Executive Team

Hamed Dalir

Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Dalir has succeeded in securing funding of more than $10 million series from private investors, as well as multiple grants from government agencies such as AFWERX, ARO, NSA, ONR and NASA via the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. Dr. Dalir was a research associate at the University of California - Berkeley in 2016. Since then, he has been a senior research scientist with a tech start-up company located in Texas and secured more than $4 million as the Principal Investigator (PI) in funding from several SBIR/STTR projects supported by NASA, AFOSR, AFWERX, ARMY, NIST, and Broadcom Inc. He has received multiple awards, including the Yoshida Foundation Award for Development of Future Leaders for Changing Times and Young Scientist Award from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) in 2009 and 2014, respectively. He is a senior member of the OSA, IEEE, and a committee/session chair of the SPIE. Dr. Dalir is the Associate Editor of Printed Electronics (Frontiers).

Behrouz Movahhed Nouri

Chief Technology Officer

He is a AI scientist with a focus in the cybersecurity space including cryptography and DLT, as well as implementations of algorithms in digital- and analog compute environments. His interests and expertise covers applied intelligence such artificial Neural networks, fuzzy logic, and mobile intelligent agents. He is also the co-founder of several deep-tech ventures and companies in the cybersecurity, DLT, nanotechnology, and AR/VR. Furthermore, he successfully bridges the technology sector with business strategies, such as securing capital. Mr. Movahhed Nouri is familiar with markets from all over the world, including North America, South America, Europe, and Asia.
Also, he has raised over $188M for project executions and leading a delegation that raised $500M in several different industries. in High Tech industries of over 10 yrs. He is a software engineer, whose expertise in business is in finding capital from investments or sales. Mr. Movahhed is familiar with markets from all over the world, including North America, SouthAmerica, Europe, and Asia. Mr. Movahhed’s business makes constant international deals with companies and government entities in the regions mentioned before .

Francisco Conti

Advisory Board Member

His primary purpose is to build strategic alliances with outstanding entrepreneurs and emerging organizations in order to give them with the financial and strategic support they need to advance to the next level.

Justin Fanelli

VP of Marketing and Business Development

Mr Justin Fanelli is also dthe Chief Architect of Defense Medical Intelligence Data and the Technical Director for Navy Manpower, Personnel, Training and Education (MPTE). Within Defense Healthcare, Mr Fanelli is leading the agency towards a one-stop data enterprise for revolutionized healthcare and research outcomes.

Elham Heidari

Chief Innovation Officer

Dr. Heidari received the M.Eng. in department of Electronics and Applied Physics, field of semiconductor nano-material from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan in 2014. She also received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from University of Texas at, USA in 2020. Her research areas include scaling of silicon devices utilizing high-κ gate insulator metal-insulator-semiconductor field-effect-transistors (MISFET), TCC VCSEL, opto-electronic devices, nanophotonics, fiber optics, novel 2D materials such as graphene and bio sensing. She received a grant from Optical Society of America (OSA) in 2018 for optical fiber conferences, and holds JASSO research excellence award ($5000).

Volker J. Sorger

Founder

Dr. Sorger has raised over $27 Million in competitive funding and invented more than 20 patents. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the director of the Information and Photonic AI Lab at George Washington University. For his work, Dr. Sorger received multiple awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), the AFOSR Young Investigator Award (YIP), the Hegarty Innovation Prize, and the National Academy of Sciences award of the year. Dr. Sorger is an Associate editor for OPTICA and former Editor-in-Chief of Nanophotonics and serves on the boards of SPIE and OSA.

Benito Fernandez

Advisory Board Member

Benito R. Fernández has a B.S., Chemical Engineering (1979) & Materials Engineering (1981), Universidad Simón Bolívar; M.S., Mechanical Engineering (1985) & Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering (1988), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.  30+ years academic experience at Universidad Simón Bolívar, Texas A&M University and The University of Texas at Austin.   5+ years of startup experience.Dr. Fernández has experience in a myriad of topics and comprehensive expertise, from robust-optimal nonlinear control, genetically evolving neuro-fuzzy networks, artificial immune systems, to advanced mechatronics, resilient firmware, modeling, diagnostics & prognosis of engineering systems, software engineering, chaotic hybrid encryption and cybersecurity.  He has a knack for research and innovation, using his multidisciplinary background, to bring innovative technologies and unseen ideas and products to market.  He is co-inventor in six patents, one pending, and more in development.

Joseph Crandall

Senior Software Eng.

Joseph Crandall’s data science and software engineering experience within the United States Department of Defense and Microsoft combined with his photonic computing research and exposure to data-intensive machine learning workflows within cleared environments have enabled him to contribute to the development of photonic application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) to accelerate data processing and machine learning algorithms for commercial and governmental customers.

Hao Wang

Laser Validation Engineer

Hao is working on integrated photonics and free space optics for 5 years as a Ph.D. He has great experience on plasmonics, photonics, devices and optoelectronics, optics, and materials.  His familiar with optical design and modeling, from simulation and fabrication to experiment methodologies.

Haoyan Kang

Photonics Test Development Eng.

Haoyan has received his Master's degree in Electrical Engineering, and is continuing to work on his Doctorate degree at George Washington University. His research interests include Optical Cryptography, Freespace Fourier Optics, and Photonic Analog Computing.

Xiaoxuan Ma

Sr. Photonic Design Eng.

Xiaoxuan Ma received the Master of in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, field of Electrical Engineering in Geroge Washington University in 2019. His research areas include Photonic TPU & Tensor Core, PIC System Integration and I/O, and Photonic Analog Computing.

Arash Parsa

AI & Machine Learning Scientist

Experience working as an independent researcher with APEX Energetics in Irvine, California, where he was responsible for contributing to the development of new product options based on his patent.
Bioengineering and bioinformatics undergraduate degree from the University of California, Santa Cruz; master's degree in data science and analytics from the Georgia Institute of Technology.