Meet the 17 fellows joining Venture for America’s 2022 cohort in Baltimore

Several of the Baltimore area’s best-known tech and investment companies — including a mix of established and rising players across different industries — will receive an influx of young talent thanks to the Venture for America program.

According to a Venture for America spokesperson, 17 of the 134-strong 2022 cohort will serve their two-year fellowships in Charm City and the surrounding counties. Venture for America aims to give budding professionals on-the-ground experience with entrepreneurship ecosystems by placing recent college alums in positions with startups, venture firms and related entities across the country.

Through these two years, as well as supplemental programming like the two-week crash course it held in Detroit this summer, Venture for America aims to prepare the next generation of impactful startup workers and entrepreneurs. (See last year’s local fellows here.) It also stays engaged with alums through such programs as the accelerator it created for companies founded by former fellows.

The 17 Baltimore-area fellows will work at a total of 13 employers, with three companies each hosting more than one fellow. Here’s the full list of fellows, including their undergraduate institutions and host sites:

• Scott Christinsen, University of North Carolina at Charlotte — Mtech Ventures
• Talia Wolf-Jacobs, University of California, Los Angeles and Nick Weiner, Vassar College — Infinite Biomedical Technologies
• Rushi Shelat, The Ohio State University — AmalgamRx
• Chris Brunner, Boston College and Naomi Winston, Xavier University of Louisiana — UpSurge Baltimore
• Gabrielle Jadotte, Colorado College; Hannah Furman, Queens University of Charlotte; and Sudha Medapati, Rutgers University — Lumina Solar
• Evie Wasson, Occidental College — Sunstone Credit
• Leari-Jenee Jones, Georgia College & State University — Dent Education
• Eddie Micklovic, University of Virginia — EcoMap Technologies
• Nathan Nimbargi, University of Central Florida — Early Charm Ventures
• Solomon Asad, University of Maryland, College Park — TEDCO
• Isaac Frumkin, Johns Hopkins University — EQL Finance
• Sophie Schwartsman, Scripps College — ARMR Systems
• Alex Kopp, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill — CREO

The fellows above were identified by Venture for America as its most up-to-date roster of Baltimore-area fellows, with the possibility of others coming on as placements are finalized. Several of the companies are technically outside of the Baltimore area, with the spokesperson noting that at least one fellow — Kopp, whose placement is with a North Carolina-based company — will be living in Baltimore regardless of the company’s base.

Besides these new and prior fellows, Venture for America boasts another major tie to the Baltimore area: CEO Eric Sommerville, who took over the top post in 2021 following over eight years with The Y in Central Maryland. He most recently served as the Towson-based charitable organization’s VP of civic and corporate engagement.