Executive in Residence Leah Townsend, Ph.D.

Pulvinar Neuro Chief Executive Officer Leah Townsend, Ph.D., serves as the inaugural member of the CareerWell Executives in Residence program. Dr. Townsend is also a member of the CareerWell Advisory Committee and a member of The Graduate School’s Graduate Education Advisory Board.

She teaches the Business Fundamentals – Selected Topics (GRAD726) course for The Graduate School. This course enhances participants’ awareness of several understandings and considerations essential to workplace leadership, including the structure and culture of a variety of organizations, interpersonal skills in the workplace, finance, and business development. The series also reinforces the business fundamentals and professional skills addressed through the other CareerWell courses by placing them in the context of career paths of interest to course participants. Dr. Townsend previously served as The Graduate School director of graduate professional programs. Prior to her role within The Graduate School, she served as an associate strategy consultant with the Triangle Insights Group.

As a Carolina graduate student, she recognized a need for master’s and doctoral students to gain non-academic skills and responded to the needs of her peers by designing and leading the Consulting 101 Seminar Series and later founding the Carolina Graduate Consulting Group. She earned a B.S. in Psychology, a B.A. in Philosophy, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Townsend also holds a Business Essentials Certificate from Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.

Pulvinar Neuro LLC was founded in 2016 as a spin-off from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Pulvinar Neuro is proudly supported by Carolina Kickstart Venture Services and located in Durham, North Carolina.