Meet our 2019 Speakers

Joseph Figlioli
My name is Joseph Figlioli. I am a senior at Wayne state University and I am getting my Bachelor’s in Urban Studies. I spend most of my time exploring new places around Detroit that most people don’t see. My hobbies include taking pictures of architecture and bike riding. I would like to change the perception of Detroit and look at it in a positive light.
Ellen Chamberlain
Ellen Chamberlain is a native of Southfield, Michigan. As a youth she was active in theatre, dance and music programs at her schools and her church. Ellen has worked as a radio personality, voice over artist and freelance writer. She is a member of the Journalism Institute of Media Diversity at Wayne State and is majoring in broadcast journalism. Ellen hopes to further her career in media with a concentration on entertainment.


Steven Jones
Steven Jones was born and raised in Michigan and had the honor of traveling the world while serving in the Marines. Steven has yet to find anything greater than speaking life into someone.

Dr. Charles Shanley
A Detroit native, Dr. Shanley has served in a variety of clinical and academic management roles throughout the course of his leadership career, including residency program director for both general surgery and vascular surgery, division chief for vascular surgery and surgical department chair. He also served in a number of health system operational and management roles, as senior vice president for Surgical Services and co-medical director for William Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak from 2006 to 2009, where he was the lead physician executive for one of the largest surgical enterprises by volume in the nation. Surgical services operations at Beaumont included more than 900 full-time staff as well as 460 attending and associate surgeons with an annual operating budget of $150 million. In 2009, Dr. Shanley was appointed senior vice president for Professional (Physician) Services and associate chief medical officer for Beaumont Health, and was primarily accountable for the restructuring of the physician compensation and incentive plan. In 2010, he co-founded Medical Engineering Partners LLC, an advanced bioengineering and medical device prototyping firm with fellow WSU faculty member Gregory Auner, Ph.D. They successfully completed Series A financing in 2017 for Detroit-based Seraph Biosciences Inc. (founded in 2014), to commercialize a novel Raman-spectroscopic diagnostic platform that is based in part upon intellectual property licensed from WSU for real-time pathogen and agent detection at the point of care.

Dr. Elisabeth I. Heath
Elisabeth I. Heath, M.D., F.A.C.P., serves as the Associate Center Director of Translational Sciences and leads the Genitourinary Oncology Multidisciplinary Team at the Karmanos Cancer Institute. She is the medical director of the Infusion Center and is director of prostate cancer research. She has been an active clinical and scientific member of Karmanos and is professor of Oncology at Wayne State University School of Medicine.Dr. Heath has a distinguished career as a prostate cancer researcher. Dr. Heath is a member of the Journal of Oncology Editorial Board as well as a member of the Prostate Cancer Foundation Research Awards Review Committees and Department of Defense prostate and bladder cancer study section. She earned her medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, PA, completed her internal medicine residency at Georgetown University Hospital, Washington, DC, and completed her medical oncology fellowship at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD.

Mike Silvio
In August of 2107, Mike joined Surgere as Vice President of Operations & Innovation and has 28 years of supply chain management experience. The previous 15 years, Mike served as Senior Director at Cooper Standard, a global tier one automotive supplier where he had responsibility for global logistics, customs, packaging engineering, indirect purchasing and was the corporate delivery champion for their major OEM customers. Besides tier-one automotive experience, he also has extensive third party logistics experience and for a multi-national manufacturing company.Mike serves on the Global Supply Chain Advisory Board for the Mike Illitch School of Business at Wayne State University. He has been a faculty member at Wayne State for the past 15 years and was helped create various programs, including the largest Supply Chain study abroad program in the United States. Mike is also a Wayne State alumnus with an undergraduate degree focusing on Logistics and an MBA majoring in International Business. He also serves on the board of directors at EWI Worldwide, which is headquartered in Farmington Hills, Michigan He is a frequent speaker at conferences around the world. He also has a series of motivational speeches that he frequently shares. In his free time, Michael is an avid runner, and a proud member of the Seven Continent Club. He is one of several hundred Americans to have run full marathons on all seven continents.
Fares Ksebati
Fares Ksebati is the CEO of MySwimPro, a technology and media company that creates mobile and wearable applications that help people around the world improve their performance and health. He competed on Wayne State University's Varsity swimming program and graduated summa cum laude from the Mike Ilitch School of Business. Fares continues to compete internationally and is a 3x U.S. Masters swimming national champion and American Swim Coaches Association Fellow. He also servers on the board of Detroit Swims and is a mentor in the Michigan startup ecosystem. MySwimPro has received international accolades including being named the Best App of the Year by Apple and has been featured in Sports Illustrated. Global partners include CASIO, Strava and the Global Swim Series. Fares is also the founder of World Swim Day, a global initiative that empowers people around the world to be more active through swimming. Before launching MySwimPro, Fares led digital marketing at multiple venture-backed technology startups developing brand strategy and sharable content. His analytic approach to driving growth and creative insight for engaging audiences and branding has been attributed to the success of numerous early-stage companies.
