Leila is the co-founder and CEO of Purist, a company based on a technology she co-invented during her Ph.D. studies. Purist’s focus is developing a technology to be implemented in existing nuclear reactors to produce medical-grade radioactive ingredients. These radioactive ingredients are time-sensitive materials used daily to treat and diagnose life-threatening diseases such as cancer. Leila earned her Ph.D./M.S. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and B.S. in Chemistry, all from the University of California, Irvine (UC-Irvine). During her time at UC-Irvine, she became a licensed nuclear reactor operator by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and maintained this license for over five years. In 2017, Leila co-founded Purist with her former Ph.D. advisor Dr. Mikael Nilsson and was appointed as Chief Executive Officer. In this role, she has won first place in the 2017 UC-Irvine New Venture Business Plan competition, been the recipient of the 2018 Orange County Engineering Council’s Project Achievement award, and the 2018 Best Female Owned Business award from the UC-Irvine ANTrepreneur Center. In February of 2021, Leila was selected to be in the first class of 250 entrepreneurs for Forbes’s NEXT 1000 list.
Represented Organization
Purist, Inc.