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Alumni

Cohort 1 (2017-2019)

Anna Douglas

Anna Douglas

Bio: Anna received her Ph.D. in 2019 in Interdisciplinary Material Science from Vanderbilt University. As a National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellow, she primarily focused her studies on…

Matthew Ellis

Matthew Ellis

Bio: Matthew received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and hold a M.S. and B.S. in Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.…

Mitchell Ishmael

Mitchell Ishmael

Bio: Mitchell received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Cornell University and holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering with a Minor in Economics from Rose-Hulman Institute of…

Samuel Shaner

Samuel Shaner

Bio: Samuel received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Nuclear Science and Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and hold a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Santa…

Cohort 2 (2018-2020)

Don DeRosa

Don DeRosa

Bio: Don DeRosa is developing a next generation electrolyte that will significantly lower the cost and size of ultracapacitor modules. The resulting lower cost and smaller ultracapacitor modules can…

Shane McMahon

Shane McMahon

Bio: Shane McMahon is developing thin-film semiconductor substrates that will serve as a novel platform for highly integrated and flexible electronic devices. The platform will provide the ability…

Justin Nussbaum

Justin Nussbaum

Bio: Ascend Manufacturing is focused on developing a manufacturing grade additive manufacturing system, utilizing a technology he developed, called Large Area Projection Sintering (LAPS). LAPS…

Megan O'Connor

Megan O'Connor

Bio: Megan O’Connor is an environmental engineer and chemist who has 7 years’ experience in developing carbon nanotube membrane separation technologies. Megan developed the unique hard-tech that…

Matthew Smith

Matthew Smith

Bio: Matthew Smith’s new class of high thermal conductivity plastic composite materials aim to improve heat dissipation, allowing for metal replacement and light-weighting, cost and component…

Cohort 3 (2019-2021)

Jesse Claypoole, MantaPoole Technologies

Jesse Claypoole

Jesse Claypoole is developing a roll-to-roll, manufactured, active multispectral light field (AMLF) micro-optics architecture for applications including autonomous surgery, industrial manufacturing,…

William Fitzhugh

William Fitzhugh

American Nanotechnologies, Inc. (ANI) is developing material processing technology for purification of high-value nanomaterials. Such material processing technology is critical to developing viable…

Hicham Ghossein

Hicham Ghossein

Endeavor Composites is designing and implementing an innovative mixer system for the hydroentanglement process that offers several advantages over the current fiber dispersion techniques. Hicham…

Alex Lewis

Alex Lewis

Electro-Active Technologies was spun out of Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2017 and has gone through multiple accelerators in addition to Innovation Crossroads including IndieBio, Plug and Play, H2…

Trevor McQueen

Trevor McQueen

Neptune Fluid Flow Systems is developing an advanced thin film cryogenic sample preparation device designed to substantially improve sample preparation for the transmission electron microscopy (TEM)…

Leila Safavi-Tehrani

Leila Safavi

Leila is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Purist, a company based on a technology she co-invented during her Ph.D. studies. Purist's focus is developing a technology to be implemented in…

Jesse Thornburg

Jesse Thornburg

Grid Fruit is developing and evaluating a novel technology and operating framework for monitoring and control of commercial refrigeration systems installed at food retailers.  Jesse earned a PhD in…