Glen de Vries

Early life and education

De Vries grew up in New York and showed an early passion for computers and science. In middle school, he founded a rocket club in the science lab. He attended the Ethical Culture Fieldston School and graduated from Carnegie Mellon University in 1994 with a degree in molecular biology and genetics. He later studied computer science at New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematics.

Career

In 1994, de Vries and Ed Ikeguchi created OceanTek, a startup developing Web applications for clinical trials. In 1999, with Tarek Sherif and Ikeguchi, he founded Medidata Solutions, which went public in 2009. He endowed the first student fellowship of NYU Center for Data Science in 2013. Dassault Systèmes acquired Medidata in 2019 for $5.8 billion.

Death

De Vries, a certified private pilot with an instrument rating, died at 49 when his Cessna 172 crashed in a heavily wooded area near Hampton Township, New Jersey, on November 11, 2021. The other occupant, Thomas Fischer, also died.

The National Transportation Safety Board found no mechanical or weather cause for the crash. As a tribute, his initials were added to the Blue Origin NS-19 mission patch. His collection of rare luxury watches was auctioned in October 2023.