The Fellows
Fellows 2007-2008
Melanie Funes
UC Davis
mfunesduran@ucdavis.edu
Melanie Funes works as the Executive Associate Director of the Foods for Health Institute at UC Davis to develop strategies and programs for building and managing strategic alliances. This major program builds upon the strength of the Davis campus in agriculture and food sciences and expands the research continuum to encompass human nutritional and clinical assessments of food components. Dr. Funes received her PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from UC Davis, and completed a Business Development Fellowship, studying innovation, technology management and entrepreneurship alongside MBA students at the UC Davis Graduate School of Management.
Gabriela Lee
UC Davis
gabriela.lee@cbst.ucdavis.edu
Gabriela Lee is Director of External Relations at the Center for Biophotonics Science & Technology, UC Davis. In this capacity, she works with industry, UC Davis departments, government agencies, and various business organizations to establish long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. Gabriela received her BS degree in Chemical Engineering in Romania, and a joint MBA/MS degree in Biomedical Engineering at UC Davis, Cellular and Molecular Systems track. Previous industry experience includes product development at Cerus Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, and business consulting in the life science industry.
Goran Matijasavic
UC Irvine
goran@uci.edu
Goran Matijasevic is Director of Research Development at The Henry Samueli School of Engineering at UC Irvine. In this capacity, he works closely with industry partners on making them aware of available university resources as well as how to establish collaborations with university researchers, especially focusing on new interdisciplinary research initiatives. Prior to this, Dr. Matijasevic was the Research Coordinator of the Integrated Nanosystems Research Facility at UC Irvine. Previous industry experience includes QPlus, a telecommunications start-up company, and Ormet Technologies, an electronics materials company. He received his PhD from UC Irvine in Electrical and Computer Engineering and his MBA from Pepperdine University.
Kathryn A. Nguyen
UC San Diego
nguyenka@ucsd.edu
Kathryn A. Nguyen is the Director of the Bench to Biotech Program at UC San Diego. The program encompasses a three-pronged approach of education, internships, and net-working. The program is designed to build a pathway to intersect and integrate three professional schools at UC San Diego: the School of Medicine, the Skaggs School of Pharmacy, and the Rady School of Management, with San Diego's robust R&D industry. Kathryn received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the School of Medicine at UCSD. She is also a co-chair of public relations and marketing for a non-profit organization, the Association for Women in Science-SD.
Don Oparah
UC Santa Barbara
oparah@engineering.ucsb.edu
Don Oparah is the Director of the UC Santa Barbara Venture Acceleration Initiative (VAI) an organization he founded during his first year as a UC Discovery Fellow in 2006-07. VAI provides support to campus entrepreneurs in the form of consulting, networking and seed funding to accelerate their start-up ventures and ultimately benefit the university, economy and wider society. Dr. Oparah received a joint degree in Computer Science and Electronics at the University of London and a PhD in Computer Science at Cambridge before working in IT and Strategy consulting for four years. Most recently he completed his MBA at UCLA Anderson School of Management with a focus on Entrepreneurship.
Satinderpall S. Pannu
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and UC Berkeley
pannu1@llnl.gov
Satinderpall (Sat) S. Pannu works with the Science and Technology and Industrial Partnering and Commercialization (IPAC) offices at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center at the University of California at Berkeley to facilitate the development of strategic research partnerships with industry. He is the Group Leader for Advanced Materials and Process Technologies in the Center for Micro- and Nano-Technology. Dr. Pannu holds a B.S., M.S., and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. He is the co-inventor listed on 10 patents. His current research interests include biomedical devices, micro-fluidics, and biodetection.
Holger Roehl
UC Irvine
hroehl@rgs.uci.edu
Holger Roehl provides business development support, and initiates and fosters strategic partnerships, for UC Irvine's life sciences research. Dr. Roehl's experience is in the biotechnology industry, where he has held positions at companies at various stages of maturity. He has been principally involved with the development of therapeutics, with an emphasis on gene therapy applications. He received his undergraduate training at the University of Konstanz (Germany), and his PhD in Microbiology from Michigan State University. He is currently enrolled in the Executive MBA program at UC Irvine.
Raphael Simon
UC Santa Barbara
simon@lifesci.ucsb.edu
Raphael (Rafi) Simon works in collaboration with second-year Fellow Don Oparah to build the Venture Acceleration Initiative at UC Santa Barbara. The focus of VAI is to proactively accelerate the translation of technological breakthroughs at UC Santa Barbara by providing support to faculty in starting new ventures based on their research. This is accomplished by providing support in three key areas of entrepreneurial consulting, business networking and seed funding. Dr. Simon holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from UC Santa Barbara where he studied the host immune response to pathogen infection. He also completed the Graduate Program in Management Practice offered through the UC Santa Barbara Technology Management Program, studying innovation, technology management and entrepreneurship.
Karl R. Umstadter
UC San Diego
kumstadter@ucsd.edu
Karl Umstadter is a member of the PISCES Team at the UC San Diego Center for Energy Research where he is studying the plasma-materials interactions for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER). Dr. Umstadter received his Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1997. His background is in plasma physics, laser technology, diagnostics, and nuclear/materials engineering. His previous experience was as the diagnostics coordinator and senior experimental physicist for Archimedes Technology Group, in a program that employed plasma technology to separate nuclear waste by mass. Prior to Archimedes, he was at Los Alamos National Laboratory where he built and operated an electron-ion trap to study inertial electrostatic confinement fusion, and was also the lead safety diver for underwater operations at LANL's cosmic ray experiment MILAGRO.
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