The People Behind the Scenes
Team members have shipped billions of dollars of product on the hairy edge of physics, with deep expertise in optics, lasers, ultra-sonics, physics, electronics, medical devices, software and manufacturing.
Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen
CEO and Founder
Named of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. Former exec. at Facebook, Oculus, Google, and Intel. Founded 4 hardware companies including Co-founder and CTO of One Laptop per Child (OLPC). Has shipped many $B of products & also Former MIT Professor. 250 published or issued patents. PhD Physics, BSEE Brown U & MSc MIT Media Lab
Dr. Soren Konecky
Chief Technology Officer
Soren has decades of experience in optical imaging and algorithm development for both life science and semiconductor applications. Formerly he held top architect positions at Perkin Elmer and KLA; earned his Ph.D in physics and astronomy from UPenn and won George Hewitt Foundation Fellowship for a breakthrough architectures at Beckman Laser Institute
Maurizio Vecchione
President Designate
Ex EVP of Global Good reporting directly to Bill Gate for 7 years via Intellectual Ventures. Launched 70 products in health tech and therapeutics. Ex CEO of Arrgene, Compu-med, Trestle Holding and Microwave Photonics. Strong track recrod in medical imaging devices from startup to exit. BS in Physics.
Amre Nouh MD FAHA
Consulting Director
Director of Comprehensive Stroke Center at Hartford Healthcare serving more than 2000 stroke cases per year. Experienced vascular neurologist. Fellow of the American Heart and Stroke Association. Professor of Neurology
Peter Herzlinger
Principal Mechanical Engineer
Over 30 years of developing and and manufacturing innovative optical products including scientific sensors, telecom hardware, medical lasers, cell phone cameras, facial recognition security and surgical robots at Auris Health, J&J and Intuitive Surgical as well as 7 startups. MS in Optics Univ of Texas, and BSME Rutgers
Dr. Brad Hartl
Senior Staff Biophotonics Scientist
Previously developed Cerenkov radiation and autofluorescence lifetime imaging for medical applications in the brain. Extensive experience translating biomedical optics technologies from in vitro studies, to small animal models, to implementation in the clinical setting. Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering Univ of California Davis, B.S. in Physics Univ of Wisconsin La Crosse.
Dr. Albert Heberle
Principal Optical Scientist
Albert has 20+ years experience in optics R&D from early concept to mass production of over 100 million units. He has led work on lasers, optical components, semiconductors, and materials at Hitachi, Corning, and Apple. Albert earned his PhD at the Max Planck Inst., connected industry and academia at the Univ. of Cambridge, and was a professor at Univ. of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Emilio Morales
Senior Staff Optical Scientist
6+ years R&D photonics experience, led pioneering work in development of minimally invasive multi-photon imaging devices & light field based optical 3D printers. Optics, digital holography, interferometric metrology, phase conjugation, light modulation & photonic modeling. PhD Photonic Sciences EPFL, MSE EE KAUST (KSA); BSEE UNAM (México).
Dr. Sarmishtha Satpathy
Staff Optical Scientist
Breakthrough work in all optical stimulation and detection of neuronal firing and construction of neural circuits. Deep background in biophotonics, optogenetics and electrophysiology. PhD and MS in EE University of Texas, Arlington, specializing in non-invasive detection of action potentials.
Dr. Chris Bawiec
Senior Staff Ultrasonic Engineer
Chris has over 12 years of biological imaging experience, primarily with therapeutic and diagnostic ultrasound. This include device conception, manufacturing, characterization, image/device optimization and clinical trials. BS in ECE from CU Boulder, Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Drexel. Post Docs at UW Seattle and Lyon, France.
Dr. Hosain Haghany
Principal Optical Engineer
Hosain earned a PhD in Physics from Beckman Inst (UC Irvine) in laser interaction with highly scattering tissue. Since then he has developed laser technologies & optical systems, including Q-switched NIR laser tech, high energy Alexandrite lasers, long coherence & high energy laser systems for holographic imaging, as well as simulation and design of optical systems.
Lindy Brown
Controller,
Head of Human Resources, &
Office Manager
Multi-decade career in finance, tax, office management, and complex high time pressure logistical deployment in the film industry.
Simon Vana
Engineer
Previously, Simon has been an engineering technician at Compact Imaging Inc. as well as Enlumen Technology, and Lumyn Technologies. In these roles eh has been critical in development of new laser and new optical technologies as well as all round prototyping. He has also been a major force in Ephemerisle.
Dr. David Varley
Principal Electrical Engineer
20+ years of experience in technology development and product design for electrical, electro-optics & opti-mechanical products & systems Extensive system level experience and product design validation & regulatory/safety testing. At J&J, Auris Health, Flextronics, Wave Optics, & Stanford Research Sys. PhD & MS Univ. of Rochester, BS Case Western.
