Three Notre Dame alumni who are changing the world - powered by ESTEEM

Meet Jack O’Meara, Ashley Kalinauskas and Dan Kervick, founders and CEOs of three companies, each having a profound impact on the world. They have one thing in common: All are graduates of the ESTEEM Graduate Program, a one-year professional master’s program at the University of Notre Dame that confers a master of science in innovation, technology and entrepreneurship. 

ESTEEM is the University’s signature graduate program in entrepreneurship and was recently recognized by The Princeton Review and Entrepreneurship Magazine as the No. 15 ranked Graduate School Program for Entrepreneurship in the United States.

Like O’Meara, ESTEEM shaped Kalinauskas’ desire to learn more about entrepreneurship and how to integrate it into her career path. “I was attracted to ESTEEM because it combined my love of science with my interest in expanding my knowledge of business and entrepreneurship,” she said.

The hands-on entrepreneurship program led Kalinauskas to co-found the startup Torigen Pharmaceuticals, a veterinarian biotech firm developing new, more affordable cancer treatments for pets. Her idea for the company results from her ESTEEM capstone project with Mark Suckow, a former faculty member and veterinarian in the College of Science at Notre Dame. The two began exploring the technology of bringing a personalized cancer vaccine to market for dogs, cats and other companion animals such as horses. 

This technology is based on Suckow’s research on developing vaccines derived from tumor tissue to create personalized vaccines for human cancer patients. Kalinauskas saw the opportunity to leverage the same technology for animal patients. Believing in her startup, formed during her capstone project work with ESTEEM, she decided to participate in the McCloskey New Venture Competition, an intense, nine-month exercise in entrepreneurship for Notre Dame students, faculty, staff and alumni. Kalinauskas’ success in the competition — she won second place overall and earned $5,000 in prize money and in-kind gifts — helped her to realize that she had the foundational knowledge and experience instilled by ESTEEM and the incredible network of Notre Dame faculty, researchers, mentors and alumni needed to launch a company. In October, Torigen completed a $13 million series A1 round and will use its new capital to scale its impressive footprint of customers and to develop new products for the veterinary market. 

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