Distinguished Alumna

Whitney Gaynor ’96 is an entrepreneur and technologist. She earned her undergraduate degree from MIT and a PhD from Stanford University, where she specialized in advanced materials and electronic devices. Whitney is the co-founder and CEO of Sinovia Technologies, a company pioneering roll-to-roll printed electronics, including next-generation human-machine interfaces that are more environmentally sustainable than conventional technologies. She has published multiple peer-reviewed articles and served as principal investigator on research programs funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy. She and her founding team took the company through the Y Combinator accelerator in 2017 and she has raised $15M in financing in support of the business.

Outside of her professional career, Whitney has been deeply involved in figure skating. Inspired by their mother, she and her sister, Darby ’98, trained and competed at a high level until age 18, with Whitney achieving multiple national rankings. After retiring as an athlete, she became an Olympic-certified official in both singles and pairs skating - one of only three people in the United States to hold these dual certifications. She lives with her husband and son in Menlo Park and is proud to have a niece in third grade at Burke's.