About

JDI is a boutique consultancy that brings emerging technology and science-driven companies to market.

Our vision is a world in which science flourishes. We pursue mastery of marketing, communications, and design to ensure that our clients get the attention they deserve. We believe that a good story well-told can change the world.

Our clients are on a mission, and so are we.

Our Team
We’re a senior group, and we come from diverse backgrounds like journalism, industrial design, code, government, events, academia, film, and finance. Few of us self-selected for agency life originally. That makes us unusual as a firm. We do our best work when everyone’s voice is heard and appreciated. We value truth, growth, generosity, and diversity.
Damaris Alfonso
Juan Ávila
Talia Bromberg
Damaris Alfonso
Director

As the child of an industrial designer and a journalist, pragmatic creativity has always been a mainstay in Damaris’ life. In her decade-plus of being a graphic designer she has become an expert in using illustration to catch people’s attention and communicate about complex topics. Being the amalgamation of storytelling, art, and data, infographics tend to be among her favorite brand pieces.

She is equal parts communicator and student, looking forward to nerding out and learning about a new niche industry or science when welcoming a new client. She takes every opportunity to explore new visual styles and ways to communicate with a variety of audiences. And taking a client's nascent idea and creating a logo and fully-realized brand is the most rewarding aspect of her efforts at JDI.

She’s a voracious podcast consumer, and her favorite (and highly recommended!) podcasts include the incredible storytelling podcast Heavyweight, and the hidden design podcast 99% Invisible.

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Featured clients
  • A-Alpha Bio
  • ITER
  • Project Innerspace
  • Ramona Optics
  • Syzygy Plasmonics
  • WorldQuant University
Juan Ávila
Manager

Juan has built a reputation for making groundbreaking science and technology accessible to mainstream audiences and newsworthy to specialized press. At JDI, he leads PR and marketing programs for companies working on breakthrough science in AI and ML, synthetic biology, and clean energy.

Juan thrives in immersing himself in complex technical subjects while maintaining a distinctive storyteller’s perspective. He translates scientific innovations into clear, powerful narratives that help companies connect with their audiences and shape public understanding of emerging technologies.

In one of Juan’s earlier life chapters, he was a professional pianist in both his hometown of Bogotá and around the United States, performing alongside some of the world’s most extraordinary musicians. He earned his Master’s in music from the Cleveland Institute of Music, and holds a doctorate in music and an MBA, and every so often still graces the stage.

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Featured clients
  • A-Alpha Bio
  • Quaise
  • Synthetaic
  • Terra CO2
  • Splash Clinical
Talia Bromberg
Senior Director

Talia loves the ephemeral nature of design, which turns intangible feelings and ideas into a tangible experience that communicates something and serves someone. Taking a client’s vision and goals and translating them into visual form is an extraordinary and rewarding challenge.

Talia’s academic and work experiences align with her desire to understand people and human behavior. She studied film and anthropology at Mount Holyoke College and assessed independent films for potential acquisition and distribution at FilmBuff.com. Design is at the crossroads of visual creativity and the pursuit of human understanding; it begins with understanding the user, along with their challenges and desires.

Talia previously worked for Mogul.com, a platform to help women across the globe connect and exchange knowledge. Mogul exposed her to design thinking and the ins and outs of product development, along with the opportunity to design in different media from VR and animation to app design.

Find out more about Talia on LinkedIn.

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Featured clients
  • WorldQuant Predictive
  • Civic I/O
  • Squarelink
  • DivInc.
  • Skyloom
  • Clarus
  • Litmus Health
  • Veritas
  • Foundation Communities
  • SAFE
Justin Davis
Rebecca Ewing
Tony Fassi
Justin Davis
Head of Finance

Justin ensures that JDI stewards its financial resources responsibly.

He excels at analyzing and interpreting data, and his insight helps guide company strategy. He oversees our spending to maximize benefits to our team and clients.

Justin values precision, accuracy, and clarity; he speaks spreadsheet as a second language. He believes no process is sacred, or perfect. He’s uniquely gifted at finding the signal in the noise.

Prior to JDI, Justin was in Loss Mitigation at OneWest Bank. He built the bank’s first quality control department, implemented new auditing policies, and helped senior executives navigate an ever-changing landscape of regulation and compliance issues.

