About Us
Leadership Team
Rob Carson
Rob Carson
Rob joined Vizgen through its merger with Ultivue, a Cambridge, MA-based spatial proteomics and precision oncology company where he was CEO. Previously, he held roles as chief operating officer of Harbinger Health (early cancer detection) and SVP of Corporate Development at Waters Corporation. Rob began his career in the life sciences with Medtronic, where he served as VP/GM of its pacemaker and spinal implants businesses. Rob is a board director at Vizgen and was previously a director of RedShiftBio (protein analysis instrumentation) and The Wolf River Conservancy (a Memphis-area non-profit). He and family live in Sherborn, Massachusetts.
Seth Benson
Seth Benson
Seth began his career in management consulting at Accenture then transitioned to investment banking roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. For the last 10 years Seth has held finance, strategy and operations leadership positions a multiple high growth companies in life sciences and commercial labs. Notably, he helped grow Akoya Biosciences from ~20 to over 300 people and played a pivotal role in its IPO. Most recently, Seth led the global finance organization at Invaio Sciences, a firm focused on using discoveries in human health to drive sustainability in agriculture. Seth received a bachelor’s in Biology from Duke University and a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Simona Levi
Simona Levi
Simona brings to Vizgen more than 25 years of experience in the life science industry. Prior to coming to Vizgen, she served as General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for Cell Signaling Technology, where she built and led the company global legal team playing a key role in the company growth and global expansion. She was instrumental in developing the global intellectual property strategy leading the negotiation of several strategic key collaborations and licensing deals in both the therapeutic and diagnostic fields. Prior to that post, she was a partner in the Life Sciences Group at the law firm McDermott Will & Emery, and Chief IP Counsel at IVAX Corporation (TEVA) where she led offensive and defensive IP strategies.
Dr. Levi has B.A.s in biochemistry and economics, a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rutgers University and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Dr. Levi has been a member of the Massachusetts Bar Association since 1996.
Peidong Wang
Peidong Wang
Peidong is a serial entrepreneur and was a co-founder of Ahura Scientific utilizing Raman and FTIR spectroscopy. His work helped pioneer a new field of applications based on rugged hand-held spectroscopy which led to its acquisition by Thermo Fisher. Peidong also co-founded CoreTek which was acquired by Nortel. He is a recipient of the G. N. Hatsopoulos award at Thermo Fisher and is also an inventor with 15 issued patents in laser technology, opto-mechanics, and analytical instrumentation.
George Emanuel
George Emanuel
George has spent the past decade developing high-throughput spatial profiling technologies including extending MERFISH technology to profile 10,000 genes in the same sample. George received dual undergraduate degrees from the University of Colorado, and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard University.
Jiang He
Jiang He
Co-founding member of Vizgen, Jiang has been recognized with numerous awards including Forbes 30 under 30 in Healthcare, Spotlight Scholar at AIF, and STAT Wunderkind awardee. He completed his postdoc at MIT, and his Ph.D. at Harvard University in Xiaowei Zhuang’s lab.
Scientific and Technical Advisory Board
Xiaowei Zhuang, PhD
Xiaowei Zhuang, PhD
Xiaowei is a professor of Science, Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and Physics at Harvard University and an Investigator at HHMI. Xiaowei’s lab is known for the development of both MERFISH and STORM for super resolution microscopy. She has won numerous awards including the 2021 Lurie Prize in Biomedical Sciences, 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and the 2019 NAS Award for Scientific Discovery. Xiaowei has been elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine.
David Walt, PhD
David Walt, PhD
David is a leader in scientific innovation and has founded and invested in successful companies for over 20 years; his public companies include Illumina, Quanterix, and 908 Devices and his start-ups include Sherlock Biosciences, Ultivue, and Arbor Biotechnologies. David is a Professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Wyss Institute, and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. David has been elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2019.
Jeffrey Moffitt, PhD
Jeffrey Moffitt, PhD
Jeffrey is the co-inventor of MERFISH technology, developed in Xiaowei Zhuang’s lab. He is applying MERFISH to the construction of cellular atlases on a wide range of tissues with a particular focus on the interface between host and microbial communities. Jeffrey has his PhD in Physics from UC Berkeley where he developed novel methods for manipulating single molecules. Jeffrey is an Associate Member of the Broad Institute and was named Pew Biomedical Scholar in 2019.
