VC fellowship graduation

Congratulations to our 2026 Cohort!

We’re proud to celebrate the graduation of 30 talented Fellows from our fifth annual Venture Fellowship Program. A big thank-you to our partner David Gerster, who once again led the program.

This year we received more than 500 applications and selected a cohort with deep expertise across technical, scientific, and quantitative fields. The Fellowship is designed to demystify venture capital for working professionals and advanced students in technical domains. Its curriculum covers how VC works from end to end: how investors source and diligence deals, how venture compares to other alternative investments, and the fundamentals of how venture deals are structured, including preferred stock, convertible notes, term sheets, and dilution from both the founder’s and the investor’s perspective.

Outside the classroom, the Fellowship works as an apprenticeship: Fellows source and screen real startups alongside our team. This hands-on experience remains one of the most valued parts of the program.

After months of hard work (and plenty of fun), please join us in congratulating the 2026 Fusion Fellows. We’re proud of this cohort and look forward to the impact they’ll have across the startup ecosystem.

  • Andy Peng

    Andy Peng

    Amazon Web Services - ML Research Engineering Tech Lead

    University of Massachusetts Amherst

  • Anni Chen

    Anni Chen

    Fireworks AI - Senior Software Engineer

    Duke University

  • Christine Ng

    Christine Ng

    Stanford University - Postdoctoral Fellow

    Stanford University

  • Dan Shen

    Dan Shen

    Google - Engineering Manager

    University of California, Berkeley

  • Fahad Hamdan

    Fahad Hamdan

    OpenAI - Member of Technical Staff

    Carnegie Mellon University

  • Hanchen Li

    Hanchen Li

    UC Berkeley Sky Lab - PhD Student

    University of California, Berkeley

  • Jeffrey Wright

    Jeffrey Wright

    Defense Innovation Unit - Technical Program Manager

    University of California, Los Angeles

  • Jehad Abed

    Jehad Abed

    Stealth AI Startup - Venture Scientist & Technical Lead

    University of Toronto

  • Jhankar Saxena

    Jhankar Saxena

    Stanford University - Graduate Researcher

    Stanford University

  • Jingyan Ling

    Jingyan Ling

    University of Oxford - Visiting Scholar

    National University of Singapore

  • Kevin Urrutia Avila

    Kevin Urrutia Avila

    Xona Space Systems - Senior Navigation Engineer

    University of California, Riverside

  • Liang Du

    Liang Du

    Microsoft - Principal Applied Scientist Manager

    Temple University

  • Melody Zhou

    Melody Zhou

    Google Cloud - Startup Engagement Manager

    University of Southern California

  • Michael Cao

    Michael Cao

    Glean - Software Engineer

    Stanford University

  • Nalin Dwivedi

    Nalin Dwivedi

    Tesla - Software Engineer

    University of California, Berkeley

  • Nathaniel Luis

    Nathaniel Luis

    Stanford University - PhD Student, Chemistry

    Stanford University

  • Noor Shaikh

    Noor Shaikh

    Intuitive Surgical - Clinical Development Engineer

    University of British Columbia

  • Shan (Mandy) Jiang

    Shan (Mandy) Jiang

    Eli Lilly - Senior Scientific Lead

    University of California, Irvine

  • Shryas Bhurat

    Shryas Bhurat

    The MBA Fund - Investment Partner

    University of California, Berkeley

  • Tony Hong

    Tony Hong

    UIUC - MS Student, Computer Science

    University of California, Berkeley

  • Vanessa Guo

    Vanessa Guo

    Meta - Infrastructure Strategic Planning

    Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  • Wei Huang

    Wei Huang

    Georgia Tech - Postdoctoral Researcher

    Georgia Institute of Technology

  • Xiangzhi Yu

    Xiangzhi Yu

    Meta Reality Labs - Tech Lead, Optical Systems

    The Wharton School

  • Xiaoyu Song

    Xiaoyu Song

    Columbia University - Postdoctoral Research Scientist

    Princeton University

  • Xingyun Chang

    Xingyun Chang

    Google Labs - Software Engineer

    Georgia Institute of Technology

  • Xinsheng Xia

    Xinsheng Xia

    TDK Headway - R&D Process Engineer

    UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

  • Xu Huang

    Xu Huang

    UC Berkeley - PhD Candidate, Materials Science

    University of California, Berkeley

  • Yash More

    Yash More

    Shaped - Machine Learning Engineer

    Mila / McGill University

  • Ying Huang

    Ying Huang

    Eurofins EAG Laboratories - Data Scientist

    University of California, Irvine

  • Zhanwei Liu

    Zhanwei Liu

    NVIDIA - Sensor System Engineer

    Cornell University

 
 

  • “I want to express my sincere appreciation for the exceptional experience I've had during this fellowship. The insights gained have been invaluable.”

  • “I wanted to convey my gratitude for your leadership and guidance throughout the fellowship. In particular, your approachability invited each of us to ask questions and engage with the discussions freely.”

  • “I value how this fellowship joins professionals across an array of backgrounds and cultivates an open learning environment. Upon concluding this engagement, I feel more confident in my understanding of the VC history, ecosystem-wide approaches and nuances and in my ability to navigate a career transition into the field.”

  • “The course was well-structured and the mentors were amazing. As a practicing physician with limited business experience, this program was great to understand the basics of the tech startup and early-stage VC environment.”

  • “Thank you so much for an extremely informative series – this has been a fantastic fellowship experience.”

  • “The Fusion Fellowship is a cheat code for VC.”