The scope of experience of Polaris’s executive team spans nine decades & several fields, including military service, medicine, & federal research & development. These experiences have allowed the team to cultivate timely knowledge of pandemic-era mental health needs, & develop deeply unique qualifications to address these needs. The team has garnered numerous awards, ranks, titles, & accomplishments, ranging from captain to engineer, Purple Heart recipient to medical doctor, virologist & immunologist, 9/11 responder to Iraq War veteran, & PhD to Homeland Security Public Health Officer amid the threats of SARS & anthrax.

In 2017, inspired by their work at the Defense & Veterans Brain Injury Center & the US Department of Veterans Affairs, a veteran & a scientist coalesced their visions seeded in service around the urgent need for 21st-century innovation in behavioral healthcare. Drawing upon decades of experience in biomedical technology, public health, & molecular biology, they founded a company to take aim at the mental health crisis that results in 22 veteran suicides each day. Partnering with the Illumina Accelerator & scientists from Mount Sinai & the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, the team developed the first-to-market, patented genomic biomarker assay to identify PTSD risk in 2018.