Leadership

Joseph Chadraoui
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Mr. Chadraoui comes with over twenty years of hands-on and leadership experience in corporate finance, startups, fundraising, and team building.  He has continuously demonstrated his leadership capacity and his ability to deliver under pressure in the entrepreneurial world both in the high-tech industry and the financial sector. Mr. Chadraoui has developed a well-rounded understanding of the business arena through exposure to the public and private domains, academic, commercial, and R & D settings, as well as large and small work environments.  He started his career working for NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), where he was directly involved in technical and project management of data acquisition and control systems for the Lunar-Mars Life Support project, which earned him numerous achievement awards.  During his aerospace tenure, he received extensive training in executive management and professional development.  His career progressed to assume the role of a CFR with Global Financial, where he has been consistently attaining measurable success in growing the business and building the leadership team.  In 2007 and in collaboration with local scientists and entrepreneurs, he started Encore Technologies; a startup focusing on developing and commercializing alternative energy solutions in the renewable applications.  Mr. Chadraoui obtained a BS and an MS in Computer Science from the University of Houston (UH) with a focus on Networking and Telecommunications.  In addition, he earned an MBA from the University of Phoenix with a concentration in Finance.  Mr. Chadraoui is an active member of the National Management Association (NMA).

 

David Starikov, Ph.D.
Co-founder, Director of Research & Acting Program Manager-Energy Storage

Dr. Starikov has over twenty five years of experience in the development of advanced devices and structures based on wide band gap semiconductor materials for space, military, and industrial applications. He published over a 100 papers and holds 9 patents in the related areas. Dr. Starikov served as a Sector Manager at Research and Design Bureau "PHONON" (Chernovtsy, Ukraine) developing a stellar simulator for calibration of photometric equipment on board Soviet space satellite "Meteor 4", which won him a Bronze Medal on the USSR National Achievements Exhibition. In the mid-90s, Dr. Starikov worked as a Senior Scientist in Houston-based small business companies, such as SI Diamond Technology and International Stellar Technologies, developing new semiconductor materials, such as diamond, III-V compounds, and III nitrides, as well as advanced devices, such as Light Emitting Diodes and Solar Cells for Space and Military applications.  Shortly afterwards, he held a Research Professor position at the University of Houston. He supervised M.S. and Ph.D. students and participated in several defense committees. Dr. Starikov also served as a Principal Investigator in two Texas Advanced Research Program projects developed novel micro-integrated multifunctional biochemical sensors and advanced fire detectors.  Throughout his tenure at IMS, he oversees all R&D programs, including hiring and supervision of staff and budget management. In addition, he has been serving as a Principal Investigator in 6 Phase-I and 2 Phase-2 SBIR projects funded by DOD (MDA and AF), NASA, DOE, NSF, and NIH Federal agencies. These projects were focused on the development of false alarm-free fire/flame detectors, sensors for fine aerosol detection, ultra-strong bonding methods, high-stability solar simulators, and hardened cold cathodes for electron microscopy and mass spectrometry. Dr. Starikov earned his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the State University of Chernovtsy, Ukraine, in 1976 and 1991, respectively.
 

Abdelhak  Bensaoula, Ph.D.
Research Strategy and Product Development Lead

Dr. Bensaoula has more than 20 years experience in R&D of advanced materials and device engineering. His expertise spans the fields of materials science and engineering, vacuum science, photonics, and technology, device fabrication and testing. His latest efforts are focused on the renewable energy and photonics applications, including storage and generation. He has time and again correctly redirected his R&D focus to take advantage of new opportunities afforded by new discoveries, industrial needs and trends. He has successfully managed several State, Federal and Private grants and was instrumental in setting up the facilities and research programs at the Center for Advanced Materials (CAM) at the University of Houston (UH). As part of a NASA program he was part of a group that developed a free flying space platform that was deployed in low earth orbit three times by the Space Shuttle. He has founded three high technology startups with IMS, Inc. being the latest initiative.  Dr. Bensaoula is currently the Director of the Nitride Materials and Devices Laboratory and a faculty in the Departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering at UH, where he leads a team of several faculty and scientists.  For the last 6 years he has been a member of the UH research council.  As Laboratory Director of R&D at UH and Chief Technologist at IMS, Inc., Dr. Bensaoula has been instrumental in transferring fundamental know-how into applied research generating as a result significant intellectual property value. Through consensus and team building tools, Dr. Bensaoula slowly but successfully built up and retained his R&D team without a single lay off in the last 15 years.  Dr. Bensaoula holds an MS in Physics from the University of Oran, Algeria; and an MS. in Process Control and Ph.D. in Physics from UH.   He holds close to twenty patents in photovoltaic, energy storage, and photonic devices, has close to 300 papers in peer-reviewed publications and an even larger number of conference presentations.
 

