Founders
Management
Board Members
Founders
 Dr.
Orlando Auciello, Founding Scientist
Dr. Orlando Auciello is a Senior Scientist in the Materials
Science Division at Argonne
National Laboratory and an Adjunct Professor at North
Carolina State University and the University
of Illinois-Chicago. He earned his MS and Ph.D. degrees
from the Institute "Balseiro" (University of Cuyo,
Argentina) and held various academic and industrial positions
in Canada and the U.S. before coming to Argonne. Dr. Auciello
has contributed extensively to the science and technology of
plasma, ion beam and laser interaction with solids, complex
oxide thin films (e.g., ferroelectrics, high-k dielectrics and
new CMOS gates), wide bandgap thin films (GaN, AlN), and nanocrystalline
diamond films for MEMS, NEMS, and field emission devices. He
has published about 350 papers and numerous review articles
and book chapters, in addition to editing ten books and obtaining
seven patents. He has received several honors, including the
2003 R&D 100 Award for co-development of the large-area
plasma systems for the deposition of Ultrananocrystalline diamond,
the 2003 Hispanic Engineering National Achievement Award for
outstanding technical accomplishments in the general field of
science and technology of thin films, and a 2002 special recognition
from the Materials Research Society for outstanding contributions
to that society as a member of the Governing Board.
 Dr.
John Carlisle, Founding Scientist
and Chief Technical Officer
Dr. John Carlisle, Chief Technical Officer, co-founded ADT
in 2003 while he was a staff scientist in the Materials Science
Division at Argonne
National Laboratory (ANL). Carlisle is a recognized leader
in the world diamond community, and his work in recent years
has spanned the basic-applied-commercial continuum. While at
ANL he worked on a number of technology development projects
connected with the UNCD®
thin film technology he co-developed at ANL, including establishing
materials integration strategies relevant to the use of UNCD
in MEMS devices, the use of UNCD as a wear resistant low-friction
coating for mechanical pump seals, and the development of low-temperature
UNCD as a hermetic coating for a retinal prosthesis, all of
this work continuing in ADT. He is also a co-recipient of the
prestigious R&D 100 award in 2003 for the development of
large-area plasma systems for the deposition of UNCD. In the
process of founding ADT he developed a larger interest in the
debate over the role of scientists in the commercialization
of technologies born of their research, and the technology transfer
plan developed for ADT based on his efforts has been recognized
by the Department of Energy as a model for future tech transfer
activities at national labs. His recent basic research interests
have focused on the synthesis and characterization of nanostructured
carbon materials, including nanodiamond thin films, carbon nanotubes,
and hybrids of these materials. Previously he conducted seminal
work in the area of surface physics and synchrotron radiation
characterization of surface and thin film material systems.
Dr. Carlisle received BS degrees in both physics and mathematics,
with highest honors and academic distinction, from Texas A&M
University, as well as an MS degree in Physics from the same
institution. In 1993 he completed his Ph.D. in Physics from
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Carlisle
has published about 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals, given
numerous invited lectures at international conference, and has
one issued patent and several others under review.
 Neil
Kane, President
Mr. Kane is the former
Executive Director of the Illinois Technology Enterprise Center
at Argonne National Laboratory and Entrepreneur in Residence
with Illinois
Ventures, LLC. As EIR, Mr. Kane was interim CEO of several
of their portfolio companies. He has closed several rounds of
venture capital from various sources and has secured numerous
SBIR and government contracts and awards. As
a consultant he has evaluated the commercial potential of advanced
technologies for The University
of Chicago, Argonne
National Laboratory, the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois
Institute of Technology.
Mr. Kane was named a
2007 Technology Pioneer by the World
Economic Forum.
Earlier he was Regional Business Development Manager for Microsoft
Corporation in Chicago. In this role he identified, negotiated
and closed a $25 million equity investment in an Illinois-based
software company. He spoke publicly as an evangelist for Microsoft
on dozens of occasions.
He began his business career at IBM where he held a series of
marketing and technical positions. In his last position, he
was a Business Consultant focused on furthering the technology
penetration of IBM products at several major accounts in the
process and consumer packaged goods industries. Before that,
he was the IBM liaison to Andersen Consulting (now Accenture)
and helped create the strategic business alliance between IBM
and Andersen Consulting that became the model for the industry.
In this capacity he earned membership into IBM’s Golden Circle.
He began his career as a manufacturing engineer in IBM’s San
Jose, California disk drive facility where he designed robotic
tooling.
Neil holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering
from the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (high honors) and a Masters
of Business Administration (finance and policy studies) from
The University
of Chicago. He has attended graduate school in Australia
and attended a post-graduate international management program
in Japan on scholarship from JETRO.
MANAGEMENT
Charles West, VP of Engineering
Charles F. (Charlie) West has been leading and developing
product development of thin inorganic films for over 30 years.
