Patience with a purpose.
Long-term support gives research time to develop. It also requires clear budgets, responsibilities, and a willingness to change direction when new evidence warrants it.
01 / Perspective
A long view.
An independent mind.
A perspective shaped by different cultures, financial research, and a personal commitment to medicine.
Background
Across cultures.
Close to the questions.
Raised in Istanbul with German and Turkish roots, Katharina learned to approach unfamiliar perspectives with curiosity. She moved to the United States to study economics at Stanford, later returning for an MBA.
Conversations at home about scientific research, product quality, and long-term investment shaped an early interest in how important work is sustained. Her own path began in financial analysis and gradually expanded into independent research.
A personal motivation
Why gastric
cancer research?
After losing her mother to gastric cancer in 2008, Katharina wanted to better understand the questions that treatment and research had yet to resolve.
That interest developed through reading, discussions with specialists, and sustained support for computational research. Her role draws on finance and management: bringing people together, setting priorities, and making room for careful scientific work.
What matters
Judgment that can be revisited.
Important decisions should leave a record of their sources and assumptions. An independent view is useful only if it remains open to examination.
Respect for people and expertise.
She values careful listening, reliable commitments, and thoughtful disagreement. Different specialties bring different questions, and each deserves room to be heard.
Beyond the work
Space for an ordinary,
well-considered life.
Katharina lives in Palo Alto, while the team’s main office is in San Francisco. Outside work, she enjoys reading, contemporary art, classical music, sailing, tennis, and long walks.
She prefers a small dinner or an unhurried conversation to a crowded event. Time away from work helps her return to it with perspective.