Speaker Biographies
Biological and Chemical Sensors for Healthcare Applications
George Duval
Mr. George Duval has been designing medical devices in imaging, telemetry and emerging technologies for over 10 years. He has been a technology innovator since before the early days of smart phones where he integrated a variety of new technologies in a growing consumer space. He’s lead teams on new exploratory ventures to launch new businesses, for companies like Intel, Philips and Boston Scientific. Currently, he’s involved in growing an endoscopy business with advancing diagnostic capabilities for Boston Scientific. George has published technical papers on Reconfigurable Radios, Smart antenna arrays and has several patents filed at USPTO on advanced sensor and imaging technologies designed to help diagnose diseases in the GI tract.
Rima Habre, Ph.D.
Dr. Rima Habre received her Doctor of Science in Environmental Health from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health in 2012, with a concentration in air pollution exposure assessment. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Clinical Preventive Medicine in the Division of Environmental Health at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. In this role, she co-leads the ‘Real-Time Air Pollution and Asthma Study’ as part of the Los Angeles PRISMS Center, which is building an informatics platform for environmental health and pediatric asthma research using mHealth technologies and wearable sensors. Dr. Habre also directs the Exposure Assessment Cores in the MADRES Environmental Health Disparities (NIH/EPA/NIMHD) pregnancy cohort study and the LA DREAMERS (NIH ECHO program) children’s cohort study, investigating the effects of environmental exposures in the prenatal period and early childhood on the respiratory and metabolic health of pregnant women and children in Los Angeles, CA. In this capacity, Dr. Habre leads large scale spatiotemporal air pollution modeling efforts using machine learning approaches and research-grade personal air pollution exposure monitoring efforts to characterize pregnant women’s exposure to complex air pollution mixtures across various time scales and microenvironments and their resulting effects on health.
Christopher Hartshorn, Ph.D.
Dr. Christopher M. Hartshorn serves as a program director at the National Cancer Institute Office of the National Institutes of Health. In this role, he manages nano- and passive continuous monitoring-centric research projects, evaluates effectiveness of the programs, and maintains proper stewardship over federally funded research. Furthermore, he serves as a technical expert to extramural programs and participates in development and direction of new research initiatives within the NCI Center for Strategic Scientific Initiatives. Prior to the OCNR, Dr. Hartshorn worked for the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Dr. Hartshorn earned his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry and Materials Science from Washington State University.
John Murad
For over 18 years, John has implemented forward-thinking marketing strategies, patient-focused healthcare research and led highly effective teams in the medical healthcare market. Over those 18 years, he has led innovative programs to drive billion dollar products for 2 major fortune 50 companies in healthcare, Abbott and P&G. He has developed breakthrough strategies for hospitals, physician and integrated delivery networks in the pharmaceutical and medical diagnosis markets. He is considered a key opinion leader in the area of customer treads for the outpatient and ambulatory care Point-of-Care diagnostics market. He is also has a vast knowledge of the medical reimbursement regulations. John received his Bachelor of Science from Rutgers University, and multiple business education certifications.
Lukas Scheibler, Ph.D.
Lukas Scheibler, Ph.D. is the Head of R&D at Acucela Inc., a Seattle-based biotech startup committed to translate innovation into a diverse portfolio of drugs and devices to preserve and restore vision for millions of people worldwide. Under his leadership, the company expanded its project portfolio to include therapies for neovascular retinal diseases, cataract as well as orphan diseases such as Retinitis Pigmentosa and Stargardt Disease. Most recently, the company added a home-based diagnostic instrument to monitor disease progression in patients with retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. Prior to that, Dr. Scheibler worked for 14 years at Novartis and Alcon in different R&D roles. He received his graduate degree from the University of Basel, Switzerland and a doctorate degree from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Ryan Spitler, Ph.D.