He has been directly responsible for the development of many vapor
phase thin-film (primarily CVD) applications in the areas of electronic,
bio-medical, optics, and wear and corrosion. Prior to joining
ADT he was one of the founders of QuesTek
Innovations, LLC, another award-winning high tech startup
in the Chicago area. Charlie was the CVD Group leader and a Research
Scientist at Northwestern University prior to starting QuesTek
and a research scientist for 10 years at Battelle Columbus Laboratories
in the Electronic and Optical Materials Group. Charlie has been
working directly with prospective clients and helping them develop
new products and processes throughout his career. He has also
been personally responsible for enabling and transferring new
and unique CVD processing to NASA, universities, national laboratories,
and several industrial firms.
Dr. Nicolaie Moldovan, MEMS Lead
Scientist
Nicolaie ("Mike") Moldovan is a top micro-nanofabrication
expert with 20+ years of experience in materials, process, and
device integration. He joined ADT after being a research professor
with Northwestern
University where he developed diamond AFM probes, nanofountain
probes for AFM nanolithography, and carbon nanotube devices. During
1998-2002, with Argonne
National Laboratory, he conducted research in ultradeep x-ray
lithography, x-ray microoptics, field emitters, and ultrananocrystalline
diamond (UNCD) microfabrication technologies. From 1983 to 1998
he developed electronic devices, micro-optics, and microfabrication
technologies at the Institute for Electronic Components and the
Institute of Microtechnology
in Bucharest, Romania. As head of the Laboratory for Unconventional
Microfabrication Technologies, he ran international projects in
LIGA technology, silicon, germanium, metal, and glass micromachining
for micromechanics and micro-optics.
Dr. Moldovan received his M.Sc. degree (1982)
and his Ph.D. (1997) in Physics from the University
of Bucharest, Romania. He completed two DAAD research stages
in the Fraunhofer
Institute for Solid State Technology Germany, where he specialized
in anisotropic etching of silicon and germanium, and stress engineering
in thin films and membranes. Among his achievements is listed
a master equation-based atomic scale model able to reproduce the
Si-KOH etching anisotropy diagram starting from atomic and lattice
parameters. He has authored more than 100 scientific papers, five
patents, and received an
R&D 100 award.
Dr. Diane P. Hickey,
Director of Marketing & Sales
Diane Hickey possesses a strong balance of technical and communication
skills and is uniquely able to translate features of advanced
materials technology into benefits for customers. Holding a Ph.D.
from the University of Florida
(one of the top ten Material Science & Engineering programs
in the country), Dr. Hickey spent her time in graduate school
researching diamond-structured materials, including diamond, silicon
and germanium. She also pursued graduate research in Science Communication
(College of Journalism) where she studied mass media's coverage
of nanotechnology.
Dr. Hickey began her business career at Accenture
(originally Andersen Consulting), and continued at the small business
strategy start-up C-bridge,
where she led teams of developers and designers to rapidly prototype
business solutions for a variety of Fortune 500 clients. She holds
her B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Auburn
University, where she was named one of the top 20 female leaders
on campus (student body: 22,000).
Richard Williston,
Director of Manufacturing
Richard Williston joined Advanced Diamond in 2009 and is responsible
for manufacturing, product delivery, product quality, environmental
health and safety, facilities, equipment engineering and supply
chain management, along with product development into manufacturing,
process transfer and back-end operations. Richard has an extensive
background in MEMS, LCD display, microelectronics and semiconductor
manufacturing, gained in over 23 years of experience with several
leading companies in the high-tech sector.
Prior to joining ADT, Richard held similar positions at MEMS start-ups
such as Microbridge Technologies, BigBangwidth, Advanced Integrated
Microsystems, and worked for established manufacturers such as
Nortel Networks, Com Dev International, Delphax Systems and Litton
Systems Canada Limited. Most notably, he managed the diamond production
efforts at Crystalline Materials Corporation for over four years,
transitioning the company from raw start-up to the lowest-cost,
volume supplier of diamond heatsink solutions. Richard holds a
B.Sc. in Solid State Physics from the University of Waterloo and
a M.E.Sc. in Materials Engineering from the University of Western
Ontario.
Greg Broschka, Production
Manager
Greg Broschka is an experienced professional with background
in manufacturing management, industrial R&D, engineering,
marketing, economics, and regulatory affairs. Prior to ADT, he
worked 10 years at Kepner Products
Company, a manufacturer of precision-engineered valves, where
he was responsible for manufacturing operations, manufacturing
engineering, production control, quality, and purchasing. Before
that he spent 20 years in the energy industry with Amoco (now
BP).
Greg has an MBA from the Kellogg
Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University,
and also an MS degree in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern
University. He earned a BS degree in Chemical Engineering
from the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign.
Dr. Hongjun Zeng, Senior
MEMS R&D Scientist
Dr. Hongjun Zeng is a leading expert in Optical MEMS, microfluidics,
micro and nano fabrication. Dr. Zeng received a PhD degree from
Chinese
Academy Sciences. He has 12-year extensive experience in the
development of the MEMS/Nano devices and fabrication techniques,
including Moving Mask lithography, agile actuators especially
micro-mirrors, micro-screening chips for toxin detection, nanochannels
and materials for nanofabrication. Currently he is more focusing
on surface micro- and nano-machining including CVD/PVD thin film
manufacturing for different industrial applications. Before joining
ADT, Dr.Zeng was a R&D Engineer at Foxconn
and a research scientist at the University
of Illinois at Chicago.
