Mark has a diverse background in intellectual property, patent examination, technology transfer and commercialization. He has supported DoD and FLC technology transfer as a client program analyst for Battelle at the Natick Soldier Research, Development & Engineering Center (NSRDEC) within the Office of Research and Technology application (ORTA). Prior to moving to New England, he was a patent examiner at the United States Patent & Trademark Office in Alexandria, VA. In addition, he has been an associate with the New York State Science & Technology Law Center in Syracuse New York.
Team Group: Senior Consultant
Greg Lank
Before joining Foresight Mr. Lank managed the research, development and commercialization of sustainability technologies for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In this role he functioned as the program manager overseeing the research, authoring solicitations, building partnerships and managing technology showcase conferences. He has over 15 years of engineering experience in testing, research and development and federal research commercialization management with a particular focus on deployment of maritime, renewable energy, environmental and sustainability technologies. Mr. Lank is a Co-Founder for the mobile ebike startup Quikbyke, a professor at Everglades University teaching alternative energy and chaired the 2016 Tech Connect Taking Environmental Technologies to Market panel. He is also a professional mentor for Engineers Without Borders, licensed professional engineer, member of Mensa USA and was featured in Solving Problems that Matter authored by Khanjan Mehta.
Melinda Wirsing
Melinda is a Senior Consultant in Foresight’s Commercialization practice. Prior to Foresight, Melinda worked at Hewlett-Packard, specializing in marketing, sales and project management for the private and public sectors. She has worked with North American companies and channel partners with revenues that range from $1M to several billion and has managed cross-functional projects with total contract values of $30M to $1B. Her areas of expertise sales strategy and marketing communications for personal and enterprise computing, enterprise services, medical devices, B2B/B2C software and outsourcing services.
Efrain Figueroa
Efrain Figueroa has over 17 years of experience in the development of optical, opto-electronic and semiconductor materials and devices for applications in laser optics, sensors and optical communications systems. He holds a Ph.D. in Solid State Physics and an MS degree in Electrical Engineering. He is the author of two patents for products in the market. With wide-ranging contributions in established as well as startup companies, his past experience includes managing the development of new products from concept, through proof of feasibility, and into manufacturing. He has also been part of technology development teams charged with assessing the technical feasibility and risks of new approaches to products.
Poulami Mitra
Dr. Poulami Mitra has been in biomedical research for over 10 years starting at Medical College of Virginia -Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), University of Washington and Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU). She has also worked with Technology Transfer offices at VCU and OHSU. The last couple of years, she has worked as a Technical consultant with a patent law firm. She has experience working on various biotechnology, biomedical and translational research projects. She is also adjunct faculty with Portland Community College (PCC) where she teaches Anatomy and Physiology.
Lianne Wong
Lianne applies her professional experience spanning corporate and education sectors to solve meaningful problems and address real world needs through research, design, and development. She brings experience in technology evaluation, patent research, and commercialization from NASA and Stanford University. She has worked as an engineer on cancer radiation therapy machines and conducted research in laser imaging of biological tissue to advance medical diagnostic methods at Varian and MIT. An avid reader with a passion for learning, she has also worked as an instructional designer at Google, redesigned and taught introductory engineering and robotics labs at a community college as part of a National Science Foundation STEM initiative and enjoys keeping abreast of emerging technologies and encouraging innovation to enable applicable products and solutions. Lianne earned a B.S. from MIT and a M.S. from Carnegie-Mellon University.
Michael Morrissey
Michael has extensive analytical, market research, and business development experience that he has gained while working in the renewable energy industry and throughout his studies. He began his career with a residential energy efficiency company in which he was responsible for increasing operational efficiencies and deducing business critical information. He most recently worked for an international consulting firm that specializes in the solar industry. He has a strong eye for detail, excellent interpersonal skills, and an entrepreneurial mindset. Michael also has a passion for photography and music.
Richard Turk
Mr. Richard Turk brings over 30 years of experience in product and process development in the chemical industry. He recently directed and managed environmental risk assessment studies for taking new agricultural and pharmaceutical products to market. As a founding scientist for a start-up company based on the utilization of agricultural resources, he assisted in the transfer of technologies between university and large corporations. He has received several patents and was highlighted in Business Week’ s Developments to Watch.
Richard has extensive experience in chemical downstream separation processes at the bench, pilot and industrial scale and in analytical chemistry and computational modeling.
John Topping
Dr. John Topping has an over 30 year career in industry before moving into technology transfer and commercialization. He works primarily in advanced and industrial materials research and development (R&D) and new product development. He spent 9 years in university technology transfer before joining Foresight. His R&D career was mostly with Ferro Corporation, a worldwide supplier of industrial materials with sales of over $1 billion/year, where he was involved in the development of new products for the electronics, ceramics, automotive, appliance, building, and other industries. His roles included scientist, corporate research associate director, and worldwide technical director of the coatings, color, ceramics, and electronics group. He also worked at the ORTECH organization (then the Ontario Research Foundation) in Canada, the English General Electric Company, and the University of Rhode Island. In addition to working with companies and universities he has been a proposal review for several federal and state agencies since coming to Foresight.
Timothy Edward Raines
Mr. Raines is an experienced commercialization executive with a primary focus on early stage technology marketing, sales, business development and SBIR/STTR grant development. Tim has worked in Technology Transfer with universities internationally, from the US, Ukraine, Mexico, India, Hungary, Columbia, Korea, and more. He also serves private innovators and R&D labs in the US, securing SBIR/STTR grants and moving the technologies through the commercialization process. Tim has also served as a DoE SBIR Principal Investigator.