Leslie Edwards
Committee Chair
Director of Corporate and Business Development
College of Engineering

Leslie Edwards received a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology from U.C. Davis and a B.S. in pharmacology from U.C. Santa Barbara. She has been a consultant in the field of regulatory toxicology, worked as a manager of regulatory toxicology at two start-up companies, EpigenX and Miravant, as well as worked at Amgen when there were less than 150 employees. Leslie taught both classical and molecular pharmacology at U. C. Santa Barbara and a course on developing FDA approved therapeutics within the biotechnology industry.

Walter Kohn
Nobel Laureate, and Emeriti Professor of Physics.
Appointed member of the Department of Energy

Walter Kohn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on October 13, 1998 for his development of the density-functional theory. Walter Kohn is a condensed matter theorist who has made seminal contributions to the understanding of the electronic structure of materials. He played the leading role in the development of the density functional theory, which has revolutionized scientists' approach to the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and solid materials in physics, chemistry and materials science. With the advent of supercomputers, density functional theory has become an essential tool for electronic materials science. Professor Kohn has also made major contributions to the physics of semiconductors, superconductivity, surface physics and catalysis. Professor Kohn was the founding director of the National Science Foundation's Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The Institute brings together leading scientists from throughout the world to work on major problems in theoretical physics and related fields. Under Professor Kohn's leadership it quickly developed into one of the leading research centers in physics, and has been widely copied.

Steven E. Parry
Member, NGEN Partners, LLC

Steven E. Parry is a member of NGEN Partners, LLC. A professional geologist, Mr. Parry worked in the minerals industry for more than 25 years in a series of North American and international management roles. His pioneering efforts popularized a venture capital approach to early stage investment in the mining business. He's held senior management positions at two startup companies and has significant operations level experience.

Mr. Parry managed two portfolios prior to his role at NGEN. At Billiton PLC (and post merger BHP Billiton the largest multinational mining company), Parry was Vice President Business Development and General Manager, Innovation for the company's exploration subsidiary responsible for their global portfolio of startup equity investments primarily in copper and specialty metals businesses. Parry founded a technology venture fund at BHP in 2001 and was the in house lead on four of the fund's five investments. All five firms continue to actively progress their businesses.

Mr. Parry is a BSc. Graduate of Queen's University at Kingston Ontario and a MSc. graduate from the University of Western Ontario , London Ontario . He participated in extensive executive education training over the past five years at Harvard, Columbia , Wharton, the London Business School and Cooper Management Institute, and has conducted netotiation training for international teams at Billiton . Awards include the Canada 125 medal conferred by Canada 's Governor General for work as Founder and Chairman of Save Our North, an activist group involved in promoting the interests of northern resource communities. Currently, Mr. Parry is a board member at Pionetics, Artificial Muscle, Cerox and psiloQuest, and board observer at Powerspan and InMat.

John Perona
Professor of Chemistry/Biochemistry

Dr. Perona received his doctorate in Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry from Yale University in 1990. His thesis research focused on crystallization and Xray structure determination of an aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase bound to tRNA - the first RNA-protein complex determined at atomic resolution. Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral fellow for four years at UCSF, where he studied the mechanisms of catalysis and substrate specificity in proteases. Dr. Perona joined the UCSB faculty in 1994. Here his research concentrates on protein-nucleic acid interactions in both DNA and RNA systems, employing a battery of approaches from molecular genetics to Xray crystallography. He serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and is author of some 70 publications in the general fields of macromolecular structure-function relationships and enzyme catalysis.   A developing research interest is the application of bioinformatics and biochemical tools toward elucidation of linkages between protein synthesis and the energy metabolism of methanogenic archaebacteria, which are important mediators of the global carbon cycle.  Dr. Perona also provides consultation to the Environmental Defense Center, a nonprofit public interest environmental law firm located in Santa Barbara, California.

David A. Rohy
Principle, Rohy Consulting Associates

David A. Rohy, Ph.D. was appointed to the California Energy Commission in May 1995 by Governor Pete Wilson. In April 1997, Dr. Rohy was appointed Vice Chairman of the Commission. He filled the engineering or physical science position on the Energy Commission until he from the Commission in April 2000.