On a team full of trivia-lovers, Justin is unbeatable at movie and TV trivia, and also puts the rest of us to shame when it comes to mental math. He spends his spare time reading up on the San Antonio Spurs and wishing he was an avid golfer.

Find out more about Justin on LinkedIn.

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  • DSACT
  • Litmus
Rebecca Ewing
Vice President

As a Vice President at JDI, Rebecca is focused on creative services: from copywriting to graphic design and code, from photography to experiential design. She has spent almost two decades as both a verbal and a visual communicator, helping companies large and small craft a narrative that speaks volumes. She's a marketer by trade, but an artist at heart. Rebecca believes that the best designs in any medium are data-driven and customer-obsessed. After years as a communicator, she built a unique creative department at JDI that looks at client challenges from the same side of the table as marketing itself.

The majority of her experience lies in branding and public relations across human health, behavioral science, and consumer technology.

Find out more about Rebecca on LinkedIn.

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Featured clients
  • Siri
  • The Allen Institute
  • EMROD
  • Ramona Optics
  • ITER
  • Project Innerspace
  • Color Factory
  • Juniper Genomics
  • Natural Fiber Welding
  • Real Ice
  • Syzygy Plasmonics
Tony Fassi
Vice President

Tony is a lifelong tinkerer and naturalist — he bought his first telescope at age 12 and built almost every computer he’s owned. He’s driven to both understand how things work and tell stories that inspire a similar curiosity in others. 

This is especially true with applied science and emerging technology, and at JDI he applies his expertise across AI, New Space, the Energy Transition, Quantum Computing, and Genomics. In addition to developing successful marketing strategies, the majority of his work spans content creation – writing long-form op-eds, white papers, and case studies — media relations, and messaging and positioning. In all these ways, he conspires with our clients to bring some of the world’s most impactful technologies to market.

Before joining JDI, Tony worked as a US Coast Guard Captain and a divemaster, founded a coffee roasting company, and earned a doctorate in American Studies at UT Austin where he taught courses on the history of underground infrastructure and the rhetoric of futurism.

These days Tony spends as much time as he can exploring the outdoors on slow, meandering walks with his daughter, reading pulp detective fiction, and taking stuff apart.

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Featured clients
  • Allen Institute
  • A-Alpha Bio
  • Project InnerSpace
  • GEODE
  • Quaise Energy
  • Terra CO2
  • HB11 Energy
  • Aurelia Institute
  • Outpost Space
  • Satellogic
  • Synthetaic
  • HelixNano
  • Phasecraft
  • Ephos
  • VIV
  • Clear Labs
  • Next IT
Risa Fielder
Doug Freeman
Michelle Gamboa
Risa Fielder
Senior Director

As a child, Risa would constantly pester her mother to stop the car so she could ask people what they were doing and, more importantly, why they were doing it. She continues to draw from this deep well of genuine curiosity, especially when navigating life’s most consequential decisions. 

Risa currently serves as Chief of Staff to Josh Jones-Dilworth, CEO of JDI — a boutique marketing and communications firm with a mission to promote science companies. She amplifies his work as a thought partner, project manager, and implementer on strategic projects. Risa is also a member of the global Chief of Staff Association and loves embarking on new opportunities with this group of highly talented individuals. 

Helping people is a driving force in her life, and she strives to have an impact on whatever she does. Risa currently serves on the Advisory Board of Hearts2Heal, mentors people making the leap from the service industry to corporate work, and volunteers as often as possible at her children’s elementary school. 

Risa’s proudest accomplishments come from her family which she lovingly calls the Fantastic Fielders.

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  • First Dollar
  • Kernel
  • Senseye
  • WorldQuant University
Doug Freeman
Senior Director

Doug is fascinated by the stories we tell about science, and how these stories inform our social and cultural narratives.

As a founding member of JDI, Doug helped originate and develop the firm’s expertise in AI & ML, New Space, Energy Transition, New Materials, and Infrastructure & Computing. He works across clients to discern emergent trends, develop new initiatives, and help companies anticipate and stay ahead in rapidly evolving industries. Most of all, Doug’s keen curiosity drives him to uncover the unique stories that most need telling.

At JDI, Doug also spends time on firm-wide innovation, implementing innovative tools and techniques, new products and processes, and novel revenue streams.

Doug earned his Master’s degree studying digital rhetoric at the University of Texas, where he taught in the Digital Writing and Research Lab. He is also a music, film, and technology writer for the Austin Chronicle, profiling some of Texas’ most interesting artists and personalities. He is co-editor of the Austin Chronicle Music Anthology, published by University of Texas Press, and contributes to numerous other publications.