Dr. Spitler is the Deputy Director of the Precision Health and Integrated Diagnostics Center (PHIND) at Stanford University. He completed his Post Doctorial Research Fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine, conducting research in the field of Magnetogenetics for remote-controlled cellular reprogramming and developed smart MRI diagnostics tools for oncology. He has also developed a number of new approaches working across several scientific areas ranging from medical devices to gene therapy. Prior to his position at Stanford, Dr. Spitler received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Developmental Biology at the Beckman Laser Institute at the University of California, Irvine. His research at the Beckman Laser Institute included developing and characterizing new nitric oxide-based drugs, as well as laser, and LED-based multimodal wound healing therapies. Dr. Spitler earned his B.S. in Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he worked in the areas of structural biology and biochemistry. Over the past two decades he has held a number of academic and industrial positions and has served as an advisor for a number of Bay Area companies. Dr. Spitler is the recipient of the Stanford Radiological Sciences Laboratory Innovation Challenge Award, the Stanford Cancer Imaging Fellowship Training Award, the Biophotas Research Fellowship, and the Stanford Center for Biomedical Imaging Achievement Award. He has numerous scientific articles and book chapters across many different disciplines.
Jagjit Teji, M.D.
Jagjit Singh Teji is an Attending Neonatologist at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Jagjit has keen interest in changing the way neonatal care is provided in the NICU. He has over 30 years’ experience in the NICU. Before coming to the current position, Dr. Teji was at the University of Chicago for 12 years. Device development for the care of babies in the NICU is the next adventure, and he is pursuing several patents. Having prior exposure to Chemical Engineering and being currently board certified in the Neonatology and after attending cutting edge medical conferences, Dr. Jagjit Singh Teji has many ideas that can improve the care of the babies. Integration of disciplines is the way to progress in the future.
Ping Wang, Ph.D.
Ping Wang, Ph.D., D(ABCC), FACB is currently Chief of Clinical Chemistry and Director of Core Laboratory at Hospital of University of Pennsylvania, and Associate Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Wang received her BS degree in Biological Sciences and Biotechnology from Tsinghua University, P.R. China in 2000 followed by a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She completed a fellowship in Clinical Chemistry from the University of California-San Francisco in 2007, and is board certified in Clinical Chemistry, Toxicological Chemistry and Molecular Diagnostics. Besides clinical service and teaching responsibilities, Dr. Wang’s research focus is to improve analytic methods for precision disease diagnosis and prognosis by developing next-generation central laboratory methods and point of care devices with novel sensors, materials and microfluidics. She currently is PI and co-PI on several NIH-funded projects and multiple projects funded by other sources developing these novel methods. Dr. Wang also works with industrial partners on research studies and clinical trials.
Joshua Windmiller, Ph.D.
Dr. Joshua Windmiller is an internationally recognized expert in electrochemical biosensor technology. His Ph.D. research, funded by a Powell Foundation fellowship, focused on the development of printed biosensors, bioelectronics, and biofuel cells. He has published over 50 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and has eighteen US patents issued or pending. Dr. Windmiller, a Gordon Fellow, NIH SHIFT awardee, and two-time NIH Lab-to-Marketplace awardee is the recipient of the Printed Electronics USA 2010 Academic R&D award for his developments in textile-based printed bioelectronics. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratory for NanoBioElectronics at UCSD in 2013, where he was supported by the von Liebig Center for Entrepreneurism and led a commercialization grant sponsored by the Department of Energy. For his successful product development activities leading to the commercialization of novel printed bioelectronic paradigms, he received the Printed Electronics USA 2014 Product Development award. He currently serves as the CTO of Biolinq, a startup that he co-founded, devoted to the development of the novel biosensing modalities he has invented for application in the personal wellness and healthcare domains.
Implantable Biomedical Systems: Wireless Charging & Communications for Implantable Medical Devices
Newton Howard, Ph.D.
