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SBIR/STTR Program Essentials: Speaker Bios
Jerry Hollister, Principal Consultant BBC Entrepreneurial Training & Consulting (BBCetc)
Jerry Hollister is a BBCetc Principal Consultant, joining the company in 2017 with 30 years of leadership experience in government, higher education, non-profit and for-profit enterprises. After earning an engineering degree from the University of Michigan, he served as commissioned Naval Officer in the Civil Engineer Corps and warranted Contracting Officer for Michigan-based Niowave, a developer of superconducting electron accelerators, where he worked to build the successful start-up company from 2008-17.
Jerry was instrumental in Niowave receiving 20 million in SBIR awards. Niowave was named the 2010 SBIR/STTR Small Business of the Year by the Dept. of Energy and, in 2016, was honored with the S.B.A.’s Tibbetts Award, which recognizes the best in SBIR achievement. Before joining Niowave, Jerry served in a number of non-profit and educational roles following his honorable discharge from the Navy.
Chris O’Gwin, Manager, DOE SBIR/STTR Outreach and Assistance Program
Chris is principally responsible for managing the DOE SBIR/STTR Outreach and Assistance program. In this capacity, he facilitates a nationwide effort to develop and increase its underrepresented small business research and development base in search of SBIR/STTR grant opportunities.
Chris has worked for the DOE since November 1987, holding positions of leadership in both administrative and technical organizations. He received a BS in Business Education from Longwood University and an MS in Government from the Johns Hopkins University.
The mission of the DOE SBIR/STTR Programs Office is to manage the administration and evaluation of about 2,000 Phase I and Phase II grant applications each year. The annual budget of the DOE SBIR/STTR programs is $225M and enables the DOE to award approximately 400 Phase I and II grants every year.
Bijo Mathew, Director UTSA SBDC-Technology Commercialization Center
Bijo Mathew is the founding Director of the SBDC Technology Commercialization Center at UTSA and at the South-West Texas Border SBDC Network. He also serves as principal Investigator to the SBA Federal and State Technology (FAST) Partnership Program for the State of Texas. Mr. Mathew is an experienced scientific program director, innovative researcher and Principal Investigator (PI) with a demonstrated track record in the acquisition of Federal (SBIR & STTR), University Partnerships, Corporate & State grant funding for applied interdisciplinary research and development. He has a record of accomplishments in innovation, publications, and research across various interdisciplinary applications. Mr. Mathew received his MBA, Bachelors and Masters of Science in Chemical, Biological & Material Science Engineering from the University of Oklahoma.
Over the last 20 years, Mr. Mathew has served in multiple interdisciplinary roles that have included academia, basic & applied R&D, corporate strategy and business development, technology commercialization, innovation and public-private partnerships. His corporate executive roles have included V.P. of Strategy and Business Development and Executive Director of Innovation and Public-Private Partnerships.
Dr. Venkat Selvamanickam, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Dr. Venkat Selvamanickam is an M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a Professor of Physics at the University of Houston. He is also the Director of the Applied Research Hub of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston (TCSUH). Prior to joining UH, he was with SuperPower Inc, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Philips Electronics, for 14 years, up to the level of Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.
Dr. Selvamanickam's research accomplishments include demonstration of a unique technology to fabricate single-crystalline-like films based on ion beam assisted deposition on flexible, polycrystalline substrates over length scales of more than a kilometer. This enabled his team to complete the world's first significant delivery (10,000 m) of thin film based high temperature superconducting (HTS) wire to build a 30 m cable for the DOE Flagship program of Albany Cable Project, which is the world's first demonstration of a second-generation HTS device in the electric power grid. Dr. Selvamanickam has developed thin film processing techniques for hetero-epitaxial growth of complex oxide materials such as perovskites, fluorites, bixbyites, pyrochlores, and rock-salts, by Ion Beam Sputtering, Magnetron Sputtering, E-beam Evaporation, Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD), and Pulsed Laser Ablation. He also developed a nano-scale (1 nm to 80 nm) 5-layer buffer architecture to achieve superior diffusion, epitaxy, texture, interfacial, and mechanical properties.
Dr. Selvamanickam received the Presidential Early Career Achievement (PECASE) Award in 1996 and is the only-ever award recipient outside academia or research laboratories. He has published 194 papers in several major journals & including book chapters and edited a book. He authored the most cited paper in superconductivity and the third-most cited in Physics during March-April 1990; more than 600 citations to date. He has 53 issued patents and 13 pending U.S. patents and over 80 pending international patents.
Dr. Selvamanickam's research at the University of Houston spans a wide range of advanced materials processing techniques for high-performance materials for energy and electronics applications such as high temperature superconducting thin film tapes, photovoltaics, flexible electronics and thermoelectrics. Unique, state-of-the-art equipment is available for thin film, roll-to-roll processing, semiconductor device fabrication, bulk processing, testing and characterization of complex materials.
