Meet our Team

Nguyen Le is ASG’s Biochemistry Engineer. She is leading the biochemistry process development for our biosensor as well as working with the device team to further improve our sensors.  She brings with her knowledge of nano-bio interface, in particular nanostructured silicon, for evaluating and optimizing the performance of the sensors.  Nguyen obtained her BS in Biochemistry and PhD in Chemistry from Texas Christian University from Prof. Jeff Coffer's research group, and she is a member of Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society. Her dissertation focused on characterizations of one-dimensional porous nanotube structure of silicon and the application of the material as drug delivery vector.

Celeste Bedard began her career in semiconductors as an entry level technician with what was then known as Microwave Associates. She was trained in the metals lab first in the area of wet plating and then onto evaporations and sputtering using the high vacuum equipment. She also gained knowledge and experience in the use of high temperature furnace operations as well as a unique lift-off process.  

Over the course of her career, she has had the opportunity to expand the fabrication processes in her skills folder working with a variety of materials from ferrites and ceramics to Si, SiC, GaAs, GaN.  

Celeste has over 20 years of direct hands-on experience in semiconductor processing including experience in wet and dry chemistry, diffusion, deposition, photolithography, and physical vapor deposition.  She has previously worked in clean rooms at Alpha Industries and Raytheon and is very knowledgeable about semiconductor processing techniques.  At ASG, Celeste uses her expertise in silicon processes to manufacture the silicon biosensors and further develop the fabrication process. 

Marcie Black is CEO and co-founder of Advanced Silicon Group.  Dr. Black brings to the company expertise in building strong teams, managing development projects, patents, IP strategy, encouraging a healthy company culture, cost modeling, and running a startup.  In addition, Dr. Black has a strong technical background in the areas of electronic materials, optics, semiconductors, solar cells/photovoltaics, batteries, renewable energy, nanotechnology, device design, and opto-electronics. 

Prior to founding ASG, Marcie was the President and co-founder of Bandgap Engineering, which focused on lowering the cost of solar electricity through black silicon or silicon nanowire solar cells.  Before joining Bandgap, Marcie was a technical staff member at Los Alamos National Laboratory and worked on a variety of nanotechnology and optical systems.  She began at Los Alamos National Labs as a prestigious Director’s Funded Post Doc, developing organic and nano solar cells. Marcie has a Ph.D. from MIT in Electrical Engineering, under the supervision of Institute Professor, Mildred Dresselhaus.  Prior to her Ph.D. work, Marcie was a device engineer at Motorola where she was on a small team responsible for combining non-volatile memory and logic onto the same chip.  She improved the manufacturing yields by working with the process engineer to improve silicide formation.  In 2009, she was awarded an R&D 100 award for her contributions to work at LANL.  Marcie also was honored as one of the ten “Women-to-Watch in 2010” by Mass High Tech.  Marcie has over 30+ papers and more than 15 issued patents with many more pending.

Alex Lawton is finishing his degree in chemical engineering from University of Massachusetts Amherst.  He is assisting in development of the chemistry of ASG's sensor and is helping with testing the sensors.

Bala Uppalapati is ASG's Senior Device and Testing Engineer.  Bala is working with the team to build better photoelectric silicon nanowire biosensors as well as improving the ways that we test our sensors.  He comes to us from Clemson University where he completed his PhD in the Nanoscale Electronics and Sensors Lab in the Electrical Engineering Department.  Bala specializes in characterization of microelectronic devices, semiconductor sensors, and semiconductor fabrication. Bala received his Master's degree from University of Dayton in Electrical Engineering and his Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical, Electronics and Communications Engineering at the Visvesvaraya Technological University.

Bill Rever is the Chief Marketing and Sales Officer and co-founder of ASG, leading ASG's commercial activities.  Since 2012, he has worked as an independent consultant in solar and renewable energy with clients in industry, investment, and government both in the U.S. and abroad. Bill began his career in solar energy in 1982 with industry pioneer Solarex which eventually merged with and became part of BP Solar in 1999.  He held a variety of roles within that company including applications engineering, project management, product management, marketing, business development and strategy.  In his tenure with BP Solar and Solarex Bill was involved in the production, marketing, and deployment of over 1 GW of PV in over 150 countries including many seminal applications, product innovations and projects. With over 30 years of experience in PV he is frequently called on as an industry expert and has spoken at numerous conferences and events.

Bill has a B.A. in Physics from the Johns Hopkins University, an M.S.E. in Energy Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a member of the Sigma Pi Sigma Physics Honor Society and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).  He is a former board member and past President of the Maryland/DC/Virginia chapter of the Solar Energy Industries Association and former Co-Chairman of the PV Advisory Group of the North American Semiconductor Industry Association (SEMI). 

