Kevin Grimes is a Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and Co-Director of the SPARK Translational Research Program at Stanford University. He earned his MD from Brown University, completed his residency at Stanford, and later earned an MBA at the Stanford Graduate School of Business as a Hartford Foundation Fellow. He served as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, then spent fifteen years in industry across medical devices, life science consulting, and biotechnology before returning to Stanford to help launch SPARK. SPARK advances promising research into therapeutics and diagnostics, trains faculty and trainees in translational research, and develops more efficient research methods; over half of its projects have been licensed or advanced to clinical trials, and its methodology is used at more than 40 institutions worldwide. His research focuses on drug discovery for neuropsychiatric disorders and preeclampsia. He has received Stanford’s David Rytand and Faculty Teaching Awards, and serves on the Board of California Life Sciences and the Scientific Advisory Board of the Kenneth Rainin Foundation.