Tonya Williams, J.D.

Balkrishan (Simba) Gill, Ph.D., served as the founding Executive Chair, and has served as President and Chief Executive Officer, and a member of the Board of Directors, since 2015. Simba has also served as a Venture Partner at Flagship Pioneering since 2015, and a member of the Board of Directors of Foghorn Therapeutics from 2017. From 2016 to 2019, Simba served as a Director at Realm Therapeutics PLC. From 2006 to 2015, Simba served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of moksha8 Pharmaceuticals, Inc and as a Partner at TPG Growth. Prior to these roles Simba was President and CFO at Maxygen from 1997 to 2006 and before that head of Corporate Development at Valentis and at Systemix.  He worked at Boehringer Mannheim as co-head of Global Marketing for Recormon, Head of North Africa and Head of Corporate Development for the Elecsys Immunodiagnostic Platform. Simba is an immunologist and received his Ph.D. for early work on antibody drug discovery development from King’s College, London based on work done at Celltech.  He received his M.B.A. from INSEAD.  He has lived and worked in many countries and locations across the US, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa.

Mark Bodmer, Ph.D. has served as Chief Scientific Officer and President of Research and Development since 2016. Prior to joining Evelo, Mark was Vice President of New Medicines Therapeutics at UCB S.A. Mark also served as Senior Vice President of Immunoinflammation at GSK, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of BioIndustry Association. Mark received his Ph.D. from Cambridge University.

Andrea Itano, Ph.D., has served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research since 2017. Andrea has also served on the board of Global Arts Live, a Boston-based performing arts nonprofit organization, since 2019. Prior to joining Evelo, Andrea held multiple leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline, including Vice President and Head of Tempero Discovery Unit. Andrea has experience as a lead researcher at Amgen, Roche, and as Chief Scientific Officer of Tempero Pharmaceuticals. Andrea received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed a Cancer Research Institute Irvington Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Minnesota.

Duncan McHale, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., has served as Chief Medical Officer since 2018. Prior to joining Evelo, Duncan was Director and Chief Executive Officer at Weatherden, Ltd., a clinical development consultancy firm. From 2011-2017, Duncan was the Head of Global Exploratory Development at UCB S.A, and prior to that as Head of Translational Sciences at AstraZeneca. Duncan received his M.B.B.S. from Newcastle University and his Ph.D. from the University of Leeds.

Marella Thorell has more than 25 years of experience in finance and operations. Ms. Thorell joins Evelo from Centessa Pharmaceuticals, where she most recently served as Chief Accounting Officer and previously as Head of Finance. In this role, she led the establishment of Centessa’s finance operations, led its public company readiness activities in connection with its initial public offering and oversaw finance and accounting operations. Previously, Ms. Thorell served as Chief Financial Officer at Palladio Biosciences before its acquisition by Centessa, and, before that, Ms. Thorell spent over ten years at Realm Therapeutics in various roles of increasing responsibility, including Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. Ms. Thorell serves as a board member of ESSA Pharma and chairperson of the board of Vallon Pharmaceuticals. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Business from Lehigh University, magna cum laude.