He began his career as an entrepreneur as a student at the University of Massachusetts. He and a team including his advisor, launched a start-up biotech company which ultimately went public. This experience, coupled with a lifelong passion for entrepreneurship, led to his work with the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. Phil's tenure at the NCIIA is marked by his skill for network-building and expert leverage of resources. He has a special talent for seeking out gifted educators and other important contributors and putting them to work for the betterment of invention, innovation, and entrepreneurship education in the U.S. and worldwide. As an entrepreneur in a not-for-profit organization, he has grown the NCIIA from a grassroots group of enthusiastic faculty to a nationally known and in-demand knowledge base and resource center. Phil also serves as the Chair of the Entrepreneurship Division of the American Society of Engineering Education.

Rob Chernow is the first Vice Provost for E*ntrepreneurship at Rensselaer. He was founder and president of Educational Services for Entrepreneurship, a nonprofit organization assisting universities in shaping their entrepreneurship initiatives. In this role, he assisted with benchmarking, strategic planning, curriculum redesign and launching new student and alumni programs. Rob was awarded an Atlantic Fellowship by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the United Kingdom to develop recommendations to help the U.K. become a more enterprising nation. He was a consultant to the Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Leadership Institute at Howard University, serves as a volunteer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Deshpande Center and has also provided consulting services to more than 50  other colleges and universities worldwide, as well as the OECD and the United Nations.  He also served as senior vice president for entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation overseeing the organization’s activities with universities.  Rob has founded two companies in the health care management sector: Corporate Health Strategies and World Specialists Online. He grew Corporate Health Strategies to $50 million in revenues and negotiated its sale to Metropolitan Life, assuring MetLife's re-entry into managed care.  He has lectured worldwide on entrepreneurship.  Rob Chernow completed his bachelor’s degree at Colgate, his Master’s at the University of California, Berkeley; and his doctorate work at Yale in Epidemiology and Public Health.

The OTC provides support to researchers and embers of the campus community relative to intellectual property with a focus on technology commercialization.  This involves evaluating, protecting, marketing and licensing advanced technologies developed at Rensselaer.  Previously, he was Associate Director of Rensselaer’s Center for Manufacturing Productivity and Technology Transfer, and before that he worked in the textile, paper and printing industries in various managerial positions, including plant manager and general manager.  Chuck Rancourt has M.S. and B.S. degrees in management from Rensselaer.  He has been an adjunct faculty member at both Rensselaer and Siena College for several years and is co-teaching a course on management of a technology transfer office at Albany Law School.  He is also a member of AUTM and LES.

He is currently serving as the director of the New York State Science & Technology Law Center, a statewide center funded by the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research.  Professor Hagelin has supervised over one hundred research projects in his role as director of the Technology Commercialization Research Center.  These research projects have been undertaken on behalf of universities, federal laboratories, non-profit research centers, and large, medium, small and start-up companies.  He also teaches in the fields of intellectual property and technology commercialization law.  His research and writing focus on the areas of technology commercialization strategy, patent valuation and intellectual property policy.  He lectures and publishes frequently on these topics.  Professor Hagelin was recently granted a patent on a new Method to Value Intellectual Property.  Professor Hagelin received a B.S. in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. from Temple University Law School and a LL.M. from Harvard University Law School.  Professor Hagelin is a member of the New York State Bar, the Pennsylvania State Bar, the Licensing Executive Society, the American Intellectual Property Law Association and the Association of University Technology Managers.

He joined the company in July, 2001, with broad based leadership and management experience in the military, academe and private business. Prior to joining Starfire, he completed a four-year US Air Force active duty assignment as a colonel and Commander of Support Forces Antarctica. In this position, as the senior ranking US military commander in New Zealand and Antarctica, he was responsible for transitioning the US Antarctic Program from 45 years of US Navy command to the Air Force. The Director of National Science Foundation and the National Science Board formally recognized him for his accomplishments, including the South Pole rescue of Dr Jerri Nielson. He retired from the military after 31 years of service in April, 2000 and has held a number of positions in technology development in the Capital Region, prior to his Antarctic assignment, while carrying on his military career as a pilot in the New York Air National Guard. His technology development positions included Deputy Director for Business Development at University at Albany’s New York State Center for Advanced Thin Film Technology and Business Analyst at the Center for Economic Growth. He was recognized for his accomplishments in assisting high technology companies as the first New York State winner of the Small Business Administration’s national Tibbetts award.  At the General Electric Company, Richard. Saburro led the “Factory with a Future” manufacturing program and introduced “Just in Time” manufacturing.  He graduated from Union College in 1970 with a B.S. in physics.