Dr. Zeng was an inventor and core investigator of several novel
microfabrication techniques. He was a co-principal investigator
in the Chinese Academy of Sciences Knowledge
Innovation Program (KIP), which specifically supports “technologies
with strategic significance”. He was a winner of second
class Deng Physics Prize in 1996 and the third class Prize of
Sichuan Province Science and Technology Improvement in 2001. He
authored/co-authored 3 patents and more than 50 publications and
presentations. He was elected as a senior member of IEEE
and full member of Sigma Xi in 2006. He is a senior reviewer of
many top journals such as Optics Letters, Optics Express, Nanotechnology,
IEEE-PTL, JMEMS, JMM, JVST-B, etc.
James Netzel, Director of Seals Engineering
James P. (Jim) Netzel has more than forty years of experience
in the design and application of mechanical seals which includes
twenty years of service as Chief Engineer at John
Crane, Morton Grove, Illinois. He has written and has
published numerous technical papers that were published through
the International Pump Symposium, STLE,
ASME, BHRA, AISE, SAE,
and various trade publications. Jim has written chapters
on seals, sealing systems for the Pump Handbook, The Centrifugal
Pump Handbook and the Compressor Handbook.
Jim received his B.S. degree in Mechanical
Engineering in 1963 from the University
of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is a fellow of The
Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers (STLE).
BOARD MEMBERS
Bob Geras, Board Member
Bob Geras, President of LaSalle Investments, Incorporated, has
been an active participant in the VC and angel community in Chicago
for over 35 years. Bob has extensive line operating experience
as an entrepreneur, and he received the “Angel of the Year-2002”
award by the Chicago Software Association. Bob has been
a featured panelist, lecturer, mentor and/or business plan judge
for the Illinois Coalition,
the University of
Illinois, Kellogg
School of Management, University
of Chicago, Roosevelt University, DePaul University as well
as in seminars sponsored by the Chicago
Software Association, Garage.com,
the Midwest Entrepreneurship Forum, and the Association for Corporate
Growth.
In 1986 he bought MEDX, Inc. a troubled Rolling
Meadows, Illinois medical equipment company, and in five years
turned it around and sold the company for 26 times his cost. Since
1989, he’s been a co-founder and the largest shareholder of publicly
traded Merge Technologies (MRGE),
the industry leader in eHealth connectivity products for medical
imaging and other clinical information, helping to make the "electronic
patient record" a reality. He's also an investor in
Exadigm, NexVu, and 20/20 Technologies. Bob is also a director
and/or investor in VideoHomeTours,
ShowingTime.com,
Citizens Bank and Trust, and PowerQuest Corporation, a leading
software developer and technology pioneer. In addition, he is
an investor and/or advisor to Kettle
Partners, Chicago Ventures, KB
Partners, Kingsport Capital, Artesian Capital, and is a founding
member and a Director of the Illinois
Venture Capital Association.
John Regan, Board Member
John
Regan is a Senior Director of Illinois
Ventures, LLC.
Jeffrey Niew, Board Member
Jeffrey S. Niew is the Chief Operating Officer of Knowles
Electronics. Mr. Niew joined Knowles in June 2000 and has
been held various management positions among which he was responsible
for the development and productization of the SiSonic MEMS based
microphone. Prior to joining Knowles, he was the Business Development
Manager for Littelfuse Incorporated, a global electronics manufacturer
specializing in the consumer and automotive markets. In addition
he held various engineering and marketing positions in the optoelectronics
division of Hewlett-Packard. Mr. Niew has a Bachelor of Science
degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois
at Chicago.
Dennis Roberson, Board Member
Dennis Roberson is Vice Provost, and Research Professor in Computer
Science at Illinois
Institute of Technology. In this capacity, he has responsibility
for IIT’s relationships with its various corporate partners.
Professor Roberson is an active researcher in the wireless networking
arena and is a co-founder of IIT’s Wireless
Network and Communications Research Center (WiNCom). He also
assists with IIT’s technology transfer efforts, the development
of new research centers, and technology-based business ventures.
He currently serves on the boards of several technology-based
companies, including four in the telecommunications industry.
Prior to IIT, he was EVP and CTO at Motorola. Professor Roberson
has an extensive corporate career including major business and
technology responsibilities at IBM, DEC (now part of HP), AT&T,
and NCR. He is and has been involved with a wide variety of Technology,
Cultural, Educational and Youth organizations currently including
the FCC
- TAC (Technology Advisory Council), the National Advisory
Board for the Boy Scouts of America, and the Board of FIRST Robotics.
He is a frequent speaker at universities, technical workshops,
and conferences around the globe.
Professor Roberson has BS degrees in Electrical Engineering and
Physics from Washington State University and a MSEE degree from
Stanford.
|