Dr. Rohy brought more than 25 years of industrial experience to the Energy Commission. He was employed from 1970 to 1995 by Solar Turbines, Inc., a major turbine manufacturing company in Southern California. In his last position there, he was the Director of the Advanced Turbine Systems program, a large nation-wide cooperative research and development program with the Department of Energy. That program, which included several industrial and university partners, has as its goals the development of cleaner and more efficient gas turbine engine systems. From 1967 to 1970, he was employed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Dr. Rohy has had more than 30 technical papers published and two patents awarded, and made extensive presentations at national technical conferences. He received a Ph.D. in Experimental Solid State Physics from Cornell University and a B.A. Degree in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Susannah Scott
Professor of Chemical Engineering
Professor of Chemistry

Professor Susannah Scott joined the faculty at UCSB in 2003, with a joint appointment in Chemical Engineering and Chemistry. Her research interests include homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, kinetics and mechanisms of surface-mediated reactions and the design of new processes for conversion of biorenewable feedstocks into fuels and platform chemicals. Current research projects in her group include the development of precious metal-doped perovskite catalysts for CO oxidation, non-precious-metal-containing carbide catalysts for H2 generation, and functional group-tolerant heterogeneous catalysts for seed oil metathesis. In recent years, she has served on Technical Advisory Boards and as a consultant for The Dow Chemical Company, Mitsubishi Chemical Company, Nova Chemicals and Exxon-Mobil.

Galen Stucky
Professor of Chemistry/Biochemistry.
Galen is one of the most cited chemists in the US.

Dr. Galen D. Stucky joined the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1985, where he is currently a professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and the Materials Department, and member of the Interdepartmental Program in Biomolecular Science and Engineering. Before moving to UCSB, he held positions at the University of Illinois (1964-1980), Sandia National Laboratory (1979-1981), and DuPont Central Research and Development (1981-1985). His current research interests include molecular assembly of nanoscale to macroscale components of composite systems; the interface of inorganics with biomolecules; chemistry associated with the efficient utilization of energy resources; gradient materials and interfaces; understanding Nature's routes to organic/inorganic bioassembly. He has published over 580 scientific articles and has been awarded 12 patents.

Dr. Stucky has served the American Chemical Society on the Petroleum Research Foundation board, as Associate Editor of the Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, twice as Chairman of the Solid State Subdivision of the Inorganic Division, and as Chairman of the Inorganic Division. Recent honors include one of three lecturers at the Symposium in Honor of the 100th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Chemical Institutes at "Hessische Strasse" (2000), an Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist award (2000), the ACS Award in Chemistry of Materials (2002), an IBM Faculty Award (2003), and the IMMA (International Mesostructured Materials Association) Award (2004).

Richard E. Twogood
CEO and Chairman of the Board, TekLaunch, Inc.,

Dr. Richard E. Twogood is CEO and Chairman of the Board of TekLaunch, Inc., a company which specializes in corporate venture capital and strategic partnering.   TekLaunch provides technical and business due diligence, technology concepts, and venture formation services to a number of U.S. and international clients ranging from large companies to start-ups.  Dr. Twogood also serves as founding CTO of SST, Inc., a company specializing in cross-border commercialization of security technologies.
From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Twogood held the position of Deputy Associate Director for New Initiatives in the Engineering Directorate at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  In that role he had responsibility for program development and commercialization activities for the 2000-person Engineering Directorate at LLNL.  From 1996-2000 he was Deputy Associate Director for Electronics Engineering, with overall management responsibilities for the 750-person EE Department at LLNL.  From 1988 to 1996 he was Program Leader of the Imaging and Detection Program in the Lasers Directorate, where he was responsible for projects including nonacoustic anti-submarine warfare, laser guide stars, micropower impulse radar, strategic defense,  and other technologies.  He held three division leader positions in Electronics Engineering from 1983 through 1988 spanning R&D, defense systems, and laser programs.  

Dr. Twogood received his BS (72), MS (73), and Ph.D. (77) degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of California at Davis.  He is the author of over 30 papers in the fields of digital signal and image processing.  He is a senior member of the IEEE; member of the SPIE, AIAA, and VC-Angel Roundtable; and advisory board member of Technology Ventures Corporation.

Daniel Weiss
Co-founder and Managing Partner of Angeleno Group LLC

Angeleno Group LLC ("AG"), a Los Angeles based private equity firm focused on energy and environmental technology companies. Daniel Weiss oversees AG's investment activities in the areas of pollution control, transmission and distribution infrastructure and fuel technologies. Prior to the formation of AG, Mr. Weiss was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers in Los Angeles, working in the firm's mergers and acquisitions and technology practice groups. He represented Global 1000 clients, including utilities and energy related companies, in a wide array of private equity and corporate finance transactions. Mr. Weiss also has a significant history of involvement in government, regulatory and public policy entities that deal with the energy sector including work experience in the White House and the United States Congress. Additionally, he has taught, lectured and published articles on the topics of law, business and public policy. He has lectured at Stanford University, Stanford Law School and U.C.L.A. and his articles have appeared in media outlets such as the New York Times wire service, the Journal of Commerce and the San Francisco Examiner.