About

Paul Ahrens  (Chief Executive Officer)
In late 2011, Paul Ahrens joined the CSD Nano team as President/CEO, bringing his extensive experience in start-ups, management, engineering, technology development and transfer, finance and innovation. He was a founder of Synthetech, Inc. (NASDAQ:NZYM), a fine chemical manufacturer, and served on the Board of Directors for 30 years, including 11 years as Chairman. While VP Technology at Synthetech, he led a multi-disciplinary team of chemists, biochemists, microbiologists and engineers to develop, scale-up, patent and license complex (enzymatic, electrochemical) process technology. Mr. Ahrens managed the licensing and technology transfer to licensees in Japan, Korea and Ireland. During his five years as President and CEO, he lead the company to growth in revenue (235%) and profits (350%), while developing over 300 market-driven (revenue generating) product/processes. Synthetech gained recognition nationally (Forbes 200, Financial World 100, Inc. 100) and regionally (Seattle Times, Oregonian, Oregon Enterprise Forum). In November, 2010, Synthetech was acquired by a key customer (WR Grace) to produce nanoparticle catalysts. Mr. Ahrens was also President/CEO of NZ3, Inc. a bio-materials start-up based on technology licensed from M.I.T. Mr. Ahrens received BS (1973) and MS (1974) degrees in Chemical Engineering from M.I.T.

Chih-hung Chang (Chief Science Officer)
Professor Chang is currently a Professor of Chemical Engineering at Oregon State University. He received a B.S. degree from the National Taiwan University at 1991 and a Ph.D. degree from University of Florida at 1999, both in Chemical Engineering. His graduate research concerns fundamental investigations and novel process development for CuInSe2-based thin film photovoltaics. He joined OSU Chemical Engineering department as an Assistant Professor at 2000. His current research interests are flexible thin film transistors, photovoltaics, microreaction technology, nanomaterials synthesis, and digital fabrication processes. His laboratory has developed microreactor-based soft solution-based nanosynthesis process and inkjet printable amorphous oxide thin film transistors. He has 4 issued patents and 9 pending patents and 60 refereed publications. He is a Sharp Laboratories of America Scholar and a recipient of American Vacuum Society Graduate Research Award and National Science Foundation’s CAREER Award.

Brian Paul (Chief Technology Officer)
Professor Paul is a Professor in Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering and the Director of the Oregon State University (OSU) Nano/Micro Fabrication (NMF) Facility dedicated to the commercialization of bulk microfluidic devices. Since being at OSU, Dr. Paul’s research focus has been on the process development and packaging of bulk microfluidic systems. Recent process development efforts have been related to microchannel kidney dialyzers, nanoparticle synthesizers, biodiesel microreactors and microchannel heat pumps among others. Dr. Paul has authored many publications and patents in microlamination, nanomanufacturing, layered manufacturing, material joining and general manufacturing and received numerous national research and manufacturing awards. He is an Associate Editor for two manufacturing journals and has been a Scientific Committee Member for both major manufacturing research conferences.

Jimmy Yang (Chief Financial Officer)
Professor Yang is an Associate Professor of Finance at Oregon State University. He received a B.S. degree from National Chung Hsing University in 1993, an MBA from Saint Louis University in 1997 and a PhD in Finance from the University of Cincinnati. He has been with Oregon State University since 2003 and currently teaches courses in Corporate Finance and International Financial Management. His research has focused on market stabilization mechanisms, international financial markets, and equity offerings. Dr. Yang has 4 working papers, 6 publications, 9 conference proceedings and presentations, and several awards including the Outstanding Faculty Service Award.