Nathan Wilson

Nathan Wilson ('11) has 15 years of experience in biomedical and microsystems research. He has co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed journal and conference publications and has presented at international conferences on medical imaging, bioengineering and computer modeling of micro-electro-mechanical systems. He has served multiple times as an invited panelist at FDA guidance meetings.

Wilson is actively engaged in university research on computational modeling of blood flow. His most recent research publication appeared in the December 2013 issue of the Journal of Medical Devices. He is also a co-investigator on a joint UCSD-Berkeley grant recently funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). For the NSF project, Wilson leads the continued software development for SimVascular, the open-source code package he co-developed as a graduate student. SimVascular is used for cardiovascular disease research, medical device design and surgical planning by several leading university research laboratories worldwide.

Wilson joined the UCLA Anderson faculty in 2012. He teaches introductory classes in entrepreneurship, business plan development and technology and science commercialization. Wilson is actively involved in developing the curriculum and efforts to promote undergraduate entrepreneurial education at UCLA.

Wilson's entrepreneurial efforts include founding two companies. He founded Cardiovascular Simulation Inc. (CSI) in 2007 with former Stanford professors Charles A. Taylor (bioengineering) and Christopher K. Zarins (vascular surgery). The startup licensed technology developed at Stanford and continued internal development of SimVascular. During Wilson's tenure as president, the company secured over $200,000 in seed investment and was awarded a $100,000 Phase I SBIR contract from the National Institutes of Health. After his departure during the financial crisis, CSI (now Heartflow Inc.) survived and secured over $100 million in investment.

Wilson more recently founded Open Source Medical Software Corporation (OSMSC) in 2009. Focused on open-source medical software and open-data initiatives, OSMSC was awarded a two-year $1 million National Institutes of Health SBIR Phase II contract in 2011 to build the largest public collection of 3-D image data sets of arterial vascular disease with associated patient-specific blood flow simulation results. Wilson led this effort as principal investigator and directed co-investigators at Stanford University, UC San Diego and Marquette University.

Education

• Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, 2003, Stanford University
• MBA Management, 2011, UCLA Anderson School of Management