He also serves as an advisor to the Arch Mission Foundation, a not-for-profit backing up the collective knowledge of planet Earth, and to NanoSafe, which helps organizations manage nanotechnology environmental health and safety (EHS) risks.

Doug laughs too loud, argues too much, and asks far too many questions.

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Featured clients
  • Brane Audio
  • Pixion Batteries
  • Phasecraft Quantum
  • SRI International
  • Terra CO2
  • Allen Institute
  • Vulcan
Michelle Gamboa
Director

Michelle’s core mission is to help people thrive. She puts this mission to work on the JDI operations team, helping lead recruitment, training, and development.

As a former educator, Michelle understands the importance of making learning and development collaborative and purposeful. She loves drawing out the expertise of those around her to design impactful learning experiences. Her knack for streamlining systems and curating resources ensures growth is easy and accessible for the whole team.

Michelle oversees JDI’s full recruitment process, prioritizing efficiency and a positive candidate experience. Dedicated to fostering inclusivity, she also actively contributes to JDI’s DEI initiatives, helping shape strategies that drive a more positive and welcoming environment.

Through all her work, Michelle is guided by a commitment to continuous improvement and a people-first approach.

Beyond JDI, Michelle spends her time watching cooking competition shows, reading sci-fi and fantasy, and trying to keep all her houseplants alive.

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    Rose Garza
    Shanna Gerlach
    Jenny Hooper
    Rose Garza
    Senior Director

    Rose's journey as an advertising professional is fueled by her deep passion for the craft. This force was ignited at a young age, inspired by iconic commercials that left a lasting impression. These ads not only captivated her but also presented a challenge — to create content that resonates and changes how consumers think.

    Her holistic approach to paid media involves finding the golden nugget in raw data. She leverages authentic storytelling to captivate audiences and develop an emotional connection that drives conversions.

    At Jones-Dilworth, Rose plays a pivotal role in the end-to-end management of advertising campaigns. Her responsibilities span from strategy development and campaign creation to analyzation and agile optimizations. Some past client campaigns she has contributed to include: Riviana Rice, Mattress Firm, Waste Management, Babel Street, and WorldQuant University.

    For the past 14 years, Rose has been a member of the American Advertising Federation, and has served in various board and leadership positions for Ad 2. During her free time, she enjoys going on long hikes with her dog, Augie, who always manages to make her carry him when he's tired.

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      Shanna Gerlach
      Director

      Instead of going to preschool like most kids, Shanna spent her formative years at her family’s kitchen table splattered with paint and glue. Though Shanna doesn’t remember exactly what she created, she does remember how: with abandon, confidence, curiosity, and ambition.

      Now a Director of Design at JDI, Shanna seeks to constantly surprise clients and audiences. Using her eclectic background in psychology, theater, and art, she aspires to immerse people in unexpected experiences, creating intricate worlds just as fluently as her design work communicates complex ideas. Shanna’s work often bridges design, marketing, and paid media, allowing her to flex her multimodal creativity into everything from copywriting and naming to event development, photography, and experiential storytelling.

      After hours, you can find Shanna writing custom poems for strangers (and sometimes friends) on a 1928 Remington Portable II typewriter with Typewriter Rodeo, on the track or trail training for her next marathon (or ultra), taking thrifting a little too seriously, or sometimes still covered in paint and glue at the kitchen table.

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      Featured clients
      • Penrose
      • Juniper Genomics
      • Splash Clinical
      • Ergo
      • Tynt
      • Brane Audio
      • New Civic
      Jenny Hooper
      Senior Director

      Over the past 13 years, Jenny has been passionate about providing exceptional client service experiences.

      Drawn to the health sciences because of its power to improve and save lives, Jenny has dedicated herself over the past decade to breaking down complex scientific stories to make a meaningful impact on patients and customers.

      A strategic thinker who is process driven at her core, Jenny has developed and implemented global public relations and marketing programs for numerous life science companies. Some of her past clients include: Takeda, Bayer Pharma AG, AbbVie, Philips, Nutricia, and Gilead.

      She specializes in crafting consistent, transparent, and brand-centric campaigns that educate and drive change. Her areas of expertise span oncology, rare diseases, neurological disorders, clinical trial recruitment, antimicrobial resistance, robotics, and medical technologies.