Susan Tousi
Susan Tousi
Susan Tousi is CEO at DELFI Diagnostics. Formerly, Susan was CCO of Illumina where she leads global sales, commercial operations, and commercial strategy and enablement.
Susan previously led the product development organization at Illumina as Chief Product Officer. During that time, she was responsible for global engineering, consumables, sequencing applications, IVD, software and informatics development efforts: During this time, she oversaw the most impactful decade of product launches including: HiSeq X, NovaSeq, MiSeq Dx, NextSeq 550Dx/1000/2000, iSeq, VeriSeq NIPT, TSO500, COVIDSeq, DRAGEN, and Illumina Connected Analytics. Additionally, she led the acquisition of Edico Genomics, BlueBee, and Enancio, combined with Illumina’s existing software solutions, these new capabilities enable scalable, seamless, end-to-end software solutions that drive the utilization of genomic data and accelerate the adoption of genomic data in clinical care.
Susan has more than 25 years of R&D and business leadership at Fortune 100 technology companies and within the life sciences industry. Formerly, she was Corporate Vice President and General Manager for Eastman Kodak’s Consumer Inkjet Systems organization. Prior to joining Kodak, Susan was an R&D program manager for Phogenix Imaging LLC, a joint venture start-up of Hewlett-Packard and Kodak. She previously spent 10 years with Hewlett-Packard in technical and management roles. Along with many academic honors, she has received numerous awards in both business and technology. In 2018, Susan was elected to the National Academy of Engineers. Susan was named one of the 50 Top Diverse Leaders for 2020 by the California Diversity Council and is a member of the International Women’s Forum, a global organization of preeminent women of significant and diverse achievement.
Susan holds an MBA degree from UCLA and an Honors BS in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Pennsylvania State University.
Susan serves as an executive trustee at the world-renowned La Jolla Playhouse and on the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering Dean’s Council of Advisors.
Board of Directors
Terry Lo
Terry Lo
Terry pioneered and led the early commercial success of spatial biology and mIF, first as GM for PerkinElmer’s tissue business, and then as President of Akoya Biosciences. Prior to this, Terry led the global adoption of HPV testing for cervical cancer primary screening at Roche Molecular. Terry also has extensive experience in International markets including GM of China and Japan, and Head of International Strategy at Hologic, and Director of Corporate BD APAC at BMS.
David Walt, PhD
David Walt, PhD
David is a leader in scientific innovation and has founded and invested in successful companies for over 20 years; his public companies include Illumina, Quanterix, and 908 Devices and his start-ups include Sherlock Biosciences, Ultivue, and Arbor Biotechnologies. David is a Professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Wyss Institute, and a faculty member at Harvard Medical School. David has been elected to both the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Medicine and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2019.
Matt Posard
Matt Posard
Mr. Posard brings over 30 years of general management and commercialization experience in the life sciences, therapeutics, and diagnostics industry to the Board of Directors. He is the Founding Principal of Explore DNA, a life sciences executive consulting firm, a position he has held since March 2016. Since 2017, he has provided advisory services to CEOs for several emerging life sciences companies. From February 2017 to April 2018, Mr. Posard served as President and Chief Commercial Officer of GenePeeks, Inc., a genetic research company. From March 2015 to April 2016, he served as Chief Commercial Officer of Trovagene, Inc., a molecular diagnostic biotechnology company. From February 2006 to February 2015, he held various commercial and general management positions at Illumina, Inc., a genomics company focusing on DNA sequencing, including senior executive positions overseeing Global Sales, Marketing, and General Manager of Clinical and Consumer Genomics as well as New and Emerging Markets. Mr. Posard holds a BA degree in Management Science from the University of California, San Diego.
Keith L. Crandell
Keith L. Crandell
Keith Crandell is a Managing Director and Co-Founder of ARCH Venture Partners, L.P., a global seed, and early-stage venture capital firm focused on innovations in the life and physical sciences. Keith holds an M.B.A. from The University of Chicago (Booth), an M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Texas at Arlington, and a B.S. in Chemistry and Mathematics from St. Lawrence University.