Prof. Newton Howard is an inventor and scientist. He has over 30 years of experience developing technology and bringing it to market including products now owned by Boeing, Intel, Google and Microsoft with the development of emergent technologies and IP. Dr. Howard has over 100 publications, and has generated over 85 patents in the fields of AI and neuroscience. Dr. Newton Howard is a Professor of Computational Neuroscience and Functional Neurosurgery at the University of Oxford, where he also serves as Director of the Computational Neuroscience Lab. At MIT, Professor Howard is the Director of the Synthetic Intelligence Laboratory and the former Director of the MIT Mind Machine Project. Professor Howard is an active member of several research laboratories worldwide, including the Descartes Institute, the Brain Physics Group and INSERM, in Paris. He is also the Founder and Chairman of the Brain Sciences Foundation. Dr. Howard has been involved in a wide range of research, spanning academic, military and commercial domains and has resulted in several significant theories, including Intention Awareness (IA), the Fundamental Code Unit (FCU) and the Brain Code (BC). His work at Oxford has been focused on understanding how the most fundamental processes within the human brain produce thought and consciousness. He seeks to understand the language of the brain, for the purposes of providing advanced methods of detection and treatment for many neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), Parkinson’s Disease (PD), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, epilepsy and diabetes.
Christopher Kwan
Christopher Kwan received his MEng degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Imperial College London, U.K. in 2013. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree within the Control and Power Research Group at the same institution, working on wireless power transfer for medical devices. He is a member of the Wireless Power Lab at Imperial College London, which is dedicated to research in the areas of inductive power transfer and RF energy harvesting.
Farah Laiwalla, M.D., Ph.D.
Farah Laiwalla has a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Lafayette College Easton, PA. She subsequently worked at the Yale School of Medicine on the design of integrated Patch Clamp Amplifiers. She obtained an M.D. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Brown University in Providence, RI. Her thesis research focused on the design of low power integrated circuits for implantable neural recording and stimulation. Dr. Laiwalla is currently a Senior Research Associate at Brown University, working on the development of next generation wireless implantable neural sensors.
Vincent Leung, Ph.D.
Vincent W. Leung received the B. Eng. and M. Eng. degrees in electrical engineering from McGill University, Montreal, QC, Canada, in 1995 and 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, San Diego, in 2004. He had held various analog/RF design positions with Analog Devices (1997–2000), the IBM T. J. Watson Research Center (2004), Silicon Laboratories (2005–2008). At Qualcomm (2008-2016), he researched and developed 3G/4G cellular RFIC transceivers. In 2016, he joined UCSD/Qualcomm Institute as the Technical Director, Circuits Lab.
Dr. Leung was an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Columbia University, New York, NY (2005-2007). He is the co-author of 1 book, and the co-inventor of 13 US patents (issued or pending).
Stephen Shellhammer, Ph.D.
Stephen J. Shellhammer is a Principal Engineer/Manager at Qualcomm Research. Recently he has focused on development of ultra-low power wireless technologies. He participates in the IEEE 802.11ba Wake-up Radio standards development project, where he contributes to the Physical Layer design. Within Qualcomm Research, he led the development of a wake-up receiver test chip. Recently he has been working on the development of a medical implant communication system (MICS) modem. Previously, he led a cognitive radio project within the Qualcomm Research. He is currently the chair of the IEEE 802.19 working group on wireless coexistence and a member of the IEEE 802 executive committee. He was the chair of the IEEE 802.15.2 task group on wireless coexistence between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Before joining Qualcomm, he was a wireless architect in Intel’s wireless local area network division. Previously, he was the Director of the Advanced Development department at Symbol Technologies. He was an Adjunct Professor at SUNY Stony Brook, where he taught graduate courses in electrical engineering. He has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara, an MSEE from San Jose State University, and a BS in Physics from the University of California San Diego. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE.
Yoon-Kyu Song, Ph.D.
Yoon-Kyu Song received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in electronics engineering from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea, in 1992 and 1994, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from Brown University, Providence, RI, in 1999. He was a Research Scientist at Agilent Technologies, San Jose, CA, until rejoining Brown University as an Assistant Professor (Research) in 2003. He is currently an Associate Professor of Graduate School of Convergence Science and Technology at Seoul National University in Republic of Korea. His research interests include various aspects of neural engineering with a particular emphasis on brain machine interfaces, as well as bio-inspired nanomaterials, and advanced optoelectronics for biomedical applications.
