Prashaant Ranganathan
Prashaant builds the AI systems at the core of Kernel. A published AI researcher and an a16z-backed founder, he studied Design and Computer Science at Stanford and works at the intersection of frontier AI and national-security research, turning the government’s open funding landscape into something university researchers can actually navigate.
Nilay Papila, PhD
Nilay has spent her career inside the infrastructure of federally funded research. An aerospace engineer by training, she serves as Assistant Director for Technology Transition for Defense at Stanford, building the processes that carry university research toward defense programs, the same machinery Kernel now scales.
Jeffrey Decker, PhD
Jeff leads Stanford’s Hacking for Defense program and serves as Managing Director of Technology Transition for Defense. A former U.S. Army Ranger, he wrote the book on selling to defense and has spent the last decade teaching researchers and founders how to move technology from the lab into the hands of the people who need it.