Scott Thielman is CTO and co-founder of Product Creation Studio. With expertise leading the development of consumer, medical and industrial products, Scott has participated in all aspects of development for clients including Philips, Johnson & Johnson, and Lilly. He holds a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Washington and is a licensed professional engineer.
Michael received his B.S. in Chemistry from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of California, San Diego. Before joining the industry, he completed post-doctoral studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and Los Alamos National Laboratories where he utilized chemistry to study enzyme mechanisms and nanoparticle formation. Prior to Cepheid, Michael’s industrial experiences involved working on different approaches for siRNA and mRNA delivery at Nastech and PhaseRx Pharmaceutical companies. Michael also has a Technology Management MBA degree from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.
His role at Cepheid is to discover and introduce new chemical technologies that enable cleaner, faster, and more specific molecular diagnostics that are highly multiplexed in a single PCR tube. At Cepheid he manages the chemistry R&D group consisting of roughly 20 scientists ranging in backgrounds from small molecule & oligonucleotide synthesis to sample preparation and microbiology activities. Over his nearly 10 years at Cepheid, he has had several roles in the organization including tech transfer, project management and R&D management.
Ann Demaree, MBA, BSN, RN is Senior Vice President of Business Development at Cardiac Insight, a leading Bellevue, WA USA-based digital health company revolutionizing cardiac arrhythmia diagnosis and research through its automated analysis software and prescription grade wearable biosensors. An executive team member at Cardiac Insight since 2017, Ms. Demaree has over 30 years of medical technology design, marketing, commercialization, consulting and corporate M&A experience. She is licensed as a Registered Nurse in the States of Oregon and North Carolina and has served both as an invited faculty member and Industry Advisor to the Oregon Health & Science University Biomedical Innovation Program (BIP) and Clinical Translational Research Institute (OCTRI) since 2012.
Rhonda Rhyne has deep industry experience in medical technology and machine learning, a subset of AI. She has more than 25 years’ experience as an executive and board director developing and commercializing disruptive medical technologies. Ms. Rhyne led two start-ups companies to rapid growth including CardioDynamics, a publicly-traded medical device company, which was sold to SonoSite FujiFilm.
Rhonda has been recognized as an industry leader including Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year – Medical Products and Deloitte’s Fast 50 Award for 50 Fastest Growing Tech/Life Science Companies in Southern California for 9 years from 1999–2007.
Currently, Rhonda is President, CEO, and Board Director for Prevencio, Inc., a cardiac biomarker company developing novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven, multi-protein in vitro diagnostic and prognostic tests for cardiovascular disease. Prevencio is also in partnerships with Microsoft and Seattle Children’s Hospital (for custom diagnostics for Kawasaki Disease).
Rhonda also serves on the Board of Directors for Aminex Therapeutics and Life Science Washington. She earned an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Business Administration and a bachelor's degree in Pharmacy from Washington State University. She has also authored a leadership book, Keys to the Corner Office: Success Strategies for Women by Women.
Paul Yager, PhD, is the CSO of UbiDX and a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington, with adjunct appointments in Chemistry, Global Health, and Oral Biology. A native of Manhattan, he received his A.B. in Biochemistry from Princeton in 1975, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Oregon in 1980, specializing in vibrational spectroscopy of biomolecules. After an NRC Fellowship at the Naval Research Laboratory (1980-1982), he joined the NRL staff as a Research Chemist. He moved to the Center (now Department) of Bioengineering at the University of Washington as Associate Professor in 1987, advancing to Professor in 1995; he served as Chair of the department from 2007 to 2013. Initially working on self-organizing lipid microstructure and optically-based biomedical sensors, since 1992 his lab has focused primarily on development of microfluidics for the analysis of biological fluids for use in low-cost point-of-care biomedical diagnostics for the developed and developing worlds. From 2005-2010 a team led by Yager was supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a low-cost rugged point-of-care system for pathogen identification. Since 2008, most lab activity has focused on developing two-dimensional porous networks (paper microfluidics) for ultra-low-cost instrument-free point-of-care pathogen identification for human diagnosis. Readout is often coupled optical imaging for quantitative analysis and data transmission; this has been under support of NIH, NSF, DARPA, DTRA, WRF and the Emergent Ventures fund. He has authored 160 research publications in refereed journals, has 42 issued patents, and has co-founded 2 companies: Micronics and UbiDX.