Leadership and Staff
LEADERSHIP
Our leadership team has more than 80 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), Woods (17 years), and Freyer (40 years) in the field of flow cytometry.

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.

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.

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. He is in charge of R&D for new instruments and assays. Jim’s 45 years of experience in the field of multicellular spheroids are critical to our spheroid screening and large particle analysis programs.


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.

Katie Berg
Katie is a strategic marketing leader with over 10 years of experience. With a background in biotechnology and business, Katie enjoys conceptualizing, developing, and implementing commercial marketing programs. Having a customer-focused attitude, Katie enjoys developing creative messaging and identifying market trends. Before joining BennuBio, Katie worked in clinical diagnostics in applications and marketing roles.

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.
MEET OUR TEAM

Andrew Rael
A lifelong obsession with technology drove Andrew to a career in the laboratory. With experience spanning from assay development to technical support, Andrew is all too familiar with the challenges faced by researchers. As a Field Application Scientist, he works closely with clients to develop/optimize laboratory workflows, interpret data, and resolve technical issues.

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 Pacheco



Gian Maestas
Gian specializes in mechanical design and fabrication, including high performance medical instrumentation. As an undergrad he assisted in the design and fabrication of acoustic flow cells. This work ultimately led to two publications in the American Chemical Society Journal Analytical Chemistry. Gian has been with BennuBio since it was founded.

Heather Paich, Ph. D.
Through Heather’s research at the intersection of immunology and nutrition, she developed a great appreciation for everything flow cytometry could do. Since then she has gained a breadth of field experience in flow cytometry from researcher to field service, applications, training, and sales. Her focus on the customer experience and passion for teaching and training is a natural fit for her role at BennuBio as National Account Manager.

Jason Urvanejo


Linda Salazar
Linda graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Psychology from the University of New Mexico in May 2020. she worked for the Department of Health Scientific Laboratory Division during the Covid-19 pandemic and has manually extracted, performed PCR, and sequenced hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 samples. During that time, she was also a Lab Manager for a Comparative Immunology professor at UNM.

Matthew Saunders
Matt has a background in fluorescence and cytometry-based assay development, earning a Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico, working with the National Flow Cytometry Resource at LANL. His post-doctoral work at the Molecular Biosensor and Imaging Center at Carnegie Mellon University focused on application development of fluorescent-based systems. Afterward he was with the start-up company Lectenz Bio, and commercialized glycosylation characterization and detection product lines. He returned to New Mexico to join BennuBio in June 2021.

Najeeb Shamoon


Tram Le
Tram received her Bachelor of Science in Biology with minors in Chemistry and Psychology from the University of New Mexico. She researched neuroinflammation associated with Alzheimer’s disease for 2+ years at UNM with several multidisciplinary teams. Tram is also interested in computer science and adding to her skill sets/hobbies of programming as a median of advanced technology and the fundamentals of basic science.

Valerie Sanchez
Valerie graduated with a BS in Forensics from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, a BS in Biology from UNM, and an Associate’s degree in Biotechnology. Valerie comes to BennuBio after having worked at TriCore Reference Laboratories in the infectious disease department for seven years. She also has experience in performing extractions, PCR, cell culture and sequencing.