
2023 Martha Feldman Award recipient
Elizabeth Cross Nichol,
Program and Grants Manager, Life Science Washington Institute
Elizabeth believes that innovation improves health. This requires funding, successful implementation, perpetual learning, and persistence. At Life Science Washington Institute, Elizabeth has the best job, and takes very seriously, managing the grants that WA Commerce has provided. As an investor and co-founder of Apis Health Angels, modeled after the successful Seattle Angel Conference, Elizabeth educates entrepreneurs and investors in how to prepare for, evaluate through due diligence, and execute on early-stage seed funding. Everyone benefits when under-resourced founders with great ideas, develop their fundamentals, for a smooth path to market. As a startup founder at Downstream Therapeutics, she strategizes on how to best address reperfusion injury through a drug-device combination therapy.
Elizabeth has been a guest lecturer in the UW BRAMS program, a member of RAPS, and a strong advocate of ORCA as the local community for regulatory and clinical associates including several terms on the Board and two years as President. As a physical therapist, a health administrator, and an evaluator of technology, she is always exploring whether new ideas fit within a clinically effective, safe, patient-centered and, cost-effective approach. Elizabeth can be found speaking on panels to share resources, acting as a competition judge, and making connections. You likely will also find her geeking out about the spiral length of a hummingbird’s tongue, whether mulch or bone meal is a better tomato fertilizer, or which ice crystals make faster skiing.