Nadhir Kosa, Ph.D.
Acting Director of Business Development

Over twenty years of progressive hands-on and leadership experience in building and managing multi-disciplinary advanced technical and business related programs in well-structured corporate and entrepreneurial environments. Dr. Kosa held several executive positions spearheading the development of advanced photonics-based technologies and products. In addition, he started his own businesses in executive search and technology consultancy, where he was more involved in areas of business and corporate development. As a Corporate Officer, he has exhibited a profound ability to translate corporate goals into strategic plans, build teams, manage resources, set policies, secure key IP, conduct due diligence, participate in fund-raising and act as an effective liaison among internal and external cross-functional groups.  As a technologist, he was instrumental in carrying on his innovation through rigorous engineering to early manufacturing phase. On the business side, he has emerged successfully with a proven ability to engage in a business development-cycle; ranging from planning, outreaching, running a full sales-cycle; negotiations, strengthening relationships, market analysis, and closures.  His role at IMS for the last six months has been focused on exploring and forging strategic alliances with potential partners from industry and business world interested in commercializing IMS’s core technologies for applications in energy storage, renewables and medicine. He is well-versed as an effective interface between coworkers, corporate officers, directors, investors, and outside world.    Self-motivated team player with strong people and communication skills.  Visionary with a wide network of professional contacts. Dr. Kosa holds a BS, EE, University of Baghdad, MS and Ph.D. in Optical Sciences, University of Arizona.  He is an active member of a number of professional societies (OSA, SPIE, IEEE, and AVS) and a regular participant in the major solar energy conferences. He holds 6 patents to his name.
 

Rajeev Pillai, Ph.D.
Research Scientist

Dr. Pillai has over eight years of experience in the design and development of semiconductor optoelectronic devices for various optical, chemical and physical sensors.  He received a B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from Bharathiar University, India, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston, Texas. His expertise in photodetectors led to the development of the spatially aligned dual-band UV/IR sensor array.  He has hands-on experience in the development of planar cold-cathode electron sources and optical calibration sources.  Dr. Pillai has successfully completed four Phase I and one Phase II SBIR projects. His research focuses on devices based on III-Nitride thin films and Graphene monolayers.  He is currently investigating the development of fluorescence sensors for biomedical applications and implementation of the dual-band UV/IR sensors.  He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
 

Alan Price, MS
Sr. Research Engineer

Mr. Price has 10 years of experience providing design, engineering and fabrication support for the research efforts at IMS and two other research labs.  He received a B.S. in geology from Bowling Green State University, Ohio and an M.S. from Louisiana State University, Louisiana where his focus was on heavy metal geochemistry.  He is the IMS Principle Investigator on a privately supported deep water pipeline sensor project, now in Phase II development.  His work also includes research on the development of a bio-friendly composite material as a substitute in the manufacture of structural components and investigating structural properties of concrete that incorporates waste stream material from the manufacturing of polymer components.  He is contributing to a Phase II NASA SBIR project to enhance the bond strength between various fiber reinforced polymers and other materials.  His background also includes work as a commercial diver providing oil field support and salvage services and teaching secondary school physics and chemistry.

 

 

Collaborators

Mounir Boukadoum, Ph.D.
Professor of Microelectronics Engineering, Department of Computer Science, University of Quebec at Montreal
www.info2.uqam.ca/~boukadoum_m

Othon Monteiro, Ph.D.
Scientist, Materials Nanotech, LLC
www.materialsnanotech.com

Chris Boney, Ph.D.