Board of Directors
Nelson K. Stacks
Brian Finn
Dr. Peter Farrell
Dr. Sol Barer (Advisor)
Charles Pieper
Harold (Hank) Handelsman
Senior Management
Scientific & Advisory Board Members
Dr. Nan Sun
Dr. Donhee Ham
General James T. Hill
Michael T. Jones
Dr. Hossein Eslambolchi
Dr. Samuel Fuller
Dr. Stephen Gillespie
Dr. Jerry Zeldis
Nelson K. Stacks
President & CEO
A veteran entrepreneur who has been CEO with three companies most recently across the technology and life sciences industries (Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, Tarpon Biosystems, Vascular Pathways). Mr. Stacks brings a diverse background spanning biology, sales and venture financing to the WaveGuide team. Prior to his executive operating positions, Mr. Stacks was a General Partner at 3i Group Plc, and previously Oak Investment Partners where he completed his Kauffman Fellowship. He began his career in the medical device industry, serving in product management and executive sales management roles.
Over the span of his career, Mr. Stacks has raised several hundred million dollars into a variety of ventures, though most active in the life sciences domain. Over $30MM has been raised by Mr. Stacks to secure the product development, engineering leadership and productization of the world’s first battery-operated and truly portable NMR device with exclusive license secured from the Technology Licensing Office of Harvard University.
Mr. Stacks graduated from The University of Rochester NY with a B.A. in Philosophy, Double Minors in Biology and Organizational Psychology. Earned his MBA from F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College, then went on to earn a Kauffman Fellowship (Class IV) engaging in all aspects of venture capital investing and entrepreneurship.
Wendy Graham-Coco
Chief Operating Officer
Ms. Graham-Coco is the Chief Operating Officer of the Company. An accomplished pharmaceutical and biotech executive with extensive experience in drug and device development of both therapeutic and diagnostic products on a global scale. Ms. Graham-Coco brings nearly three decades of experience to bear in overseeing the Company’s operations across clinical, regulatory, and quality systems. In addition to leading her internal team, Ms. Graham-Coco also coordinates the Company’s product development activities with outside partners and the critical aspect of securing and maintaining the medical device manufacturer certification and audits associated with ISO 13485:2016.
Prior to joining WaveGuide, Ms. Graham-Coco was VP Portfolio Strategy & Manufacturing at Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, where she also had leadership roles in program management and R&D operations. She also held positions of increasing responsibility at Biostream, Inc. and the Massachusetts General Hospital where she started her career as a Research Scientist.
An active Board member & Treasurer of Cambridge Forum as well as WIB (Women in Bio) MAPI Program Mentor.
Ms. Graham-Coco completed her MBA at Simmons College after receiving her B.A. in Biology Pre-Medicine from Boston University.
Marcus Semones, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer & Founder
Dr. Semones was a member of Faculty at Harvard University, Department of Chemistry and X-Ray Crystallography before founding the Company in 2015. Pioneering research in the Harvard University Physics Dept. provided the foundation for WaveGuide’s breakthrough portable NMR platform. Dr. Semones secured the exclusive license from Harvard University across fields of use including medical diagnostics, pharmaceutical, food, oil & gas, through to emerging markets such as THC/cannabis legal production and roadside detection. He has 25 publications in respected journals such as JACS (Journal of American Chemical Society) and JOC (Journal of Organic Chemistry). Dr. Semones is listed on five patents in the biotechnology field.
Dr. Semones received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Emory University under Professor Albert Padwa. Independently researched synthetic methodology and natural product synthesis. Developed a novel 1,4-dipolar cycloaddition reaction for the stereo-controlled synthesis of complex aza, diaze, and polyaza-heterocyclic ring systems. Following his Ph.D. he went on to Harvard University with a Post-Doc assignment under Professor Yoshito Kishi in the Department of Chemistry.
A decade of experience gathered in industry with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Pharmaceuticals as a Senior R&D Investigator Dr. Semones identified opportunities and participated in due diligence efforts for GlaxoSmithKline’s acquisition of several new technologies, secured pre-clinical assets, and in-licensed compounds from Kyowa Hakko Kirin for oncology programs.
Massimilliano La Colla, Ph.D.
Head Of Biology
Head of Biology at WaveGuide, Dr. La Colla brings nearly two decades of research experience in biotech R&D and diagnostics. An accomplished cell biologist who guides and support the efforts of several programs, responsible for method development across all markets and fields-of-use from biologics to food safety, oil & gas, and through the initial research in medical diagnostics with tuberculosis and ovarian cancer screening.