William von Novak
Bill von Novak has been at Qualcomm Technologies Incorporated since 1994, when he worked on early CDMA base stations and handsets. Since then, he has been working in the field of power management and wireless power transmission, and now leads the wireless power group at Qualcomm. He spearheaded the formation of the AirFuel Alliance and has remained active in that organization. He has 155 issued patents in almost a dozen countries, most covering wireless power transmission.
Biological and Chemical Sensors for Emerging Applications
Francois Beauchaud
Francois Beauchaud started working with MEMS devices even before he graduated with a Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering from the Institut des Sciences Appliquees (INSA) of Lyon, France in 2007. While pursuing his Engineering Diploma, Francois also obtained a Master Degree in Microelectronics from the University Claude Bernard of Lyon. He is currently based in Palo Alto, California as a Principal Engineer - Business Develoment at Bosch Sensortec. Francois previously held the position of Senior Field Applications Engineer North America for Bosch Sensortec from 2010 to 2014 and Applications Engineer for Bosch Sensortec in Germany from 2008 to 2010.
Andy Behr
Andy Behr is a Technology Manager for Panasonic Electronic Materials Division. He is responsible for leading the US research and marketing team efforts to deliver new materials for electronics and other emerging market applications. A significant portion of his current role is technology/business scouting which involves “triangulating” strategic level market demands, business drivers and technology advancements in order to direct enabling materials development. Andy graduated with a bachelor degree in biology and a master’s degree in business. Andy has more than twenty-five years of experience in material technologies such as photo resists, adhesives, encapsulants, conductive materials, fluoro-chemicals, abrasives, films and tapes. Andy began his career in research and has subsequently held positions in marketing and leadership. He holds patents, has authored papers and speaks at conferences.
Mark Buccini
Mark E. Buccini is responsible for advanced mixed-signal product platform strategy and execution as a staff member at Texas Instruments supporting the company’s Kilby Research Labs. He has over 29 years' experience that spans a range of application areas including ultra-low power deeply embedded systems, energy harvesting, human machine interface, energy metering, smart grid, wireless sensor networks, intelligent motor drives and voice recognition. In addition to strategic responsibilities for TI, Mark regularly blogs and has authored over 100 papers that have been published around world including in the Wall Street Journal, Dallas Business Journal, IEEE, EDN, APEC, ESC, Sensors Expo and even Nuts and Volts among many others. The technical workshops he has authored have been delivered live to over 20,000 engineers worldwide. Mark lives in Allen, Texas, is married with two children and has a Bachelor's of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.
Guillaume Chansin, Ph.D.
Dr. Guillaume Chansin is a senior analyst for IDTechEx Research. Based in Cambridge (UK), he has been following the latest trends and market data in printed electronics, sensors, flexible displays and wearable electronics since 2012. He is well known in the industry for his coverage of Printed and Flexible Sensors and is the first analyst to publish a comprehensive report on the subject. More recently, he has been driving new market research in the field of chemical sensors and biosensors. Guillaume obtained a degree in Physics Engineering from INSA Toulouse, followed by a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics at Imperial College London.
Lisa Diamond
Pinpoint Science cofounder and CEO Lisa Diamond has a 40-year record of technology innovation and engineering leadership, as architect and developer in molecular diagnostics and computational genomics, financial and trading applications, business intelligence and analytics, computer animation, digital video and more. She has worked with UCSC professor of bioengineering Dr. Nader Pourmand to pioneer novel diagnostic technology to detect pandemic influenza, malaria, TB and other pathogens. Diamond holds two patents for novel molecular diagnostics. As principal software architect with SF non-profit Global Viral, Diamond designed the cloud-based sample repository for its Boundaries of Life initiative, working with researchers at Stanford, CalTech, JGI and NASA in the search for novel forms of life. At the Stanford Genome Technology Center, Diamond developed software for metagenomic analysis and to generate molecular probes for cancer and infectious disease. As Vice President of Engineering at Black Pearl, she led development of innovative AI business applications. Diamond led streaming wireless and data visualization development for equity trading as Vice President of Technology Innovation at Reuters, and led the Market Data Engineering team at Tibco Finance Technology in Palo Alto. As Vice President of Architecture and Strategy for Global Market Data Systems at Merrill Lynch, she was responsible for key trading floor infrastructure and applications in Tokyo and New York. Earlier in her career, Diamond pioneered real-time graphics, animation and digital video systems.
