Andrew Benowitz
Carlotta Cecchini
Carlotta Cecchini received her Master’s degree in 2017 in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Bologna Bologna (Italy), where she was awarded a scholarship for two consecutive years (2015/2016) for her excellent grades. In 2018, she joined the group of Prof. Leonardo Scapozza (Biochemistry/Chemistry group) at the University of Geneva to start a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry. Her research topic mainly focuses on the design and synthesis PROTACs as oncogenic agents. Through her thesis work, Carlotta gained experience in the field of Targeted Protein Degradation, and in particular, in PROTAC rational design. She plans to obtain her Ph.D. degree by the end of 2022.
Alexei Kisselev
Chris Eliasmith
Chris is the co-inventor of the Neural Engineering Framework (NEF), the Neural Engineering Objects (Nengo) software environment, and the Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA), all of which are dedicated to understanding how the brain works. His team has developed the Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network (Spaun) which is the most realistic functional brain simulation yet developed. He won the prestigious 2015 NSERC Polanyi Award for his research.
Chris is the Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience. At the University of Waterloo, Chris is jointly appointed in the Philosophy and Systems Design Engineering departments, as well as being cross-appointed to the Computer Science department. Chris has supervised students in each of these departments as well as in Biology and Psychology. Chris is the director of the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience (CTN) at the University of Waterloo. The Centre brings together researchers across many faculties as diverse as math, engineering, arts and science who are interested in computational and theoretical models of neural systems.
The Computational Neuroscience Research Group (CNRG) is Chris’ research lab which is associated with the CTN. The CNRG site contains the most up-to-date information on Chris’ team’s research. Chris has published two books: How to Build a Brain (Oxford University Press) and his seminal Neural Engineering.
When he is not pushing the boundaries of theoretical neuroscience forward or hanging out with his team at the CNRG, Chris spends time with his family and occasionally straps on the blades for a game of hockey near his home in Waterloo. He has a Bacon-Erdos number of 8.
George Minassian
Dr. George Minassian has been a co-founder and CEO of Crossbar since 2010. A seasoned veteran of the semiconductor memory industry, Dr. Minassian brings Crossbar 25 years of experience in systems, logic design, new business development, and product development. Over his extensive career, Dr. Minassian has a proven track record of developing commercially successful, leading-edge products.
From 2002 to 2010, Dr. Minassian held a variety of positions at Spansion, a leading innovator of Flash memory solutions, most recently as vice president of System and Software Engineering where he led the $1.2 billion Flash Memory business targeting the cellular wireless market segment. While at Spansion, he developed and established new industry standards in emerging technologies such as PISMO and achieved a successful track record for large-scale product development and management. From 1999-2002, Dr. Minassian was director of Wireless Engineering at Advanced Micro Devices, a microprocessor leader, where he developed the industry’s first CMOS RF process and complete 802.11b/a chipset and reference designs. Dr. Minassian holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin.
Sylvain DuBois
Sylvain Dubois joined the Crossbar management team in 2013 as Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Business Development. With over 17 years of semiconductor experience in business development and strategic product marketing, he brings a proven ability to analyze market trends, identify new, profitable business opportunities and create precise product positioning that is in perfect sync with market demands to drive market share leadership and business results.
Prior to joining Crossbar, Mr. Dubois led strategic product positioning and market engagement for developing new products at Spansion. Responsible for identifying new growth opportunities and expanding the product portfolio, Mr. Dubois was instrumental in defining the Spansion Flash memory product roadmap.
From 2002-2006, Mr. Dubois was a System-on-Chip architect of OMAP application processors at Texas Instruments. Mr. Dubois was in charge of the architecture and technology roadmap of DRAM and Flash memory controllers, and developed strategic relationships with major DRAM and Flash memory suppliers.
Sylvain Dubois holds a Master of Science in Microelectronics from E.S.I.E.E. (Paris), University of Southampton (UK) and Universidad Pontifica Comillas (Spain).
