Contact
Team
Alissa M. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., Founder and Managing Member Dr. Fitzgerald founded the company in 2003. She has over 16 years of engineering experience in MEMS design, fabrication and product development. Having developed more than a dozen distinct MEMS devices, such as piezoresistive cantilevers, ultrasound transducers, and infrared imagers, she advises clients on the entire technology development cycle, from business and IP strategy, to initial design and prototyping, to foundry transfer. She is a recognized expert on reliability of brittle materials.
Prior to founding AMFitzgerald, Dr. Fitzgerald worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Orbital Sciences Corporation, Sigpro, and Sensant Corporation, now part of Siemens. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from MIT and her doctorate from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
Dr. Fitzgerald has numerous journal publications, holds four patents, and is a frequent lecturer at UC Berkeley, Stanford University and professional meetings. She currently serves on the Governing Council of the MEMS Industry Group.
Catherine Guittard, Finance & Operations Ms. Guittard has over 15 years in the high technology industry and is responsible for managing the company's finance and operations. She has a diverse background, working with small startups as well as large multinational corporations including Apple, Cisco Systems, and Symbol Technologies.
Ms. Guittard has a B.S. in Business and Information Systems, is a Certified QuickBooks ProAdvisor and has received professional certifications in finance, HR management, and employment law. She also volunteers her time as manager of memberships for the Silicon Valley chapter of the Alliance Francaise.
C.T. Kao, Ph.D., Design, Analysis & Simulation Dr. Kao has been performing analysis, simulation, and design of novel products in the fields of electronic packaging, semiconductor processing equipment, and MEMS for more than 10 years. While the main designer for a MEMS start-up company, he and his team successfully developed micro-mirror devices for portable display application, particularly aiming at mini and pico projectors, and took it from prototype to volume manufacturing with satisfactory reliability and yield.
Dr. Kao previously worked for National Semiconductor and Applied Materials. He received his B.S. from National Taiwan University and M.S. from the University of Texas at Austin, both in Mechanical Engineering, and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics.
David M. Pierce, Ph.D., Simulation Dr. Pierce has a strong foundation in computational mechanics, finite element methods, and applied mathematics. He has worked extensively with Sandia National Laboratories on engineering research and recently developed a fatigue life prediction methodology for lead-free solder alloy interconnects in electronic packaging. He has also worked as an engineering consultant with several companies and as a design engineer and analyst for Rosemount, Inc. in Minnesota. Dr. Pierce received his B.S. from the University of Minnesota – Minneapolis, and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, in Mechanical Engineering.
Carolyn D. White, Ph.D., Design, Analysis & Fabrication Dr. White has a background in mechanics of materials and specializes in the design and fabrication of MEMS devices for a wide range of range of applications, including magnetic materials, microfluidics, solar, and infrared imaging. She also performs strategic analyses of patent portfolios and acquisition targets, feasibility studies, and cost/performance analysis. She has worked for Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies and the National Institute of Standards and Technology and has numerous publications. Dr. White received her B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Brown University and M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.