December 2025 MBA Mama of the Month
December 2025 MBA Mama of the Month
Mana Kashuk
Mana Kashuk, a mother to two young sons Isaac and Gabriel, is a 2017 MBA graduate of Victoria University (Australia) who is currently pursuing a Ph.D in Pharmaceutical Sciences at Texas Southern University. Before Mana's path led her into research in the United States, she completed an intensive seven-year medical program in Iran. She also holds a Master's degree in Biotechnology from NYU.
Mana's professional work spans drug discovery, clinical research, AI-driven data innovation, and research administration across leading institutions, including the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, UTHealth Houston, Rice University’s BioTech LaunchPad, and Texas Southern University. Mana is passionate about translational science, women’s health, and designing systems that strengthen under-resourced research environments, including through Bloomz.io, a startup she founded to improve data workflows in natural product research and mass spectrometry. The company was named a semi-finalist by AI Discovery by Nebius, an annual award that recognizes startups globally that leverage artificial intelligence to transform drug discovery, biotechnology, genomics, and health technology. The platform was also selected for the prestigious NSF I-Corps program, further validating its scientific and commercial potential.
After Mana completed her Master’s in Biotechnology at NYU, she found herself at a pivotal crossroads. She had built a strong foundation in science, but realized she didn’t want to stop at understanding the science itself. She wanted to understand how science leads to impact and became deeply curious about what happens beyond the lab: How do discoveries become products? How do innovations reach patients? And what systems and strategies turn research into scalable, real-world solutions? That curiosity inspired Mana to look beyond traditional academic pathways. She decided that it was critical to gain fluency in areas like strategy, operations, leadership, and commercialization which led to her matriculation in a full-time MBA program at Victoria University in Australia.
"For me, the decision to pursue an MBA was less a pause and more a launchpad. It was a strategic investment in expanding my ability to lead, communicate across disciplines, and shape systems that translate research into solutions. The timing aligned with a period in my life when I was ready to think bigger, contribute differently, and reframe my impact beyond the lab. My MBA provided me with the framework to do just that: connect the dots between science, strategy, and scalable impact."
Victoria University's applied-learning model challenged Mana in the best possible way. Mana says:
"The applied learning model pushed me not only to understand ideas but to bring them to life. During my MBA, I founded MadeToFund, a platform designed to support underserved girls through education. In 2017, I traveled to Shanghai to present the project on an international stage, where it received the Most Popular Entrepreneurship Award. It was a turning point, where I realized my ideas could have a global impact.
That experience reshaped me. Standing in a new country, pitching to global judges, and navigating a culture completely different from my own taught me how to adapt quickly, communicate across cultural boundaries, and step confidently into new roles. It reinforced my ability to perform with clarity in unfamiliar environments."
Mana's experience pitching her venture in Shanghai sparked her commitment to commercialization, translational science, and building solutions that create real-world impact across disciplines and across the globe.
My MBA transformed the trajectory of my career. It didn’t simply equip me with business knowledge; it opened a six-year chapter where I had the freedom and confidence to lead, build, and operate across multiple sectors and globally before ever beginning my PhD.
After graduation between 2017 and 2023, Mana progressed through roles that expanded her leadership capacity. In the education sector, she held a senior management role redesigning academic programs, supporting faculty development, ensuring regulatory compliance, and developing operational systems that strengthened the institution’s foundation. At the same time, Mana's work as a STEM and TESOL consultant took her international where she designed cross-disciplinary curricula, mentored educators, and developed a “mini-MBA” program for professionals seeking a bridge between technical knowledge and business acumen. As a consultant working within a legal environment, Mana helped optimize workflows, supported attorneys working on complex and high-impact immigration cases, and improved organizational processes to enhance the efficiency of the legal team. Together, these post-MBA roles, across education, law, consulting, innovation, and research, shaped the business leader Mana has become.
Mana also credits her MBA education and experience with motivating her to become deeply involved in building scalable digital systems to address institutional needs. including developing and implementing AI chatbot platforms at Rice University, Texas Southern University, Morgan State University, and within private institutions. These AI solutions have streamlined access to academic, administrative, and research tools, further reinforcing Mana's drive to build intelligent, user-centered systems in science and education.
My MBA didn’t just open doors. It taught me how to build doors and bring others through them with me.
By the time Mana returned to academia for her doctoral program in 2023, she didn’t arrive as a traditional PhD student. She arrived as someone who had already built organizations, led teams, shaped programs, managed complex operations, and worked across industries and continents. She also arrived as a mother.
My PhD journey began during one of the most demanding seasons of my life, the exact same month my second child was born. At the time, I was caring for a newborn, raising a two-year-old toddler, starting a full-time doctoral program, and consulting part-time for a law firm. Beginning a PhD under those circumstances required resilience, structure, and intention, but it also revealed strengths I didn’t know I had.
As an immigrant mother without nearby family support beyond her husband Ayman, Mana built her own high-efficiency systems to integrate motherhood and academic rigor. She learned to use technology creatively, converting her class readings into visual and audio formats, uploading them on YouTube, and accessing them during stroller walks, nap times, or quiet evenings. These small, consistent habits helped Mana stay fully present with her young children while still maintaining strong academic performance throughout her doctoral studies. Over time, each routine, every walk, and every nap became more than a study moment. It became a private lecture Mana built for herself. In those quiet windows, Mana wasn’t just studying; she was learning, absorbing, and building her own system of education.
Motherhood didn’t slow my ambition; it sharpened my vision and strengthened my resolve to build a future grounded in purpose, innovation, and impact. It also led me to solve real-world problems, such as the data fragmentation I experienced during my PhD, and it’s what inspired me to build my startup venture Bloomz.io as a working solution. Motherhood became my purpose, not my pause. My two boys give me clarity, discipline, and a deeper sense of meaning behind every step of my career.
Next week, we will be publishing part 2 of our profile of Mana. We'll be sharing more information about Mana's time management mom hacks, her approach to stress management, the biggest challenges she has overcome as an MBA Mama and her advice for professional women with children considering an MBA.