Leadership and Staff
MEET OUR TEAM
LEADERSHIP
Our leadership team has more than 100 years combined experience in cellular analysis, particle analysis, flow cytometry, and instrument development. In addition, our technical experience in cellular and particle analysis instrumentation evolved from active research by Graves (25 years), O'Rourke (20 years), Woods (17 years), and Freyer (40 years) in the field of flow cytometry and assay development.
John O’Rourke
John has over 20 years’ experience in the research, testing and development of tools and therapeutics for the oncology space. In his role as Director of Assay Development, John is leading a team of scientist in developing novel application and reagents for BennuBio’s Velocyt technology. Prior to joining BennuBio, John was the Head of Product Development for Intellicyt/Sartorius leading the R&D team in the commercialization of reagent, software and hardware solutions for the high throughput flow cytometry community.
Travis Woods
As head of BennuBio’s engineering team, Travis has over 18 years’ experience with acoustics, optics, cell biology and general flow cytometry. Before coming to BennuBio, Travis ran the flow cytometry user facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory as part of the NIH National Flow Cytometry Resource, and later transitioned to the University of New Mexico’s Shared Resource.
STAFF
August Swanson
Benjamin Brown
Bruce Edwards, PhD
Bruce is an inventor and developer of novel high throughput flow cytometry technologies that support biopharmaceutical research and drug discovery programs at the University of New Mexico Center for Molecular Discovery. He co-founded IntelliCyt which was acquired by Sartorius, a multinational biopharmaceutical company. His more than 30-year experience in cell biology, immunology and cancer research is also supports biological application development.
Danielle Ensberg
Danielle joined us this summer as an intern. During her 3 months with us she quickly learned how to generate 3D cultures and led the development of 3D production using spinner flasks. Her impressive body of work in this short time as well as her ability to work in this fast paced, ever changing world we call Bennubio convinced me that she would be a great addition to our team. Danielle has a B.S. in biology from the University of New Mexico and a certificate in biotechnology from Central New Mexico Community College.
Mayte Lopez
Mayte joins our team as an emerging bilingual professional with a rich background in immigrant-led community organizations and initiatives. She is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Biology with a Chemistry minor at UNM; she has also completed a UNM Evaluation Lab Training Series and Salesforce Administrator Certificate Training at CNM Ingenuity.
Shawn Roybal
Shawn holds dual bachelor’s degrees in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering from New Mexico State University and a Graduate Certificate in Nuclear Systems Engineering from Texas A&M. He’s also starting a Master’s program in Industrial Engineering this summer.
Previously, Shawn worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Nuclear Facilities Systems Engineer. He has also held roles at Lockheed Martin, BNSF Railway, and the New Mexico Office of the State Engineer. Shawn is originally from Santa Fe and now lives in Rio Rancho.
ADVISORS
Mike Sjaastad
Mike has over 25 years of experience in developing and commercializing instrumentation, software, and reagents for research and drug discovery. With a strong background in cell biology, immunology, High Content Imaging, and Flow Cytometry, he now assists early-stage startups in realizing and commercializing innovative drug discovery technologies. At BennuBio, Mike will help define the strategic market entry of the Velocyt Platform. Before joining BennuBio, Mike held strategic leadership roles at Molecular Devices, IntelliCyt, BioTek, and Biosero.
Miles Rackliff
Miles joins the BennuBio team as a strategic advisor – for over two decades Miles has specialized in providing innovative life science and drug discovery technologies that address key application challenges for researchers. Based from the UK, Miles will help us build and scale our market entry for the Velocyt, and focus on growing our UK and EU customer base.
Steven Graves
Steve’s research programs at the Los Alamos National Laboratory were influential in the development of the first acoustic focusing flow cytometer and his more recent programs at the University of New Mexico are the basis of BennuBio’s technology. As a recognized world leader in the field Steve continues to be actively involved in BennuBio’s daily R&D activities and to provide vision and leadership to the company.
Andrew Shreve, PhD
Andy has 30+ years of experience in developing optical-based measurement systems for spectroscopy, imaging and sensing, most recently as a Professor Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of New Mexico where he worked closely with Dr. Graves on development of parallel acoustic flow cytometry. Prior to his work at UNM, he was a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
James Freyer
Dr. Freyer is a Founder of BennuBio, Inc. James is the former director of the NIH National Flow Cytometry Resource and leader of the flow cytometry team at LANL, with over 45 years of experience in flow cytometry instrumentation development and application. Jim’s 45 years of experience in the field of multicellular spheroids are critical to our spheroid screening and large particle analysis programs.