Ali’s primary mission is to support the creation of an entrepreneurial culture in Syracuse and the Central New York region. In addition to managing the Syracuse Technology Garden and Sam Williams Business Center, Ali also coordinates CNY Angel, a group of early stage investors; manages a network of experienced mentors; and oversees www.GrowSyracuse.com, a one-stop online resource for the region’s entrepreneurs. Ali moved to Syracuse from Washington, DC, where he was an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton charged with helping IRS Commissioners manage over $1 billion in technology modernization and workforce restructuring initiatives. Prior to this, he co-founded New Think (a mobile commerce services firm) and WritersPoint (an offshore technical writing company). Before beginning his career as an entrepreneur, Ali turned around large-scale software, telecommunications, and systems integration projects for Fortune 100 companies. He received his MBA in Finance and Operations Management from Yale University’s School of Management, where he helped initiate a joint Masters degree program in Industrial Environmental Management. Ali graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Physics and a concentration in Economics.

Brett M. Hutton, specializes in patent litigation with Heslin Rothenberg Farley and Mesiti P.C. With the firm since 2001, he practices in the U.S. District Courts and Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and has experience in Section 337 Investigations in the U.S. International Trade Commission. Brett also concentrates a part of his practice to prosecuting patent, trademark and copyright applications and transactional issues, such as license and other technology transfer agreements. Prior to joining the firm, he worked with the intellectual property law firm Morgan & Finnegan, LLP in New York City.  As part of the firm, he offers his experience to the litigation, mechanical, design and copyright and trademark practice groups. Brett also devotes part of his practice to litigating and counseling clients in matters relating to design patents.  Brett graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1995 magna cum laude with a Bachelors of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and from the State University of New York, University at Buffalo, School of Law in 1998 with a Juris Doctor. He is admitted to the bar of the State of New York, and to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of New York. He is also registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Rich focuses his practice in corporate and venture capital law and commercial litigation. He provides corporate counsel to a broad spectrum of companies with a particular emphasis on emerging growth and start-up companies. He has also successfully represented companies in a wide variety of commercial litigation matters including shareholder disputes, corporate dissolution actions, and the defense of non-competition agreements. Rich Honen has written and lectured extensively on topics of corporate law, venture capital and angel investing to various national and local groups. His publication credits include acting as General Editor for the LexisNexis Practice Insights (LexisNexis Online 2006) and as Editorial Board Member of "White's New York Business Entities" (LexisNexis Matthew Bender 2006). He has lectured widely at various continuing legal education programs sponsored by the New York State Bar Association, as well as with technology, investment, small business and industry groups. Rich Honen is acknowledged to be one of the early practitioners of nanotechnology law in upstate New York, as reported in a March 2003 article in the New York Law Journal. He is also actively involved in educating future entrepreneurs, having lectured on behalf of the Science and Technology Law Center of Albany Law School Smart Start Program, Albany Law School of Union University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University at Albany at both the graduate and undergraduate level.

