Mehmet Günal
CEO, Co-Founder
Neuroscience PhD. Sets the vision of the company and scientific direction of the instrument. Research Affiliate at UIUC CNL; previously R&D Scientist at ISS, Inc.
WHO WE ARE
Nine people and one goal.
Since 1995, the Fast Optical Signal has been extremely difficult to measure given constraints on hardware, software, calibration time, and how tiny and fast the signal itself is. We're a small team of optics, electronics, and neuroscience experts whose goal is to create the first dedicated device for FOS, and a platform ecosystem around it to make FOS accessible to the world.
WHY NOW
The physics didn't change; the parts did.
The optical effect that FOS measures is small, and the legacy detectors, sources, and timing electronics used to resolve it are suboptimal. Technology has progressed and improved components now exist at prices a startup can carry, but nobody has yet assembled them into an instrument built specifically for this signal.
CORE TEAM
Research, hardtech design & engineering, data, and business.
Dennis Hueber
CTO, Co-Founder
PhD in chemistry with expertise in optical spectroscopy. Built the only commercial instrument sold for FOS measurement – a modified fNIRS device. Owns the optical and detection architecture.
Corbett Drummey
President, Co-Founder
Previously Founder & CEO of Popular Pays (YC W15), acquired by Lightricks. Forbes 30 Under 30, 2018. Runs business operations, fundraising, and everything that isn't a soldering iron.
Scott Homan
Founding Electrical Engineer
Owns board-level design for the detector and source modules and layout decisions that determine how much noise the instrument starts with. Previously Head of Circuit Design at Kernel, working on OP-MEG and fNIRs BCIs.
Jerry Leung
Founding Electrical Engineer
Full-stack hardware Eng across entire product cycle: architecture and concept design to schematic and layout, prototyping, and production. Previously Sr. Avionics Hardware Eng at Relativity Space, leading digital systems for Terran R; was Responsible Engineer for the Terran 1 engine and stage controllers. At Kernel: developed OP-MEG and TD-fNIRS neuroimaging systems. Co-inventor on 3 U.S. patents.
Peter Hufford
Senior FPGA Engineer
Owns the FPGA data path: acquisition timing, demodulation, and the interface between the detector boards and the host.
Kathy A. Low
Director of Science
Cognitive Neuroscientist, PhD. Designs experiments that validate the instrument and oversees the human recording protocols and analyses. Previously Assistant Director of the Cognitive Neuroimaging Lab (CNL) at the University of Illinois.
Lucas Marsh
Product Design Engineer
Takes the optics and electronics and turns them into something a person can wear – mechanical design, optode coupling, and fit – and makes it look good. Previously Mechanical Design Engineer at Wispr and Kernel.
Andy Pai
AI / ML Research
Exited founder and ML/AI researcher. Works on decoding and foundational brain models.
ADVISORY BOARD
People who have done this before.
Gabriele Gratton, MD, PhD
Pioneer of Fast Optical Signal. Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Amy Kruse, PhD
Neuroscientist, formerly DARPA. Investor and board director at Paradromics, Cognixion & others.
COLLABORATORS
People we build with.
Cody Rall, MD
Psychiatrist and founder of Techforpsych. U.S. Navy-trained and board-certified; co-founded Stanford Brainstorm.
WHERE WE ARE
Remote-first, with three places we actually gather.
San Francisco, CA
R&D and partnerships.
Chicago, IL
Operations.
Champaign, IL
Lab and bench work, near where the method was developed.