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

CEO & President

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

Chief Operating Officer

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

Chief Scientific Officer

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.  

Stephen McKernan

Chief Financial Officer

Steve is the former CEO of the UNM Health Sciences Center. He has extensive experience in business operations, financial modeling, and provides leadership in all aspects of business operations.  

John O’Rourke

Director of Applications

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.  

Andrew Shreve, PhD

DIRECTOR OF TECHNOLOGY

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

FIELD APPLICATION SCIENTIST

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

SOFTWARE ARCHITECT

August has been a software developer and entrepreneur for 30+ years. He graduated from the University of New Mexico with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. August has extensive experience testing mainframe computers and developing data acquisition systems.  

Benjamin Brown

Benjamin Brown

LEAD PRODUCTION ENGINEER

Benjamin has been a tradesman and designer for over fifteen years and has extensive experience transforming ideas into realities. Being a part of BennuBio since near its beginning, he is dedicated to advancing the technology and providing the very best in design and fabrication to the Company.  

Bruce Edwards

Bruce Edwards, PhD

DATA SYSTEMS CONSULTANT

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

Danielle Pacheco

ADMINISTRATOR

Danielle Pacheco brings over 15 years of administrative experience to the company with a focus on Logistics. She worked for tech giant Apple Inc., in both retail and corporate levels and managed 5 retail locations with over 600+ employees as a Store Preservation and Operations Specialist.  

Danielle Sedillo

Danielle Sedillo

OFFICE MANAGER

Danielle has associate’s degrees in accounting, business administration and applied science. An interest in biology and anatomy lead to a career as a surgical technologist with a specialization in neurological surgery.

Jason Urvanejo

Jason Urvanejo

LEAD PROJECT ENGINEER

Jason graduated from the University of New Mexico with a BS in Electrical Engineering. He is currently focused on the development of the control systems for BennuBio devices, designing custom boards and assisting in the software development for implementing functionality.  

Jose Lopez

Jose Lopez

TECHNICIAN

Jose completed a Bachelor of Science in Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of New Mexico in May 2020. His current focus is the production and tuning of the Velocyt fluidics system. He has been working with BennuBio since it was founded.

Linda Salazar

Linda Salazar

Biotechnologist

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.

Najeeb Shamoon

Najeeb Shamoon

PRODUCTION ENGINEER

Najeeb hails from Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan and has an undergraduate and a master’s degree in Chemical Engineering. He’s currently working on design and fabrication of acoustic flow cells. He is experienced in computational modeling and simulations for engineering applications.  

Tram Le

Tram Le

Biotechnologist

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.