Northeastern Recognizes Women Innovators
Kaitlin McCarthy, E’09, civil engineering, won first place in the Experienced Alumnae category in the 2024 Women Who Empower Innovator Awards from Northeastern University, while Mukki Gill, E’25, mechanical engineering and history, placed second and received an honorable mention in the undergraduate category, and Nicole Guadagno, E’25, civil engineering and architecture studies, and Fatema Janahi, E’22, computer engineering, and MS’22, engineering management, received honorable mentions in the undergraduate and graduate categories, respectively.
Kaitlin McCarthy
Kaitlin McCarthy, E’09, civil engineering, won first place in the Experienced Alumnae category in the 2024 Women Who Empower Innovator Awards for her company, Ionic Development, Co., a real estate development and consulting firm that affects positive change through development in the greater Boston area, and promotes women in real estate development and ownership. As the founder of Ionic Development Co.—one of the first women-owned development firms in Boston—McCarthy has worked in the real estate development, engineering, and construction industries for over 15 years. She has grown Ionic to three people (all women) and works on life science, office, retail, and affordable housing projects, always with an eye toward improving the communities they are in. McCarthy completed her BS in Civil Engineering from Northeastern University, her MBA at Harvard Business School, and consulted for several Fortune 100 companies during her time at the Boston Consulting Group.
Mukki Gill
Mukki Gill, E’25, mechanical engineering and history, received second place in the Powering a Healthy Tomorrow Award and an honorable mention in the undergraduate students category for her work on Zor, a noninvasive and portable medical device that predicts epileptic seizures through breath analysis. Gill began her entrepreneurial journey with the personal mission of helping her brother, who suffers from epileptic seizures. As a child, she learned that dogs could be trained to predict seizures, which led her to question how she could take this special canine ability and make it more accessible for humans. Her solution was to develop ZOR!, a non-invasive, portable device that can predict seizures through a patient’s breath analysis. “The venture I’m building is a commitment to make seizure prediction technology accessible, affordable, and life-changing by putting the power into the patient’s hands,” Gill says.
Nicole Guadagno
Remetra
Nicole Guadagno, E’25, civil engineering and architecture studies, received an honorable mention in the undergraduate students category for her work on Remetra, a wearable medical device that measures inflammatory markers through sweat and transmits the data to a mobile platform for tracking and analysis. For a decade, Guadagno lived with constant pain stemming from an autoimmune disease. It took over her life until just a year and a half ago, when her medical team was able to control the disease in remission. Upon reaching this milestone, she knew that she wanted to help other people in similar situations. Her venture, Remetra, is a wearable device that provides autoimmune disease symptom management by measuring inflammatory markers and transmitting the collected data to a mobile platform for analysis. “I wonder what today might look like if people could be liberated from disease and be empowered by their new health,” Guadagno says. “This is what inspires me daily.”
Fatema Janahi
Palm
Fatema Janahi, E’22, computer engineering, and MS’22, engineering management, received an honorable mention in the graduate alumnae category for her work on Palm, a value-driven shopping platform that empowers women to express their identities through cultural fashion and uplifts local designers through community across the MENA region. Janahi has a background in engineering and a passion for technology and entrepreneurship. So it’s not surprising that she wants to build a bridge—and a community—with her e-commerce platform, Palm. Janahi recognizes that Bahraini women like her want to express themselves through unique fashion but don’t have access to local designers in the MENA region. Building on a venture she first created as part of the Women’s Interdisciplinary Society of Entrepreneurship, she is developing Palm to amplify artisans across the Middle East and empower women with access to clothing that honors both traditional and modern sensibilities.
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