Our Team

Ms. Anna Lisa Somera brings over 20 years’ experience working with start-ups in different capacities including biomedical research, venture capital, technology transfer, operations, regulatory affairs, quality management systems, clinical research, grant consulting, and management. Her interest in leading start-ups stems from OrthoAccel Technologies, a medical device company she co-founded in grad school in 2005. From there, she worked in early stage venture capital and held senior roles in several medical device companies including Diagnostic Photonics, Innoblative Designs, Briteseed, and American BioOptics.

She has led teams through several clinical trial launches, FDA 510(k) Clearances and CE Marks, ISO 13485 Certified Quality Management Systems, and also brought in over $30M in financing to several start ups. She has also served as a start-up consultant to Chain Reaction Innovations at Argonne National Labs, The Polsky Exchange at the University of Chicago, MATTER Chicago, INVO at Northwestern University, and the Illinois University Incubator Network. She has also served as senior personnel on several NIH, NSF, and DOD funded small business grants. She is also on the board of Women in Bio, Chicago.

Ms. Somera is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Rhaeos, Inc., a Northwestern University spin-out developing wearable flow monitoring devices. She holds 3 Masters’ Degrees in Cell Biology (Rush University), Business (University of Illinois at Chicago), and Public Health (University of Illinois at Chicago).

Dr. John Rogers is a world-renowned materials scientist and biomedical engineer whose work underlies FlowSense. Prof. Rogers also has experience in startup companies in areas ranging from semiconductor metrology (Active Impulse Systems) to wearable electronics (MC10) to photovoltaics (Semprius) and solid-state lighting (CoolEdge). Prof. Rogers is also a co-founder of NeuroLux, Wearifi, Epicore and others. He has also published >550 papers, and is an inventor on >100 patents and patent applications, >70 of which are licensed or in use by large companies and startups that he has co-founded. Dr. Rogers is also one of only 25 people in history to be named to three National Academies: Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dr. Adam Zysk has >15 years of research experience in academic and clinical settings. He also led engineering development efforts and significant clinical studies of these technologies and plans to continue working to lead multi-disciplinary teams of physicians and engineers to pursue improvements in patient care. Additionally, Dr. Zysk is well versed in Class II and III medical device regulatory submissions to the FDA. Dr. Zysk has also been a PI of multiple NIH funded projects. He earned an MS and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and a BS in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University.

Dr. Chad Webb began his technical career 16 years ago doing electronic test fixture design for a small tech start-up. Since then, he has held R&D positions in academia, government labs, start-ups, and Fortune100 companies. Most recently, Dr. Webb spent six years building global technology R&D programs in highly regulated industries at 3M, with roles in driving new technologies from lab concept to commercialization, new program development, trial execution, R&D strategy, intellectual property strategy and licensing, and acquisitions. He has >30 patents and patent applications, and 20 peer-reviewed papers, many of which form the foundation of wearable flow sensing technology.

He earned his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Siddharth Krishnan obtained undergraduate and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis, and a doctorate in Materials Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has broad experience in the design, manufacture and testing of soft, wearable biosensors. Dr. Krishnan is also on the 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 list for science and on MIT Technology Review’s Innovators Under 35 list for 2020.

Dr. Amit Ayer completed neurosurgical residency at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and an MBA at Kellogg School of Management, and is currently pursuing fellowship training in epilepsy and functional neurosurgery at Stanford University. He has authored over 25 peer-reviewed papers, abstracts and book chapters in leading basic science and clinical journals, including Science Translational Medicine, Nature Digital Medicine, Journal of Neurological Surgery and the Journal of Immunology. Dr. Ayer has been recognized by funding from the Pediatric Hydrocephalus Foundation, the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute, among others. He was awarded the Cisco Global Problem Solver Prize and shortlisted as a finalist for the “Innovator of the Year” award by the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS).

Dr. Alex Burton started his biomedical engineering career 8 years ago developing algorithms to extract physiological responses collected with body worn devices to determine behavioral and environmental impacts on the wellbeing of patient and office workers. Since then, he has transitioned into implementing medical device designs to interface with the central and peripheral nervous system. He has >10 published works including peer-reviewed papers and review articles on fully implantable wireless, battery-free, electronics and patent on non-invasive techniques to map current density patterns from deep brain stimulators. He earned both his BS and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Arizona specializing in mechanics and medical device sensors.