GAP FUND COMMITTEE 2008
INDUSTRY
Joe Collard
Joe Collard is currently CEO of Sumpraxis, Inc., headquartered in the EDC incubator in the Research Parks. Mr. Collard has founded several companies including Technisource, an embedded systems company with $250M in annual sales, which is now an international NASDAQ company. He raised more than $30M for the company and sold it for a 200% premium over the stock price. Mr. Collard is also an angel investor and founder of New World Angels.
Lynn Gaudioso
Lynn Gaudioso is currently the President of Ivanhoe Strategies, LLC, a consulting group focusing on business development, marketing and strategic planning. Ms. Gaudioso has spent 30 years in the pharmaceutical field -- Rx and OTC drugs and diagnostic products -- in a variety of positions including marketing, business development and clinical investigation. Prior to starting Ivanhoe Strategies she was vice president, Business Development for the Consumer Health Care group of Pfizer Inc (CHC) with responsibility for the venture and licensing programs, internal product development and the Pfizer Rx to OTC switch initiative on a global basis. She has also on the board of director of two life sciences start-up companies.
Michael Levine
Michael Levine holds 77 patents and four pending patents that cover a programmable thermostat, microprocessor architecture, personal computer, interactive TV guide, on-screen programmer for VCR, TIVO, and a low energy vacuum system for water distillation and desalination. Mr. Levine is the founder of AA Terminals, a manufacturer of computer displays, AA Leasing, a company that leased equipment to more than 1,200 Dominoes Pizza franchises, and Quad Six Corp, a manufacturer of Magicstat acquired by Honeywell Corp. He now devotes much of his time to philanthropic endeavors.
Roberta McMahon
Roberta McMahon retired from Pfizer Consumer Healthcare as Licensing Director and is currently working as a business development consultant for the company. Over the past 26 years, Ms. McMahon has held positions on both the technical and commercial side of the business, and was responsible for sourcing and evaluating new products and technologies.
Bob Swindell
Bob Swindell is the current Chairman of the Florida Atlantic University Research and Development Authority (Research Parks) and serves as it’s representative to the Gap Fund Committee. Bob also serves as Senior Vice President for Business Development for the Broward Alliance, Broward County’s official public/private economic development, partnership.
FAU FACULTY
Borko Furht, Ph.D.
Dr. Furht is the Chairman and Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the founder and director of the Multimedia Laboratory at FAU, funded by National Science Foundation. Before joining FAU, he was a vice president of research and a senior director of development at Modcomp, a computer company in Fort Lauderdale, an associate professor at University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, and a senior scientist in the Institute "Boris Kidric"-Vinca, in Belgrade, Yugoslavia. His research interests include multimedia systems and applications, video processing, wireless multimedia, multimedia security, video databases, and Internet engineering. He is currently principal investigator or co-principal investigator and leader of several large multi-year projects including “One Pass to Production” funded by Motorola, and “Center for Coastline Security Technologies” funded by US government, Office of Naval Research, as a Federal Earmark project. He received research grants from various government agencies, such as NSF, ONR, and NASA, and from private corporations, including Motorola, IBM, Hewlett Packard, Racal Datacom, Xerox, Apple, and others.
Chandra Mishra, Ph.D.
Dr. Mishra is a Professor of Industry Studies and the Office Depot Eminent Scholar Chair in Small Business Research in the College of Business. He is the Co-Editor of the Journal of Small Business Management, the leading journal in this field. He also serves as a board member and Vice President of Research and Development for the International Council for Small Business and has been an adviser to local area small businesses and startups. Dr. Mishra has numerous papers published in the areas of corporate governance, management compensation, founding family control and valuation of intangible assets.
Ramaswamy Narayanan, Ph.D.
Dr. Ramaswamy (Ram) Narayanan has been a Professor in the Biology Department since 1998. Formerly Associate Dean for Research in the College of Science, Dr. Narayanan now serves as the Chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. Ram has over ten years of experience in oncology and Bioinformatics with Hoffman La Roche, Nutley, NJ. His career at Roche revolved around identifying molecular targets for cancer drug discovery using computational approaches, preclinical models and assay development. He was instrumental in developing the Bioinformatics infrastructure at Roche. Molecular biologist by training, his expertise includes project management, intellectual property and startup biotech experience. A leader in antisense technology, which is used to block the function of genes, Dr. Narayanan’s current research revolves around gene discovery and validation using bioinformatics and micro-array technology. His research focus at FAU has been on genomics of cancer with an emphasis on solid tumors in particular colon and pancreatic cancers.
Michael Zager
Professor Zager is the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar in Performing Arts in the College of Arts and Letters. Professor Zager holds 13 gold or platinum records through his work with Grammy-Award winners such as Whitney Houston, Peabo Bryson, Luther Vandross and Arturo Sandoval. He’s written music for movie soundtracks and for more than 400 commercials. Since bringing his experience and talent to FAU’s Department of Music, he’s launched the undergraduate program in commercial music, a recording studio and two record labels: “Hoot Recordings” for student projects and “Wisdom Recordings” for the faculty. Professor Zager brings extensive knowledge of copyright issues and electronic media to the committee.
