Researcher
Innovator
Advocate
Because improving women’s health improves everyone’s health.
“A woman with a voice is, by definition, a strong woman.” -Melinda Gates
”…and when she uses it to pave the way for others,
she becomes a trailblazer.” -Brittany Barreto, PhD
Since my 8th-grade cellular biology class, I have been obsessed with DNA and dreamed of being a genetic counselor.
I caught the research bug after a summer internship in an HHMI-funded laboratory studying the effects of estrogen on Alzheimer’s.
My Drew University Honors Thesis outlined the potential of a novel small molecule to reactivate mutant p53 in human cancer cells.
The prestigious genetics program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, awarded me a doctoral degree in Molecular and Human Genetics after four years and two publications.
I proudly discovered a small RNA that regulates mutation rate in cells under stress and established a pivotal new sequencing-based assay that mapped genomic R-Loops. This led to a deeper appreciation of the relationship between DNA double-stranded breaks and mutation hotspots.
GENETICIST
Like many single females in graduate school, I spent my time between experiments swiping on dating apps. Meanwhile, I had read dozens of research papers on scientists predicting human attraction based on pheromones. So, in 2016, I founded Pheramor, the world’s first DNA-based dating app.
We fundraised over $1M in venture investment, secured US patents for our proprietary matching algorithms based on pheromones and personality type, and acquired 30K+ users.
Literally overnight, the company closed. Apple changed their policies on who could ask for DNA in the app store, limiting it to medical and ancestry, and poof! We were banned from the app store.
The next round of funding fell through, and we added to the statistical probability that most startups do not work out for one reason or another.
INNOVATOR
Fear not if your startup does not become the unicorn you dreamed it would be. Use the connections you gained to leapfrog into your next adventure. For me that was becoming the inaugural Houston-Based Senior Venture Associate for Capital Factory, the most active venture fund in Texas.
Having been a rising founder in the Houston ecosystem, Capital Factory tapped me to launch their Houston branch similar to how they had done in Austin and Dallas.
I was able to launch, operate, and accelerate the program with my local perspective on what resources and innovations were unique to the Gulf Coast. I recruited 36 companies into the prestigious Capital Factory venture studio and led 7 investments. I supported Fund VI's fundraising through LP relations and managed a 5-person Houston office team. Today, the Houston office is a thriving program at Capital Factory based on my leadership and the firm foundation I laid.
INVESTOR
Then she showed me something
I could not unsee...
Dr. Julie Hakim, founder of HerStent, is a pediatric gynecologist that designed the first pediatric vaginal stent.
Unlike other health tech founders I met, she was not making the next ‘latest and greatest’ technology.
She was disrupting the barbaric status quo of letting vaginas fuse shut after surgery or radiation.
Till then, no one had bothered to make a vaginal stent for successful and less painful healing.
It had me wondering what other solutions were missing from women’s health.
This was 2018. The term FemTech had only been coined 2 years earlier by Ida Tin.
I wanted to learn everything about FemTech but was met with dead ends.
The industry had been born and not yet raised.
Without the critical infrastructure of
research, community, & media,
progress would be slower than what women deserve.
So, since 2020, I have been dedicated to filling in the industry’s gaps.
With a mission to:
Support FemTech Founders and Improve Every
Woman, Female, & Girl’s Health and Wellness.
THE VOICE OF FEMTECH
Most Active FemTech Virtual Community
Award-Winning Women’s Health Podcast
Best Selling FemTech Novel
Largest FemTech Company Database
75 FemHealth Fellow Graduates
10K+ Newsletter Subscribers
Multiple Publications, including the
1st Calculation of the FemTech Market Value
CoFounded the 4th ever FemTech Venture Fund
Internationally Recognized Consulting Services
-NIH & Gates Foundation Innovation Chair of Women’s Health
-Advisor to Imperial College of London FemTech Dept
-Advisor to CIIS Univerity SexTech Master’s Degree
-Forbes & HealthyWomen Magazine Contributor
-US Representative at FemTech Across Borders Alliance
Significant Contributions
Impactful Positions
EVERY WOMAN HAS A STORY
My maternal grandmother was told she miscalculated her due date when she was 9 months pregnant with no contractions. When they surgically removed my unborn uncle at 10.5 months gestation, he was dead. He was poisoned by his own expired amniotic fluid. Grandma had, in fact, known her correct due date.
In 1991, my mom was pregnant with me. Again, there was zero dilation, and the physicians scoffed at the idea that women in our family don’t go into labor. Surely, my mother had just miscalculated.
I was born by c-section 2.5 weeks after my due date with severe club feet. I had grown so large in my mom’s womb that my toes and knees directly faced each other. After 3 months of weekly leg castings and 5 years of metal-laced shoes, my legs and feet would straighten.
But what if there were devices to specify due dates, effectively monitor a baby’s health, and screen for delayed labor conditions? Even more radically, what if we believed women about their bodies?
A country girl at heart, I have worked with horses and agricultural farming my entire life. In 2016, I had a vision that one day, I would operate a residential farm facility for women recovering from trauma. This vision has grown, and I intend to manifest it into reality within the next decade (please contact me if you’re interested in getting involved).
The Healing Farm will be a long-term residential program for survivors of domestic violence. The emotional, physical, and psychological consequences of intimate partner violence are a lifelong journey of recovery for the victim and their children.
We will establish comfortable and safe housing for survivors and their families (including pets!) where they can rebuild their lives for 18-24 months through on-site outpatient treatment for C-PTSD, traumatic brain injuries incurred during the abuse, and addiction, all while being reintegrated into everyday life with financial, legal, and leadership support.
A community in a serene location where Mother Nature will heal as much as the Western and Eastern Medicine modalities to stop the continuation of generational trauma.
THE HEALING FARM
I currently reside in Phoenix, Arizona, with my two dogs, Trypsin and Quark, and guinea pig, Ginsburg.
I am the first college graduate and doctor in my family, coming from a long line of immigrant tugboat captains and maritime engineers.
I identify as a cis-gendered, queer, sober female thriving with a C-PTSD diagnosis.
MY FRIENDS CALL ME, “BRITT”
My passions include learning about new cultures, destigmatizing mental health, and volunteering with rescue animals.
I enjoy hiking, ecstatic dance, paint-by-numbers, cooking, and sound healing.
My next goals are yoga teacher certification and Portguese citizenship via my immigrant grandfather.