic chemist by training having done her PhD with Professor Chris Abell FRS. Rebecca then worked with Professor Steven Ley CBE FRS (also) in the Department of Chemistry. She was also the Associate Director of the Cambridge-CRUK PhD Training Programme in Medicinal Chemistry led by Professor Sir Shankar Balasubramanian FRS for ten years. Her research and publications cover many areas of medicinal chemistry, particularly around cancer research.

Rebecca values collaborative efforts and is passionate about cultivating meaningful research impact and creating opportunities for researchers to thrive beyond academia.

Dr Ghina Halabi is an astrophysicist, social entrepreneur and public speaker. For more than a decade, her astrophysics research probed one of the most inaccessible regions in the universe, the internal structure and workings of stars. From studying the universe in its constant flux and metamorphosis, she migrated to another that is equally fluid and kinetic: entrepreneurship.

Her work now lies at the intersection of space science, entrepreneurship and education. She joined the Education Team at the Entrepreneurship Centre to help create impactful opportunities for academics to thrive beyond the lab. She also designed and led EnterpriseWOMEN, an entrepreneurship development programme for women founders and CEOs.

Ghina is the first person to receive a PhD in astrophysics from a Lebanese institution, the American University of Beirut. This drives her commitment towards promoting STEM so in 2018 she founded She Speaks Science, a multi-lingual enterprise that helps young people build a positive STEM identity and promotes women scientists with storytelling. She Speaks Science has received funding from the International Astronomical Union and University of Cambridge.

Ghina mentors with the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs and is a member of its Space for Women project. She is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and sits on the advisory board of Public Engagement at Cambridge University and Arab Science Week. Previously, she was a research scientist at the Institute of Astronomy and a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge. Before moving to Cambridge, she worked as a lecturer at the American University of Beirut.

She is a speaker at international conferences and global forums including TEDx and the United Nations, and profiled as subject matter expert in the media including BBC Future, newspapers and podcasts.

Olivia started her administrative career in 2014 working as a hotel receptionist. After a two-year trip to Australia and returning to her hometown of Cambridge, she moved into office-based roles in the construction industry before joining Cambridge Judge Business School’s Entrepreneurship Centre in the Education Team back in January 2020. Outside of work she has enrolled in an Executive Personal Assistant online course and is interested in sewing and rag rugging.