About
Joel Denis
Partner
Joel serves as a strategic legal advisor to technology and biotech / pharma companies. His practice focuses on corporate, commercial, employment, and data privacy / AI regulatory matters. Joel also serves on several Advisory Boards for his clients.
Throughout his career, Joel has provided guidance to hundreds of early-stage startups in the fields of biotech, health tech, clean tech, AI, SaaS, and beyond. He worked as an associate attorney for Latham & Watkins as well as Goodwin Procter. More recently, Joel spent over 5 years working as a senior in-house counsel.
Joel’s blend of experience in working for top technology law firms and spending many years in-house has provided him with a unique perspective as an attorney and strategic advisor and has enabled him to have a deep understanding of how to mitigate the specific legal risks companies face while balancing this against driving growth.
Joel graduated from Georgetown Law with honors. During law school, Joel clerked for the U.S. Senate and the International Trade Commission. Prior to law school, Joel received BS degrees in History and Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
In his free time, he enjoys surfing, snowboarding, cycling, cooking, and spending time with his wife and daughter.
Nikita Bozicevic
Contract Manager
Nikita handles administrative functions for Foundry, including contract management, technical support, and client engagement.
She also provides contract management services to clients. She is able to guide clients in implementing simple yet organized foundational contract management systems via SharePoint or DropBox in a way that will prepare them for a smooth transition to an automated contract management software if they would like to do so in the future. As she has experience with data migration between contract management systems, she knows how to set clients up for success. Nikita works closely with various client departments, including legal, HR, finance, and accounting. So, she understands the needs of other departments relative to legal in order to facilitate a cohesive contract management system accessible to all. She has also aided in training employees in contract management systems company-wide.
Nikita graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida and earned a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Linguistics and Foreign Languages and Literatures – Russian. Prior to joining Foundry, Nikita worked as a teaching assistant at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Medicine Simulation Center. In addition, Nikita received a Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship for Russian in the summer of 2019 which enabled her to study at Moscow State University (Московский государственный университет).
Nikita enjoys learning about languages, editing manuscripts, and writing science fiction and fantasy. She is currently working on a novel and a children’s book.
Tena Zara
Partner
Tena’s 25-year legal career includes more than 12 years in the MIT ecosystem, including acting as General Counsel and founding executive of two Harvard/MIT startups. Her current practice focuses on handling both complex and day-to-day corporate matters. She handles patent licensing agreements, clinical research study agreements, material transfer agreements, master services agreements, collaboration agreements and more.
Tena was co-founder, VP of Business Affairs and then General Counsel & Secretary of edX, an online educational platform offering courses from the best universities in the world to everyone in the world with an internet connection.
Tena also served as General Counsel for Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), an entity launched out of MIT with $300M in private and public funding, also setting up the legal function for the company.
Before going in-house, Tena was in private practice at Sunstein LLP, Goulston & Storrs and Holland & Knight.
Tena received her undergraduate degree from Vanderbilt University, where she received a full scholarship as the first woman to win the Grantland Rice award for sports writing. She graduated magna cum laude from Boston College Law School.
Jason T. Nickla
Of Counsel
Jason provides transactional counsel to a wide range of clients with a focus on pharmaceutical and life sciences clients. Jason balances his role as Of Counsel at Foundry with his role as Director of Intellectual Property for the University of Nebraska Medical Center where he has worked for the past decade.
Jason draws on his experience handling thousands of complex agreements for the medical center to find creative solutions for Foundry clients. He has completed agreements with parties located in fifty-five different countries, handling intellectual property licenses, research collaborations, material transfer agreements, confidentiality agreements, services agreements and more.
As a registered patent attorney, Jason recognizes the tremendous value in intellectual property rights and ensures they are protected and utilized to their fullest potential. Jason manages the medical center’s patent portfolio and files patent applications on behalf of the university. His experience also includes working at a Chicago patent law firm specializing in analyzing and protecting new inventions in many different fields, from fertility endocrinology to gaming software.
Jason graduated from Creighton University School of Law and earned an LLM, with honors, in International Intellectual Property from Chicago-Kent College of Law. Prior to law school, Jason received a BS in Biology from Creighton University and worked in a neuroethology research laboratory.
In his free time, Jason enjoys taking family trips and slow-smoking BBQ.
Iryna Corrigan
Of Counsel
Iryna Corrigan advises biotech, pharmaceutical, and tech clients on a wide range of corporate matters, including governance, compliance, and cross-border operations. Iryna is known for her strategic, detail-oriented approach to complex corporate transactions and regulatory issues. She has advised public and private companies on corporate structuring, joint ventures, international contracting, and internal governance. She draws on her extensive background in international arbitration to inform her current corporate work - particularly in areas involving cross-border risk, government engagement, and high-stakes commercial arrangements. Iryna has represented sovereigns and corporate clients in arbitrations under ICSID, UNCITRAL, and ICC rules.
Prior to joining Foundry, Iryna practiced law in New York City at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP. She earned her L.L.M from the Fordham University School of Law.
Beyond her legal practice, Iryna serves as a Board Member of one of the largest charities in Ukraine and as a Commissioner on the Affordable Housing Advisory Committee of the City of Miami Beach. Outside of work, Iryna is passionate about tennis, building social communities, and staying active.