Experience

Praxis Ventures

• Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Principal

  • Sep 2023 - Present

  Praxis Ventures is a lead pre-seed and seed investor in manufacturing and software companies. As a principal, my role is to source potential investments, perform due diligence, and support our portfolio companies. Praxis Ventures is a lead pre-seed and seed investor in manufacturing and software companies. As a principal, my role is to source potential investments, perform due diligence, and support our portfolio companies.



Inkbit

• United States
• Automation Machinery Manufacturing
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Director of Product and Applications

  • Aug 2021 - Jun 2023

  As Director of Product and Applications, I was responsible for building out and managing the product and application engineering teams. The application engineering team was responsible for working with prospective customers to determine if their use case was suitable for our platform and suggest ways to optimize part design to best utilize our capabilities. The product team had a wide range of responsibilities covering three development areas; materials, printer, and software.Product enabled materials development by performing market research, customer interviews, and loss analysis to identify strong business opportunities. I worked closely with the materials science team to review potential development opportunities and determine when to start a project. I put in place a launch checklist covering all technical, commercial, and marketing milestones needed before announcing a new product.Product contributed to the printer development by creating comprehensive cost models used to identify key improvement areas for the machine, as well as perform user testing to identify ways to improve ease of use. We worked closely with UX and the software team to develop a new UI for the hardware-machine interface for customer deployments.Product directly oversaw the development of a standalone piece of software, Inkbit Construct, that is provided to customers to prepare parts and builds for the printer. Over the course of 18 months, we developed a responsive, highly capable software package that was easy to use and very performant. For this project, we developed an innovative packing algorithm to improve the packing density of prints with minimal computation time. This work was the subject of a paper at SIGGRAPH. Show less

• Product Manager

  • Nov 2019 - Aug 2021

  My role as product manager included elements of both product and project management. I acted as project manager while we developed an initial prototype of our production additive manufacturing platform, which eventually launched as the Inkbit Vista. I also built out a process for identifying, prioritizing, and implementing features for our platform.

• Director of Materials & Process Engineering

  • Apr 2019 - Nov 2019

  As director, I hired and built out a team of six materials scientists, process engineers, and technicians focused on formulating new materials for Inkbit's additive manufacturing platform and optimizing the print parameters. It was during this time that we introduced new material chemistry families to Inkbit's platform; thiol-enes for soft elastomers, and epoxies for hard chemical resistant resins.

• Process Engineer & Materials Scientist

  • Jul 2017 - Apr 2019

  I joined Inkbit as one of the first full-time employees after it spun out of MIT CSAIL. My role upon joining was to formulate acrylate-based UV curable resins for the prototype 3D printing system and optimize the print parameters. Our primary focus was to meet the deliverables for grants from DARPA and the NSF, as well as a joint development agreement with Johnson & Johnson. I worked closely with the J&J team on this project and was responsible for much of the communication and reporting.



The University of Texas at Dallas

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• PhD Candidate - Eugene McDermott Graduate Research Fellow

  • Aug 2014 - Jul 2017

  Worked under Prof. Walter Voit to study thiol click chemistries for use in additive manufacturing, bioelectronics, and soft robotic actuators. Specifically, I researched thiol-isocyanate chemistry and its corresponding polymer, polythiourethanes. I synthesized a photo-base catalyst that allowed for UV curing polythiourethanes at reaction rates similar to the thiol-ene and acrylate free radical polymerizations. The thiol-isocyanate reaction is not sensitive to oxygen and the resulting materials can be very strong, making them attractive for many use cases. My dissertation explored three application areas for this material family; additive manufacturing, bioelectronics, and electroactive polymer actuators. I developed a resin that could be printed using existing stereolithography 3D printers that had excellent mechanical properties due to a high degree of crystallinity. In collaboration with Prof. Joe Pancrazio, I developed substrates for neural interface devices that soften upon insertion into the brain, demonstrating reduced levels of inflammation and scar tissue formation. I also collaborated with Prof. Robert Gregg to develop electroactive materials to act as a variable stiffness actuator in a robotic ankle joint. My work resulted in three publications and five patents. Show less



Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Visiting Researcher

  • Jul 2015 - Aug 2015

  I collaborated with Polina Anikeeva's research group to use tower drawing to attempt to create an electroactive polymer actuator based on piezoelectric fibers. Tower drawing is a technique used in the fiber optics industry to turn a rod into a long fiber while preserving the cross section. We drew down fibers of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDF) containing a conductive core that could be later used to create a piezoelectric actuator. I collaborated with Polina Anikeeva's research group to use tower drawing to attempt to create an electroactive polymer actuator based on piezoelectric fibers. Tower drawing is a technique used in the fiber optics industry to turn a rod into a long fiber while preserving the cross section. We drew down fibers of polyvinylidene chloride (PVDF) containing a conductive core that could be later used to create a piezoelectric actuator.



The University of Texas at Dallas

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Undergraduate Research Assistant

  • May 2013 - Jul 2013

  Worked at the Advanced Polymer Research Lab under Prof. Voit on the development of thiol-epoxy polymer foam systems and oleophobic spray coatings. I made thiol-epoxy foams using glass microspheres and blowing agents, then characterized the shape memory properties of the materials. I published a first author paper on this work. Worked at the Advanced Polymer Research Lab under Prof. Voit on the development of thiol-epoxy polymer foam systems and oleophobic spray coatings. I made thiol-epoxy foams using glass microspheres and blowing agents, then characterized the shape memory properties of the materials. I published a first author paper on this work.



MedShape, Inc. - acquired by Enovis™

• United States
• Medical Equipment Manufacturing
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Intern

  • Sep 2011 - Apr 2012

  Product research and development for shape memory orthopedic medical devices

• Intern

  • May 2011 - Aug 2011

  Basic Materials Research