Melanie Walker

American neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who served as a key bridge between Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates. Walker met Epstein around 1992 at the Plaza Hotel in New York while fresh out of college at the University of Texas. By 1998, while doing postdoctoral work at Caltech, Epstein hired her as his 'Science Advisor.' She later joined the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as Senior Program Officer and Deputy Director for Special Initiatives, and served as neurotechnology and brain science adviser to Bill Gates at bgC3 (now Gates Ventures). DOJ-released EFTA documents show extensive email chains between Walker and Epstein discussing 'The Modern Neuron' - a science venture she wanted to start - and mitochondria transplantation research for ischemic brain injury.

In one email (EFTA00956869), she details plans to transplant mitochondria into ischemic brain stems, requests $6 million, and mentions basing operations out of Seattle. In another (EFTA00652215), she sends Epstein a draft of her letter to Gates, writing 'women in science/medicine can do great things. I want to be one of them,' and mentions being on assignment at BGC3 and being a David Rockefeller Fellow. A third document (EFTA00680010) contains a thread between Walker, Bill Gates, and Casey Tegreene discussing her endovascular neurosurgery fellowship. Walker introduced Epstein to Boris Nikolic (Gates's science advisor), who in turn facilitated the first Gates-Epstein meeting in 2010.

She is currently a Clinical Professor of Neurological Surgery at the University of Washington and Harborview Medical Center, leading first-in-human clinical trials on mitochondrial transplantation for stroke - the scientific extension of ideas discussed in the Epstein emails. She is a David Rockefeller Fellow, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader, and is married to Steven Sinofsky, former president of Microsoft's Windows division.