GE HealthCare, a global medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and digital solutions innovator, has appointed Michael W. Nestor, PhD as Director of Government Funding and Strategic Partnerships within its Healthcare Technology Innovation Center (HTIC). In this newly assumed role, Nestor will work at the intersection of government, industry, and healthcare innovation, building strategic partnerships that connect federal innovation priorities with emerging healthcare technologies aimed at improving patient care and strengthening American innovation.
About Michael Nestor
Nestor arrives at GE HealthCare with more than two decades of experience spanning academia, government, philanthropy, and industry, including an extensive track record in science policy, translational neuroscience, and public-private partnership building — expertise that aligns directly with HTIC’s mandate to move promising healthcare technologies toward real-world impact. As he begins this next chapter, his focus will be on helping move federal innovation priorities and emerging healthcare technologies from concept to patient benefit.
Most recently, Nestor served as Board Director of the Government-University-Industry-Philanthropy Research Roundtable (GUIPRR) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, where he led the transformation of the roundtable from GUIRR to GUIPRR, formally expanding it to include philanthropy as a fourth sector and bringing in partners including the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and the Milken Institute. He led strategy and partner engagement across a membership spanning the Department of Energy, NIH, NSF, USDA, ODNI, PNNL, LLNL, and more than 50 innovation-focused institutions, increasing partner engagement by 45% while managing a $1.6 million annual operating budget. He also convened a joint summit with the National Science Board and led the GUIPRR listening session whose findings were incorporated into the September 2024 OSTP Quadrennial Science and Technology Review Report.
Before GUIPRR, Nestor was co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Autica Bio, where he developed precision therapeutics for autism using patient-derived brain organoids to model neurodevelopmental variation and enable high-throughput screening. Earlier, he served as the inaugural Scientific Engagement Lead for Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s JLABS site in Washington, DC, and as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow embedded in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science, where he worked on biosecurity strategy, synthetic biology policy, and horizon-scanning across artificial intelligence and other convergent technologies. He previously founded and directed the human stem cell research program at the Hussman Institute for Autism, and held postdoctoral fellowships at the New York Stem Cell Foundation, Rutgers University, and the National Institutes of Health.
Nestor holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience (Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience) from the University of Maryland School of Medicine and a B.A. summa cum laude in Philosophy and Psychology from the University of Maryland Baltimore County, along with executive certificates from Wharton, UC Irvine, and the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society. Speaking about the move, he said, “I’ll be working at the intersection of government, industry, and healthcare innovation, building strategic partnerships and helping connect federal innovation priorities with emerging healthcare technologies that can improve patient care and strengthen American innovation. I’m especially excited to contribute to work that brings together science, technology, and public private collaboration to help move promising ideas toward real world impact.”
About GE HealthCare
GE HealthCare is a leading global medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and digital solutions innovator, dedicated to providing integrated solutions, services, and data analytics to make hospitals more efficient, clinicians more effective, therapies more precise, and patients healthier. Its Healthcare Technology Innovation Center (HTIC) works to connect government, industry, and academic partners around emerging healthcare technologies. For more information, visit www.gehealthcare.com.