Shreyas Shah, Ph.D.
Shreyas Shah completed his B.S. in Biomedical Engineering and Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical Biology at Rutgers University. His doctoral research focused on developing nanomaterial-based approaches to manipulate cellular behaviors for applications in neural regeneration, drug delivery and optogenetics. His work has been published in various high impact peer-reviewed journals, including Nature Chemical Biology, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, Journal of the American Chemical Society and Chemical Reviews. In recognition of his achievements, he has received numerous awards and honors including the Reid Fellow Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Doctoral Research, Van Dyke Award for Excellence in Research and the NSF-IGERT on Stem Cells Fellowship. He was invited to join the world-renown Bell Labs in 2015, where he has launched a pioneering new research program in Physiological Communications.
Joseph Wang
Joseph Wang is Distinguished Professor, SAIC Endowed Chair and Chair of the Department of Nanoengineering at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). He also serves as the Director of Center for Wearable Sensors (CWS) at UCSD School of Engineering. He held Regents Professorship and a Manasse Chair positions at NMSU, and served as the Director of Center for Bioelectronics and Biosensors of Arizona State University (ASU). He received two ACS National Awards in 1999 and 2006 and 8 Honorary Professors from the US, Spain, Argentina, Czech Republic, Slovenia and China. Prof. Wang is the Editor-in-Chief of Electroanalysis (Wiley). His scientific interests are concentrated in the areas of nanomachines, bioelectronics, biosensors, wearable devices, and bionanotechnology. He has authors over 1,000 papers that were cited over 62,000 times (ISI H Index=119).
Safety Hazards and User Risk Mitigation with Sensor Data and Sensor Deployment-Lessons Learned from CPSC
Ray Huang
Dr. Huang's expertise is in consumer electronics hardware and software with specialty in product liability, safety, quality, compliance and reliability. He has worked in Europe, Asia and North America advising industrial and legal clients with focus on devising strategic plan to address technical risk as well as intellectual property and due diligence of legacy and emerging technologies. He has lead complex analytics and product investigations in the field of microelectronics, battery and energy storage systems and computer control systems with respect to wearable devices and technologies, AR/VR technologies, IoT and Smart Home appliances, automotive electronics and event data recorders, displays and touch screens and general consumer electronics applications.
Commercialization Opportunities in Printed/Flexible Fabric Sensors
Roger Grace
Roger H. Grace is president of Roger Grace Associates, a Naples, Florida-based strategic marketing consulting firm, which he founded in 1982 specializing in sensors and sensor-based systems. His background includes over 40 years in high frequency analog circuit design engineering, application engineering, project management, product marketing and technology consulting. His clients include the international “Who’s Who” of corporations, federal laboratories and government agencies. Specializing in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and sensors for over 30 years, he is considered a pioneer in this field. He has authored over 60 technical papers; organized, chaired, and spoken at over 30 international technical sessions; contributed over 30 technical feature articles to international industry leading publications and is frequently quoted as an industry expert in major international technical and business publications. He is a recipient of the Outstanding Engineering Alumni of the Year in 2004 by Northeastern University. Mr. Grace held the position of visiting lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley from 1990 to 2003. His educational background includes a B.S.E.E. and M.S.E.E. (as a Raytheon Company fellow) from Northeastern University, and the MBA program at Haas Graduate School of Business at U.C. Berkeley. He was bestowed the inaugural “Sensors Industry Impact Award” by Sensors Magazine in June 2016.