Madi Heck

Cofounder and CEO of a medical device company building a scalable optical sensing platform for continuous wound and tissue-health monitoring. Responsibilities include:

• Principal Investigator (PI) on a Phase I NIH SBIR award: “Development and validation of a wireless patch for post-surgical monitoring and electrotherapy of surgical flaps.”
• Raised dilutive and nondilutive funding through federal grants, accelerators, and pitch competitions.
• Led customer discovery and commercialization strategy, serving as Entrepreneurial Lead for NSF I-Corps and conducting 100+ interviews with clinicians, hospital administrators, and healthtech stakeholders to refine value proposition and use cases.
• Selected for Health Wildcatters (completed) and Texas Medical Center Innovation (TMCi) (current), engaging in structured mentorship and investor programming.
• Negotiated and executed an intellectual property licensing agreement with Texas A&M University and built clinical and academic partnerships to support validation and trials.

• Researched wearable devices to monitor heart rate, heart rate variability, temperature, and respiratory rate for early infection detection in military applications. Identified the most suitable devices based on specific requirements
• Carried out preliminary testing on each device to assess accuracy and performance

• Detailed and submitted heat exchanger bundles to vendors for replacement
• Created engineering packages for pipeline section replacement, broken valve replacement and backflush valve installation on heat exchanger dollar plates
• Designed a welded enclosure for a corroded pipe to prevent leakage, considering pressure, weld thickness and stress using VCESage
• Calculated minimum wall thickness for nozzles using PVElite