Alan R. Kivnik, M.Sc - President and Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Kivnik is a serial entrepreneur with a strong background in industrial instrumentation, computer systems, process automation, military electronics, spacecraft electronics and medical instrumentation. He was the founder of American Digital Systems (ADS) of Sudbury, Massachusetts in 1975 where he served as President and Chairman. ADS developed and sold a wide array of test, measurement and control devices for the photo industry.  Later the company morphed into embedded process control systems and then into high end data storage systems for the mini computer, workstation and server markets. ADS was profitable for its 25 consecutive years of operation and was sold in 2001. After selling ADS, Mr. Kivnik joined InfraredMed Corporation as the CEO. InfraredMed was a medical devices startup which successfully developed a non-invasive instrument for the early detection of breast cancer.  Mr. Kivnik is both an entrepreneur and engineer being responsible for most of the hardware design for both companies. Mr. Kivnik holds a BSEE degree from the University of Pittsburgh and an MSEE degree from Northeastern University. He is a member of the IEEE and a committee chair of Medical Development Group among others.

John W. McMurdy, M.Sc - Chief Technology Officer

John McMurdy is currently completing his Ph.D in biomedical engineering at Brown University under the support of a NASA Graduate Student Researcher Program Fellowship. The scope of his research while at Brown has been in the clinical testing of spectroscopic techniques and the design of compact and inexpensive optical sensors to non-invasively measure blood components. Mr. McMurdy is also the Chief Technical Officer of Corum Medical , a start-up company formed around a device to measure total blood hemoglobin quickly and painlessly using an handheld liquid crystal optical sensor. Mr. McMurdy's expertise is in spectroscopic techniques and spectral processing, liquid crystal optics, and biomedical optical diagnoses methods. Prior to coming to Brown University, Mr. McMurdy completed his B.Sc and M.Sc. in Optics from the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY under the support of the Rush Rhees Tuition Scholarship. His M.S. degree essay was entitled "NIR Diffuse Optical Methods for Functional Brain Monitoring" where he examined contemporary methods of mapping functional activation in infants which use diffuse optical techniques. John spent one year working for Digilab, LLC (now a division of Varian, Inc) in Randolph, MA as a field service engineer for Digilab's Fourier-Tranform Infrared Spectrometers, Infrared Imaging Systems, Raman Spectrometers, and UV/Visible spectrometers. Mr. McMurdy has authored nine peer-reviewed publications and has presented his research at numerous conferences and meetings including two invited talks. In addition to a three year NASA GSRP award, Mr. McMurdy has also been awarded consecutive SPIE educational scholarships and most recently a $20K Advanced E-Team Grant from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance to foster commercialization of a non-invasive anemia sensor in third world and impoverished countries.Mr. McMurdy is a member of SPIE, OSA, and SID as well as the Sigma Xi research society.

Olga Cherniavsky, M.Sc - Chief Marketing Officer

Ms. Olga Cherniavsky is a strategic marketing consultant in the medical device industry. She has more than 20 years of professional experience with 10 years dedicated to global strategic market planning, new product development, and business management. Ms. Cherniavsky has held senior marketing positions in companies varying in size from startups to large corporations including Zoll Medical, Haemonetics Corporation, Cadent Medical and others. She has successfully brought several novel devices to market in the areas of cardiac monitoring, resuscitation, blood collection and processing, and other. Ms. Cherniavsky has extensive experience in worldwide market research and analysis and market strategy development in a variety of clinical areas. She holds a Bachelors degree in Computer Science and a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and is a graduate of the CSS program at Harvard University. As a director of a global business unit at Haemonetics Corp. (Braintree, MA) Ms. Cherniavsky has lead worldwide efforts in successful market development of novel automated procedures for blood component collection and processing. Her efforts included management of product development and global launch plans as well as clinical and financial market research and creation of tools for customer system cost and revenue analysis. In her strategic consultant role Ms. Cherniavsky has conducted market research and developed marketing strategies for a diverse set of products including a wearable personal defibrillator and a biodegradable orthopedic implant material. Working with ZOLL Medical Corp. Ms. Cherniavsky has successfully launched a semi-automatic defibrillator, leading a cross-functional team in worldwide concept validation, design and development, regulatory approvals, and rollout.

Mort Rosenberg - Chief Financial Officer

Mr. Rosenberg is a Chief Financial Officer on a part-time basis for companies in the $0 to $10 million sales arena. During his corporate life he held senior financial and administrative positions with State Street Bank, Eastern Gas and Fuel Associates and Waters Associates/Millipore. Since starting his business in 1986, he has been part-time Chief Financial Officer of two sales companies, an Internet software developer, a development stage fuel cell company, a produce distributor, a sheet metal fabrication company, a software developer, a manufacturer of woolen products, an investment management company, a real estate management company, a construction company and three medical device companies. He provided the financial management for these companies and was involved in seeking and obtaining required funding. He has been President of the Society of Professional Consultants from 1991 to 1993. Mr. Rosenberg is a member of the WPI Venture Forum, the Medical Development Group and is a guest lecturer at the Enterprise Center and provides speaking engagements for various professional organizations. Mr. Rosenberg graduated from Northeastern University with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration in the Accounting field.