      In her free time, Jenny enjoys jewelry-making, traveling, and spending time with her cats.

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      Featured clients
      • A-AlphaBio
      • Fathom
      • Pixion
      • Splash
      Josh Jones-Dilworth
      Liz Jones-Dilworth
      Kevin LaHaise
      Josh Jones-Dilworth
      Founder & CEO

      I founded JDI and lead the firm today as CEO. JDI is the center of my professional universe. We are an integrated marketing firm that helps make precedent-setting science and emerging tech companies well known and understood. I love my team and our clients. Building JDI has been my life’s work, and a deeply gratifying experience.

      At JDI I am also currently leading a team to create a new community of the most consequential people in the science world called Penrose.

      Along the way I have also co-founded Litmus Health (infrastructure for real-world evidence), The Daily Dot (the internet's hometown newspaper), Culturati (the leading conference and community of company culture leaders) and New Civic (a project to catalyze American civic and philanthropic engagement). JDI is co-owner of the science magazine Nautilus and I proudly serve on its Board.

      Separately, I am an Advisor to Synthetaic (AI-driven object detection) and Mithril (sustainable ocean mining), and the Arch Mission Foundation (permanent knowledge archive).

      My nonprofit and education work is also really important to me. I’m the outgoing Board Chair of DivInc. I was an Advisor to Mayor Steve Adler for all 8 years of his time in office. I teach part-time in the MBA in Entrepreneurship program at the Acton School of Business, and I’m a Trustee of McDonogh School in Baltimore. Finally, I chair the Board of Folio Collaborative.

      I hope our paths will cross. A more exhaustive version of my bio lives here.

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      Featured clients
      • Siri
      • Viv
      • Solver
      • WolframAlpha
      • edX
      • SRI International
      • Kernel
      • Nginx
      • My ASICS
      • Zocdoc
      • Project Innerspace
      • Convergent Research
      • Allen Institute
      • Fathom.org
      • TerraCO2
      • Prairie Food
      Liz Jones-Dilworth
      President & COO

      As President and COO, Liz’s mission at JDI is to build an environment for creative people to thrive. Vital to that mission are financial stability, individual and team health, and continuous learning and development. Her work focuses on building a work community that engages our team’s many talents and allows us to absorb ourselves in problems to solve creatively together.

      With the operations department, Liz gathers and interprets data to guide company strategy and write policies. She balances the needs of our team to do their best work with the needs of our company financially and legally. She fosters a culture that strives for growth and generosity.

      Outside of JDI, Liz founded the Core Alumni Advisory Council at Boston University, which celebrates interdisciplinary education. She also serves as Secretary of the board of the Rude Mechanicals, an avant-garde theater company. She writes poetry every month with her beloved workshop group.

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      • Folio
      • The Daily Dot
      • DSACT
      • Culturati
      Kevin LaHaise
      Partner

      Kevin is a Partner at JDI. He has spent his career helping science-driven ventures get to market and grow. As a marketing strategist and practitioner, his work has helped thousands of founders, researchers and technologists maximize the positive impact of their breakthroughs on industry and society.

      As a member of JDI’s executive team, Kevin is pivotal in helping to shape and grow the firm. In addition to his work with clients, he also leads JDI’s marketing department and oversees client service across the firm. He’s currently building JDI’s Paid Media department, which offers a creative new approach to growth marketing and lead generation that integrates services from JDI’s marketing and design teams.

      Outside of JDI, Kevin founded and runs his hometown independent paper, Sudbury Weekly, which he started after the longtime local paper went out of print. He spends countless hours following municipal committees and boards and chronicling life in a small, New England suburb that’s full of history.

      When he’s not working, Kevin is doing some sort of project around his house, which looks like a scaled-up copy of Paul Revere’s house, with just enough antique furniture inside to please America’s Silversmith himself.

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      Featured clients
      • Republic Wireless
      • WorldQuant University
      • Conversable
      • Groundfloor
      • Aptimize
      • NGINX
      • OpenStack
      • Hypergiant
      • Bandwidth.com
      • Next IT
      • Siri
      • Viv
      Emily LeClair
      Sohaila Mueller
      Heather Stafford
      Emily LeClair
      Manager

      As an Executive Assistant at JDI, I specialize in dynamic scheduling. Whether it's handling changing priorities or negotiating scheduling conflicts, I’m at my best when I’m working on an organizational puzzle. I take pride in being a trusted partner to our CEO and executive team, managing complex calendars with precision, and ensuring our VIPs receive the highest level of attention and care.

