Polona Šafarič Tepeš, PhD, is the co-founder and CEO of OVAI, a company developing a skin patch designed to read hormones continuously from sweat. A hormone scientist, she spent 7 years at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory studying how hormone receptors switch genes on, and 4 years at Northwell Health leading translational research in endometriosis, from patient samples to clinical studies. She serves on the research committee of Northwell’s Katz Institute for Women’s Health. Originally from Slovenia, she came to women’s health through her UN work on gender equity in science. She led OVAI through NSF I-Corps and built a team joining hormone biology, clinical gynecology, receptor chemistry and electrochemical sensing.