Advisory Board

Gregory Crawford, Ph.D

Prof. Crawford is currently Dean of the School of Engineering and a Professor of Engineering and Physics at Brown University and formerly the Richard and Edna Salomon Assistant Professor and Assistant Professor of Engineering at Brown University. His basic research interests include liquid crystals, polymers, and their application in display technology, telecommunications, and medical device technology. During the 2003-2004 academic year, Professor Crawford was on Sabbatical at the Technical University of Eindhoven working on a number of liquid crystal and polymer projects. In the summer of 1999, he was a visiting research Professor at Philips Research Laboratory (Natlab) in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, where he focused on emissive pixel technology. He was formally a member of the research staff at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) and later dpiX, where he concentrated on liquid crystals and polymers materials for flat panel display applications. He frequently teaches short courses on flat panel displays at companies, universities, and professional conferences, and he has developed a graduate course on flat panel display at Brown University. Professor Crawford did his postdoctoral work at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington D.C. focusing on electroclinic and ferroelectric materials for fast switching spatial light modulator applications. He received his B.S. in both Physics and Mathematics and a Ph.D. from Kent State University where he performed his doctoral research at the Liquid Crystal Institute and NSF ALCOM Center. He has over 200 research publications, review articles and book chapters, holds 14 US patents, and is the coeditor of the book entitled Liquid Crystals in Complex Geometries formed by Polymer and Porous Networks. Professor Crawford is the editor of a new book that appeared in the Spring 2005 entitled Flexible Flat Panel Displays. Professor Crawford has recently served as the Vice Chair and will serve as the Chair of the 2005 and 2007 Gordon Conferences on Liquid Crystals, respectively.

Gregory D. Jay, M.D/Ph.D

Dr. Jay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and Division of Engineering at Brown University. He also serves as an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Rhode Island.   In addition to his academic activities, he brings over 15 years of experience as an emergency medicine physician, and he is currently employed in that capacity by University Emergency Medicine Foundation, practicing at Rhode Island Hospital and Miriam Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island. Dr. Jay, who holds an M.D., Ph.D. (in Biophysics) and double bachelor degrees (in engineering and biochemistry) from State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a member of numerous professional societies and is a journal reviewer for several journals in the fields of engineering, emergency medicine and several other medical specialties.   He holds over a dozen issued patents and pending patent applications covering diverse technologies in pulsus paradoxus monitoring and the lubrication of mammalian joints. He has published 50+ articles in medical and scientific journals and is a recipient of support form NIH.

Selim Suner, M.D

Dr. Suner graduated from Brown Medical School after completing a Masters degree in Bio-Medical Engineering, also at Brown University. Dr. Suner, who is on the staff at Rhode Island Hospital, and the director of Disaster Medicine and Emergency Preparedness in the Department of Emergency Medicine, completed the Brown University/Rhode Island Hospital Residency Program in Emergency Medicine. Dr. Suner, currently an associate professor of Emergency Medicine, Surgery and Engineering at Brown University, was awarded the SAEM Neuroscience Fellowship for 2003-2004 and has received the "Best Scientific Presentation" award from the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) in 1999 and 2004. Dr. Suner is the leader of the Rhode Island Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT), and he has served during multiple disaster deployments including the responses to Hurricane Katrina, the World Trade Center attacks and the Egypt Air crash off the shores of Massachusetts. Dr Suner also serves as Chairman of Rhode Island Hospital Emergency Preparedness Committee and participates in many national and state level committees working on disaster preparedness. Dr Suner is an international expert in emergency preparedness and disaster medicine and has given over a 100 lectures related to disaster management, world-wide. Dr. Suner has published many peer reviewed scientific manuscripts and abstracts.   He is a peer reviewer for 4 scientific journals and is on the editorial board of emedhome.com, an educational website for emergency physicians and the Turkish Journal of Emergency Medicine. Dr. Suner is also an associate editor of the textbook "Disaster Medicine" (Mosby, 2006).

Edward Berger, Ph.D

As Principal and Founder of Larchmont Strategic Advisors, Dr. Berger has provided reimbursement and regulatory analysis and strategy development consultation to a variety of clients developing new technologies in fields including neural monitoring and neuromodulation, gastrointestinal surgery, severe pulmonary dysfunction, and personalized medicine. As Vice President for Policy, Reimbursement and External Relations for ABIOMED, Inc., (Danvers, MA) from 2001 - 2004, Ed led all public policy advocacy efforts, including reimbursement and coverage for ABIOMED's advanced heart assist devices.   As Senior Consultant to Thermo Cardiosystems, Inc. (Woburn, MA) in 2000, Dr. Berger developed and implemented a comprehensive advocacy program to improve public and private third party payer coverage and reimbursement for implantable cardiac assist devices. As a member of the management team of Fresenius Medical Care - North America, (Lexington, MA) from 1983- 1997, Dr. Berger directed all public policy analyses, advocacy and related strategic planning activities for a $2.5 billion health care company diversified into kidney dialysis, home infusion therapy, laboratory and diagnostic testing, medical device manufacture, and worksite preventive health programs.  

Leon Sandler, M.S.

Leon Sandler is the Executive Director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, which moves technology from the laboratory to the marketplace.  He held senior general management, marketing, finance and business development roles at companies such as Boston Consulting Group, Eastman Kodak, Texas Instruments and Digital Equipment. Most recently, he ran his own consulting firm, Monmouth Group, where he transformed more than 20 growing businesses in a variety of technology sectors. Leon has also served as the CEO of several start-ups and has assisted many ventures as an interim executive or advisor. He holds a bachelor of science and masters in science in Chemical Engineering from Natal University in South Africa, and a MBA from the Stanford Business School.