Our People

The Team Behind Nyad

We're scientists, engineers, and water sector veterans united by one mission: giving the guardians of clean water intelligence tools worthy of their work.

Founder & CEO

The founder shaping Nyad's direction and culture.

Virginia Szepietowski

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Virginia brings 14 years of experience at the intersection of environmental engineering and applied machine learning. Before founding Nyad, she led water quality analytics at a major Bay Area municipal utility, where she first identified the gap between available AI capabilities and the tools operators were actually using. She holds an MS in Environmental Engineering from Stanford and a BS in Computer Science from UC Berkeley. Virginia is a 2023 Boost VC portfolio founder and a member of the Water Research Foundation's emerging technology advisory committee.

San Francisco, CA LinkedIn

Advisory Team

Industry veterans and research experts guiding our work.

Dr. Karen Holloway

Environmental Chemistry Advisor

25 years in water quality research and regulatory science. Former senior scientist at the US EPA Office of Water. Advises on contaminant detection and regulatory compliance.

Robert Frazier

Municipal Infrastructure Advisor

Former Director of Water Operations for a Top 10 U.S. metropolitan water district. Deep expertise in SCADA systems and utility procurement.

Dr. Neil Okafor

AI / ML Research Advisor

Research lead in industrial AI and sensor data inference. Previously at Google DeepMind and MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Advises on model architecture and real-time inference.