Dr. La Colla manages the company’s TD-NMR (time domain nuclear magnetic resonance) experiments in the DEA certified laboratory and is a subject matter expert on the FDA 510(k) pathways for tuberculosis and ovarian cancer screening with the use of MNPs (magnetic nanoparticles).
Prior to joining WaveGuide in 2016, Dr. La Colla held various positions with Idenix Pharmaceuticals (a division of Merck & Co.) as an investigator for new drug targets for conditions including cancer, anti-virals for new inhibitors of Dengue, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), and HPV (hepatitis C virus).
Dr. La Colla received his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (UCSC) in Milan Italy.
Howard Hutchins
NMR Systems Specialist
Mr. Hutchins has spent his career in the development, refinement and optimization of NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) products spanning several decades with the world’s leaders in the technique including Bruker BioSpin, JEOL, and Physical Sciences Corp.
A seasoned and accomplished analytical instrumentation designer and developer of systems spanning use in the laboratory, process analytical through portable “in-situ” devices. Subject matter expertise is centered in Magnetic Resonance including NMR, EPR (electron paramagnetic resonance) and Imaging Systems.
With WaveGuide, Mr. Hutchins has been hands-on with the design specification through to the prototyping and commercial-ready compact TD-NMR (time domain NMR) platform. Though the patents and breakthrough engineering were achieved by experts in the Physics Department of Harvard University, it has been four years of extensive and iterative development under Mr. Hutchins supervision to bring the WaveGuide Formµla™ from patent concepts to reality.
Mr. Hutchins is an Honors Graduate from the USAMMCS (U.S. Army Ordnance Guided Missile School).
Jeffrey Bernstein
Computational Modelling & Software Specialist
Jeff Bernstein heads up computational modelling and software development at WaveGuide, with responsibility for data analytics, signal processing and analysis algorithm and embedded software development. Jeff brings over three decades of experience as an engineer, research scientist, and technology entrepreneur across several industries.
Prior to joining WaveGuide in 2017, Jeff had been a research scientist at Analog Devices, investigating novel computational hardware and algorithms for probabilistic inference and machine learning; and prior to that, co-director of research at Lyric Semiconductor (acquired by Analog Devices). Jeff had been a co-founder at 2Wire (now part of Arris), a leading provider of home networking equipment for broadband service providers; and a co-founder at PictureTel (now part of Poly), an early pioneer of videoconferencing and multimedia conferencing technology. At both 2Wire and PictureTel, Jeff held a variety of roles in product research and development.
Jeff received Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland.
Duane Sword
VP, Business Development
Mr. Sword is Vice President Business Development at WaveGuide. He is an active board member and retained advisor with several companies involved in medical diagnostics, photonics-based systems, and portable analytical platforms. With more than two decades of experience spanning large publicly held companies and leadership roles in privately held ventures in a variety of test, measurement and spectroscopy businesses.
Mr. Sword’s career began in product management with Hewlett-Packard (now Agilent Technologies) and held assignments around the world in business development overseeing direct sales, integrators, and channel partners. Mr. Sword has lived and immersed himself in roles based in Asia, Europe and North America with team leadership and sales quotas ranges from $1M to $250MM.
With VC-backed Ahura Scientific, Mr. Sword was Vice President Global Sales and Marketing, forging the company into the market leader in portable optical (Raman and FTIR) spectroscopy devices addressing the needs of first responders through pharmaceutical quality control in manufacturing to anti-counterfeit screening. In 2010, Ahura Scientific was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific, where Mr. Sword then assumed global business development for a larger portfolio of portable analytical instruments, markets and commercial specialists following the integration of Polychromix with portable NIR (near infrared).
As CEO of Precisive, Mr. Sword secured the capital and built a strong cross-functional team with the Founder & President. Precisive was a pioneer with an all-optical hydrocarbon composition sensor utilized in the natural gas industry from extraction, to petrochemical production through to downstream applications including power generation. MKS Instruments acquired Precisive in 2015.
A member and investor with the Launchpad Venture Group, a member of the Board with MultiSensor Scientific (optical gas imaging sensor platform) and an active member of the Boston area venture community with TechStars, MassVentures, MIT Enterprise Forum and MassChallenge. Mr. Sword has an undergraduate BSEE with 1st Class Honors from RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) in Melbourne Australia.
