News: Optoelectronics
16 February 2022
Rockley announces promotions to key senior roles
Rockley Photonics Ltd of Oxford, UK and Pasadena, CA, USA (which develops integrated silicon photonic chipsets and supplies modules for health monitoring and communication products) has announced several senior leadership promotions to further accelerate the development of its biomarker sensing platform and to drive its opportunity in healthcare.
These include the following executive vice president promotions:
- Hooman Abediasl (Ph.D. in electrical engineering, University of Southern California, first prize winner of the Nokia Bell Labs award and an Annenberg Fellow) has been promoted to executive VP of product engineering. Abediasl is a co-founder of Rockley’s sensing product technology and has a technical leadership background in laser-based imaging and sensing.
- Sanjiv Kapoor (Ph.D. in materials science and engineering, Stanford University) has been promoted to executive VP of operations, process technology and manufacturing. Kapoor has authored eight patents and 18 peer-reviewed publications. He is a leader in high-volume production of biometric sensing solutions for consumer products. He has extensive experience in transitioning multiple technologies from ‘lab to fab’, including various MEMS sensors for TDK-InvenSense and III-V devices for communications applications. Kapoor also led the manufacturing ramp of a fuel-cell technology for a clean-tech pioneer.
- Roozbeh Parsa (Ph.D. in electrical engineering, Stanford University) has been promoted to executive VP of commercial. Parsa has authored or co-authored over 25 US patents. He has extensive technical and commercial experience in semiconductor and optical MEMS sensing. With a track record in health monitoring application technology, Parsa’s background in developing products from incubation to market release qualifies him to lead Rockley’s product strategy, sales, marketing and business development efforts.
Rockley has also announced the following senior vice president promotions:
- Casimir Wierzynski (Ph.D. in computation and neural systems, California Institute of Technology) has been promoted to senior VP of cloud and AI. Wierzynski holds multiple US patents and patents pending in the fields of autonomous robotics, neuromorphic computing, and machine learning. He has leadership experience as a senior director of AI at Intel, where he launched the private AI and analytics business, providing hardware and software technology to support machine learning on encrypted data. Wierzynski’s background also includes leading complex technology and engineering teams to solve high-impact problems using AI.
- Benjamin VerSteeg (B.S. in electrical and biomedical engineering, Harvey Mudd College) has been promoted to senior VP of sensing product development. VerSteeg was co-founder & CEO of TruTouch Technologies, which developed the first commercial predicate to Rockley’s wearable sensor technology and was acquired by the company. He was also founder & CTO of MoreLight. He is the author of multiple patents and publications in optical biosensing. VerSteeg has over 20 years of experience in the invention and commercialization of non-invasive optical sensors.
“Our team has the skills, drive and determination to help R ockley successfully execute our innovative approach to health and wellness, utilizing our non-invasive, continuous biosensing platform,” believes chairman & CEO Dr Andrew Rickman. “Our team of over 300 employees includes 109 Ph.D.s and 205 engineers,” he adds.