      I also play a critical role in stewarding our company's finances through careful travel coordination. By finding cost-efficient flights, accommodations, and ground transportation, I help our team stay productive and focused on delivering their best work to clients when they travel.

      A key contribution I make to our operations team is managing our team's feedback and evaluation processes. Through coordinating performance reviews and compiling feedback from team members, I ensure that our team remains engaged and motivated.

      My training in acting and improvisation is called upon often in our fast-paced agency. Listening and responding with empathy, building on ideas, and forming relationships quickly are all skills I’m grateful to be able to bring to work.

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        Sohaila Mueller
        Manager

        Sohaila has spent a lifetime mastering how to bend the constraints of space, time, and resources to her will.

        She ensures JDI operates at a high level through office management, finances, IT, and client relationships. You can find her doing everything from advanced plant care, planning elaborate team happy hours, maintaining a standard of professional client care, solving sticky IT quandaries, and generally making everyone’s day better.

        Sohaila loves to see people thrive and eagerly removes obstacles that keep them from doing so.

        Prior to JDI, Sohaila worked at a community center where she fed 60 people twice a day. She did so without a functional kitchen and relying only on food bank donations. She’s at her best when she's cartwheeling between a variety of tasks, stomping out fires, and yanking out inefficiency by the root.

        When she is not reading voraciously, you can find her on the golf course or in the garden, always birdwatching.

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          Heather Stafford
          Senior Director

          Heather has spent her life developing a thesis — that (observation + empathy)*timing = comedy. And the ability to make people laugh can have a tremendous impact outside of a sketch or standup class. And that is especially true for marketing. Telling a story in one way might garner laughter and rapt attention; another way might get yawns.

          During her tenure at JDI, Heather has worked with clients across industries, with a particular focus on biotechnology and agriculture, where the building blocks of life are being used to cure disease, address climate change, and create new materials. She is especially skilled at developing the core messaging and speaking points clients need to tell their own stories effectively.

          Heather has held positions in everything from fast food and business development to operations management, including managing the goldfish booth at a local carnival, which was much more stressful than one might imagine. That being said, she still learned most of what she knows while driving a bus. She’d be happy to tell you a story or two over a margarita.

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          • Farmobile
          • Curie Co
          • Debut Bio
          • Homeworld Collective
          • Vida Health
          • WorldQuant University
          Jamal Wilburn
          Jamal Wilburn
          Senior Director

          Jamal’s career has spanned finance, media, theater, entrepreneurship, and technology. What ties it all together is a passion for how creative thinking and communication unfold in a business context.

          Jamal is Senior Director of Business Development at JDI, where he spends his time reframing the questions that founding teams face. Jamal builds relationships with risk-takers by helping them map their motivations, goals, and emotions back to a cogent marketing strategy.

          Jamal studied International Business and Finance at Howard University, and Finance and Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Prior to JDI, Jamal’s experience at investment management firms William Blair & Company and Dimensional Fund Advisors gave him the ability to provide strong counsel and keep his clients focused on the most intense needs of their target audiences.

          Outside the office, Jamal is often volunteering on the boards of various nonprofits, reading the Economist, working on his deadlift, or watching Netflix. And chilling.

          Find out more about Jamal on LinkedIn.

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          Featured clients
          • Canvas 1839
          • Traverse
          • DivInc
          • Satellogic
          • ScaleFactor
          Join Us

          Do you love science and communication?

          If you're interested in joining our team full-time or would like to learn more, please email us at jobs@jones-dilworth.com

          Created by JDI, Penrose is an intimate gathering of the most intriguing people in the science world — researchers, inventors, founders, entrepreneurs, executives, artists, and storytellers.
          Dig deeper into the minds and stories behind breakthrough science in our weekly publication.
          One of our many extracurricular projects at JDI is that we’re very proud co-owners of the science, art, and culture magazine Nautilus. Written by scientists and journalists alike, the magazine follows the story wherever the science leads.
          The author, Robert Burton, M.D., a neurologist and novelist, says it best:
          “Science remains one of the great advances of humankind. Its stories, properly told, are epic poems in progress, and deserve to stand alongside the great stories of history.”
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