Brad Svrluga is a co-founder and Managing Director of High Peaks Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on investments in early stage technology companies. High Peaks is actively investing throughout New York and the northeast, focusing primarily on companies in the digital media, internet-enabled business services, software, and medical technology markets. Brad serves on the boards of and led investments in High Peaks portfolio companies Pump Audio (acquired by Getty Images), The NewsMarket, Allworx (acquired by PAETEC), Worktopia, TxCore, Threadsmith, and ReQuest. Before founding High Peaks, Brad was a Partner at The Berkshires Capital Investors, the original fund in the Village Ventures Network. Prior to working with BCI, he was a senior consultant with the Monitor Group, a premier international strategy consulting firm, where he managed projects in the firm's Cambridge, MA, South Africa, and Brazil offices. High Peaks is one of 15 affiliates of Village Ventures, a nationwide network of regionally focused, early-stage venture capital funds. Village Ventures Affiliate Funds across the country are focused in technology markets such as New York, Florida, and the Rocky Mountain states that have a strong supply of entrepreneurial talent, an environment conducive to business creation, but a relative lack of committed early-stage venture capital. By working as a collaborative network in partnership with Village Ventures, these funds collectively are able to bring substantially more resources to bear in their respective markets than standalone funds.

Prior to joining DualAlign LLC in 2007, Remy Arteaga had served as the CEO of a start up medical device company in New York, which was focused on commercializing a self-injector in the Anaphylaxis market. Mr. Arteaga began his career with General Motors, where he developed business methods that were deployed throughout GM. After GM, Remy spent 7 years advising clients on the deployment of IT strategies and the launching digital divisions. Remy's first start-up was a digital imaging business in the publishing industry, where he took the company to profitability in six short months. In 1996 Remy founded an Internet company, raised seed funding and built the company into the top competitor in its media space. In the spring of 2000, Remy sold the company to Snowball.com, which earned investors a 12 to 1 return on their investment. He holds a BSEE from the University of Rochester and an MBA from Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

After earning B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Tobi spent five years overseeing product development at respected game developer Vicarious Visions before founding 1st Playable Productions. At VV, she delivered over 60 game titles ranging from Blues Clues GBC to Doom III Xbox, establishing a track record of being able to build and train diverse teams to deliver high quality games on time. She led a product development team that grew over five years to 90 artists, engineers, designers, and project managers, as well as a number of established subcontractors. Tobi is active in the game industry, a frequent speaker at industry conferences, and has delivered seminars on topics ranging from kid testing, to IP rights, to the application of new software processes to improve industry quality of life through structured planning and development processes. Before joining the game industry, Tobi managed R&D in embedded and distributed systems at General Electric Research and Development, where she earned 16 patents, and led initiatives in new product development, software quality, business strategy, and outsourcing. She has written articles appearing in over 25 professional publications.

Since June 2007, Mindy B. Fleisher has been coordinating university outreach and partnership efforts for the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Prior to this assignment, Ms. Fleisher served as Chief of Staff to the Commissioner for Patents in March 2006. As Chief of Staff, she was responsible for oversight of the Office of the Commissioner for Patents, the independent inventor programs and coordination of speaking requests and tours received by the patents organization. She also assisted the Commissioner with his daily schedule and business area operations. Prior to being named the Chief of Staff, Ms. Fleisher was part of a team responsible for developing and implementing the USPTO Patent Training Academy, a program designed to train 1200 new patent examiners each year in an eight-month training program. Ms. Fleisher began her career at the USPTO in 1989 as a Patent Examiner in the biotechnology area. She became a Supervisory Patent Examiner in 1995. She has held numerous assignments, including a detail to the Office of the Commissioner for Patents in 1997 and a work assignment beginning in 1998 in the Search and Information Resources Administration (SIRA). Throughout her career, Ms. Fleisher has received numerous awards including the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal for examination and supervisory accomplishments; a Silver Medal for improvements in customer service and the Vice Presidential Hammer Award for work in establishing a new customer outreach program in the biotechnology group. Ms. Fleisher received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Bryn Mawr College. She also received an MA, M.Phil., and Ph.D. in biophysical inorganic chemistry from Columbia University.

Mark W. Beall is one of the Founders and President of Simmetrix. His areas of expertise are automatic mesh generation, adaptive finite element techniques, and object-oriented software analysis and design. He is the chief architect of Simmetrix’ software and maintains a daily involvement in design and implementation issues. He has a Ph.D. (1999) in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, M.S. (1990) and B.S. (1989) in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Washington. Previously he was the Assistant Director of the Scientific Computation Research Center (SCOREC) at RPI. During his six years working at SCOREC, Dr. Beall had the central role in coordinating software development at the center. Mark Beall has 14 published papers.