Founding Team and Executive Management Board of Directors Advisory Board Investors

Greg Schmergel
Co-founder, President & CEO.  Greg Schmergel was most recently Senior Vice
President, Corporate Strategy for About, Inc., the 5th largest Web property. Previously he was President and CEO of ExpertCentral.com, Inc. Greg founded Expert Central in November 1998 to provide consumers and small businesses with access to thousands of experts to use as an online resource for important questions on a wide variety of topics. He also served as Chairman of the Board. ExpertCentral was acquired by About, the leading network of comprehensive vertical sites for users and marketers, in January of 2000 (now part of Primedia, NYSE: PRM). Prior to forming ExpertCentral.com, Greg served as Case Team Leader for Bain & Company where he led consultant teams working on critical strategy and implementation issues for Fortune 1000 companies. His earlier experience includes senior positions at TowerGroup, which he helped start, and the Ernst & Young Center for Information Technology & Strategy. Reuters acquired TowerGroup in November 1999. Greg also served as a Summer Associate at Booz*Allen & Hamilton, Inc. Greg stays active in supporting entrepreneurship at Harvard, MIT, and throughout Boston, including being a guest speaker at entrepreneurial classes and groups and a judge for the MIT $50K Entrepreneurship Competition. He also serves on the Advisory Board of the NanoBusiness Alliance and on the Board of the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, the largest technology business association in the region. Greg graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and earned an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Greg was selected as the 2006 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award winner in New England, in the emerging technology category.   The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year awards program honors entrepreneurs who have demonstrated excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance, and personal commitment to their businesses and communities. 

Dr. Thomas Rueckes
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer.  Tom completed his PhD at Harvard University in the Department of Chemistry. He is the inventor of the NRAM™ concept and co-author of the associated patent application. His experience spans the fields of nanotechnology and vacuum surface science of semiconductors and metals. He was a Research Fellow at Harvard University, and was first author of the paper "Carbon Nanotube-based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing," Science 289, 94 (2000). He has also worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Pittsburgh, a Diplom student at the University of Marburg in Germany (degree received in Chemistry in December 1995), and the Erasmus Fellow at Imperial College, London. His awards include the Materials Research Society Gold Award (2000) and the Erasmus Student Fellowship of the European Community (1993-1994). Tom was also selected as a Finalist in the Experimental category for the 2003 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology awarded by the Foresight Institute (previous winners have included Professor Charles Lieber of Harvard University and Phaedon Avouris of IBM). His work has been highlighted in the press and in numerous journals including: The Industrial Physicist, Chemical & Engineering News, IMM Reports, Harvard University Gazette (front page article), Nanodot-Foresight, NanoTech News, and Technology Research News, in addition to an interview on National Public Radio (on the topic of NTRAM).

Dr. Brent M. Segal
Co-founder (worked at Nantero 2001-2008).  Brent has become a leading authority on the strategic and tactical aspects of building and managing a large nanotechnology-based intellectual property portfolio, through his work in overseeing Nantero’s 100+ patent applications, of which over 45 have been granted. He is often asked to speak at industry events on the topic. Brent also pioneered the development of Nantero's Government Business Unit, which grew into a leading provider of carbon nanotube-based products and services to the US Government and then was acquired by Lockheed Martin in 2008. Brent previously ran laboratory operations at Metaprobe LLC, where he was a Research Chemist. He was previously a Research Associate at Nycomed Salutar, Inc., and received his PhD in Chemistry from Harvard University. He has published frequently in a variety of prestigious academic journals. He is Chairman of the Industrial Advisory Board of the Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing (CHN) at Northeastern University, University of Massachusetts at Lowell and University of New Hampshire. He is frequently invited to speak at conferences and seminars such as COMDEX, NANOTECH 2006/7 and the annual National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI). He is a graduate of Reed College, with a degree in Biochemistry

Sohrab Kianian
Vice President, Licensing and Business Development. Sohrab was previously the Vice President, Technology Licensing and Business Development for Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. (SST), where he was one of the first employees. Sohrab was responsible for starting and leading SST’s licensing business. SST became a leading licensor of embedded nonvolatile memory, with the following licensees: 1st Silicon (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (Grace), IBM, National Semiconductor Corporation, NEC Corporation, Oki Electric Industry Co. Ltd., Powerchip Semiconductor Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., SANYO Electric Co., Ltd., Seiko Epson Corp., Shanghai Hua Hong NEC Electronics Co., Ltd., Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), Toshiba Corporation, Vanguard International Semiconductor Corporation and Winbond Electronics Corp. He was also in charge of litigation and enforcement of licensing agreements. From 1991-1997, he was Senior Manager, Device Physics at SST. From 1989-1990, he was a Senior Device Engineer at Altera, and before that he was a Senior Device Engineer at Xicor Corporation, working on EEPROM. He holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UCLA, and has eighteen issued US patents in the field of nonvolatile memory.

Robert O. Lindefjeld
General Counsel and Chief Intellectual Property Counsel. Robert was previously a Partner at Jones Day, where he was in charge of the Pittsburgh office Intellectual Property Group. He has been lead counsel and second-chair in numerous IP infringement matters in state and federal district court, arbitration, and the International Trade Commission in a wide variety of technologies including computer chips. He has also been Senior Vice President and General Counsel, iVentureLab.com. Before that he was a Law Clerk at the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He holds a JD from Widener University School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. He holds a BS in Biology from Norwich University, Military College of Vermont, where he enrolled in ROTC prior to serving as a Lieutenant in the United States Army Infantry. He is listed in “The Best Lawyers in America” and “Chambers USA, America’s Best Lawyers for Business” and “Pennsylvania Super Lawyers.” He is currently Secretary for the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, Chair of the Local Patent Rules Committee for the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, and Chair, American Intellectual Property Law Association Inventor Issues Committee.

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