Sam is a Canadian scientist and entrepreneur who has focused his work on the problem of how scientific information is organized in the modern world. Inspired by the challenges he faced as a cancer genomics researcher at the University of Toronto, Sam co-founded Meta, an artificial intelligence company that is transforming how scientific knowledge is experienced and consumed. In 2017 Meta joined the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to scale up and make its technologies and tools freely available for researchers around the world.
Sam has received several honours for his work in both scientific research and in business, including the Banting & Best Doctoral Fellowship, and the 2016 Martin Walmsley Fellowship Award. Meta was recognized as an inaugural BetaKit Next Selectee, Top 10 Innovations of 2014 by The Scientist Magazine, and has been written about in MIT Technology Review, TechCrunch, Fortune, ReCode, Engadget, Wired, Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN, NewsWeek, and Communications of the ACM among others. Meta's acquisition by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was covered in more than 160 news and magazine outlets. Sam was named #20 on Fast Company Magazine's 100 Most Creative People in Business in 2017.
Sam's research has been published in Nature Genetics, Nature Cell Biology, PNAS, and the Journal of Clinical Investigation. He is a frequent speaker on the future of scientific information, STEM entrepreneurship, and the impact of AI on innovation.