Sarah E. Kelly retired after a 31-year career in Research and Development at Pfizer. She held a series of scientific and matrix leadership roles spanning the interface of the drug discovery organization to portfolio governance and launch design for products. Sarah most recently served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences Small Molecule and is based in Mystic CT. Sarah currently heads a consulting company called TGIR consulting LLC. Its focus is on leadership and innovation in the life sciences.  Sarah serves on the boards of the Ocean Community YMCA and the Mystic Aquarium. She serves on the scientific board of PhyCO2 and Advanced Silicon Group.  Sarah received her Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Yale University and her bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Carleton College. She was awarded the 2019 Earl B. Barnes award for leadership in chemical research management by the American Chemical Society and is a 2018 CT Woman of Innovation Award recipient.

Nick Bateman is our Direct of Sensor Development.  He joins us with deep experience in device physics, semiconductor processing, and managing technical teams.  Prior to joining the ASG team, Nick spent 14 years at Applied Materials where he worked in both technical and business development.  Prior to his work at Applied, he was Director of Technology Development at RadioMed, a medical device startup.  He received his PhD in physics from Yale University and an MBA from Cornell.  His BS is from MIT.  

Gene K. Landy advises Advanced Silicon Group on licensing, partnerships, and joint development agreements with an emphasis on Chinese companies.  Gene is a shareholder of the law firm of Ruberto, Israel & Weiner, P.C. Mr. Landy is Chair of the firm’s Technology Business Group. Gene handles domestic and international transactions for high technology businesses, from start-ups to publicly traded companies. Gene has represented companies in software, web technologies, cloud services, mobile applications, integrated circuits, data analytics, photovoltaics, telecommunications technology, digital entertainment, IT hardware, e-commerce, games, and other technology fields. His work includes licensing, intellectual property, technology transfer, business sales and acquisitions, and investments. Gene is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Law School. 

Dr. Lawton  is currently the Director of Massachusetts Biomanufacturing Center at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.  Carl brings decades of experience in bio-manufacturing and bio-pharmaceuticals.  He has over ten issued patents, many papers, and has been awarded over thirty five grants/contracts/awards.

Dr. Watson has more than 35 years of experience in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, holding a number of senior positions in business development, M&A, licensing and R&D management. He is a co-founder of Akston Bioscience Corporation in Beverly, MA, and formerly was Chairman and a Board Director of Targeson, Inc. in San Diego, CA. He is a former Executive-in-Residence at venture firm Oxford Bioscience Partners in Boston and currently consults for a number of early-stage biotechnology companies. In his role as a member of Cherrystone, he is a Board Director of portfolio companies Advanced Silicon Group, Inc. and Hilltop Biosciences, Inc.

Previously, Dr. Watson was VP of Business Development at SmartCells in Beverly, MA where he negotiated the sale of the company to Merck & Co for $500M in upfront and milestone payments plus royalties. His prior appointments include Chief Business Officer at Elixir Pharmaceuticals, SVP of Corporate Development at Cubist Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Merck & Co) and SVP, Intellectual Property and Licensing at Nycomed Amersham (acquired by General Electric Co). He previously held a variety of scientific, R&D and business management positions at Nycomed AS, Salutar. and DuPont Pharmaceuticals. where he invented the brain imaging drug NeuroLite.

Steven Willis '78 is an engineer, executive and co-founder of networking companies such as Wellfleet and Argon. At BTU Engineering, he developed protocols allowing clusters of microprocessor based diffusion furnaces to communicate.  From 1982 to 1986, he worked as a developer at Interlan, one of the original Ethernet controller companies, developing commercial implementations of the XNS and TCP/IP protocols. In 1986, he co-founded Wellfleet Communications, an early Internet router company, where he ran software development for Wellfleet's high-performance, multi-protocol routers. In 1989 he started Wellfleet's Advanced Engineering Group that developed new networking standards and technology, such as the silicon based forwarding engine, for the next generation of Wellfleet technology. Wellfleet went public in 1991 and merged with Synoptics to create Bay Networks in 1994. In 1997, he co-founded Argon Networks, a maker of high-performance SONET based Internet core switch/routers, which was purchased by Siemens in 1991. In 2001, he joined Datapower, a company focused on innovative XML processing and data transformation, as the VP of Advanced Technology. In 2009, he co-founded Overlook Networks, a venture addressing new networking technology in the data center. His most current project is in the area of optical packet switching. Steve has contributed to the standardization of network management, BGP, IS-IS, ATM, Point-to-Point protocols, QOS and traffic management.  He recently co-authored "Cryptographic Rule Based Trading" in the 2012 Journal of Financial Cryptography and Data Security.  He is a member of the MIT Venture Mentoring Service; a co-founder of Venture Valley Mentors; and an advisor to Solano Labs, Philo, and other startups in the Boston area. He holds multiple patents in the field of computer networking.  Steve received a bachelor's in BDIC with a concentration in computer science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1978.