Sarah Barreto Ornellas
Biomedical Engineer
Sarah received a BS in Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering from Yale University and for her thesis she research compensation patterns of prosethic users using a motion capture system. Prior to Openwater she worked on projects on wearables, traditional and soft robotics and human motor learning
Ben Zhang
Principal Electrical Engineer
Hardware design at Google for past 7 years spanning Google Glass, Robotics, and previously Apple iphone, RIM blackberry and Amazon fire phone. On various products led design of SoCs, power, processor, memory, camera modules, backlight, RF/Antenna, displays, hardware boards with 200Gbps+ to support DP, LVDS, MIPI; I2C, SPI, C, Phython, OpenCV
Nicole Holt
Administrative Assistant
With a background in sales, tech startups, and market research Nicole has the tools and skills to complete tasks that propel us forward. She believes in the notion that anyone can accomplish anything with the right tools for the job.
Dr. Carl Herickhoff
Consulting Director
Director of Ultrasonic Imaging Sciences Laboratory at Stanford University in the School of Radiology. He has broad experience in ultrasound R&D spanning 14 years in academia and industry (GE Global Research and Philips Medical Systems). MS and PhD from Duke University in Biomedical Engineering, BS in EE from Univ of Notre Dame.
Dr. John Ryan
Consulting Director
Corporate strategy in domains where the underlying physics and manufacturing technology remain unsettled. PhD in laser physics, pioneering <15 fsec pulses, Imperial College, London
Sade Fountila
Executive Assistant
Graduated June 2020 from University of California, Berkeley in Business and since that time has been helping a variety of companies on adminstrative and legal issues. Blue Belt in Jiu Jitsu
Sandra Shpilberg
Consulting Director
Founder and CEO of Seeker Health (acquired by EVERSANA), a leading platform for clinical trials. Entrepreneur, angel investor with experience in starting, builing and executing exit strategy for tech and healthcare companies
Board & Advisory
Dr. Mary Lou Jepsen
Chairman of Board
Named of the hundred most influential people in the world by Time Magazine. Former Executive at Facebook, Oculus, Google, and Intel. Founded 4 hardware companies including Co-founder and CTO of One Laptop per Child (OLPC). Has shipped many $B of products & also Former MIT Professor. 250 published or issued patents.
Jeff Huber
Board Director
Jeff is a legendary engineering senior vice president who pioneered work at Google over his tenure of 3 years. He was the founding CEO and Vice Chairman of Grail. he holds a BS in CS from Univ of Illinois He is also a board member of Grail, Genalyte, EA and The Exporatorium
Juan Enriquez
Board Directors
Juan is the managing director of Excel Venture Management. He is a business leader, author, and academic recognized as one of the world's leading authorities on the economic and political impacts of life sciences. His has written several bestselling books examining our future including As the future catches you and Evolving Ourselves. He earned his BA and MBA from Harvard
Prof. Theodor Haensch
Scientific Advisory Board
Professor Haensch won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2005 for his work on comb lasers and precision spectroscopy. He is the director of Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics and a theoretical physics professor at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich.
Dr. Neal Kassel
Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Kassel is the founder and chairman of the Focused Ultrasound Foundation and former Co-chair of Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia. Dr. Kassl is a founder of numerous private ventures including Interax, Inc; The Virginia Neurological Institue, The NeuroVenture Fund, Multi-media Medical Systems. He earned his MD and undergrad degrees at Univ of Penn.
Legal Team
Scott Dettmer
Legal Counsel
Scott is a founding partner of Gunderson Dettmer and is listed as one of the top IT and venture lawyers in the Global Counsel 3000, Best Lawyers in America and has received numerous awards. He represents a large number of venture funds and has extensive experience in private and public offerings, M&A, corporate partnering and strategic alliances.
Shu Hu
Intellectual Property
Counsel
Shu helps on IP & Tech transactions at Openwater. At Gunderson Dettermer she specializes in the areas of IP counseling, technology transactions, joint ventures and spin-offs. Prior to joining Gunderson Dettmer she was at WIPO. She earned a JD from Stanford Law School, and a MJur from University of Oxford & a BA in Law from China Foreign Affairs Univ
Michael Williams
Legal Counsel
Michael our attorney at Openwater - At Gunderson Dettmer he is a specialist in M&A, with broad experience advising sellers and buyers of tech and venture backed companies through mergers, stock purchases, asset sales and other strategic transactions. Previously he was at WSGR. JD from UCLA as well as BA in economics summa cum laude.
Aaron Visbeek
Patent Counsel
Aaron is a patent attorney and a Partner at Boswelll IP Law and provides most of our guidance on patent matters at Openwater. Previous we was a patent attorney at Kilpatrick Townsend; Blakely Skoloff Taylor & Zafman as well as a cockpit engineer at Korry Electrronics. He holds a JD in from Seattle University cum laude and a BSEE from Seattle Pacific University.
Ashley Macy
Paralegal
Ashley has drafted numerous certifications for partnerships, LLCs and as well as completed numerous efforts in client, customer, financial, regulatory and securities research. She is at Gunderson Dettmer. She earned a BA from Columbia University in Latin American and Carribean Studies.