Executive Team

Dr. Pyle was formerly Chief Technical Officer and co-founder of Epoc, Inc., a privately held medical engineering company. Dr. Pyle holds an appointment as adjunct professor of bioengineering at Vanderbilt University where he has worked to develop cross-disciplinary programs of biological and engineering research. As the co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Pria Diagnostics, Dr. Pyle was named Innovator of the Year (2006) by Frost and Sullivan. Dr. Pyle holds numerous pending and issued patents in the engineering and biological sciences and has worked in diverse cross-discipline areas such as nanofabrication, optical engineering, and structural biology.

In addition to his broad technical abilities, Dr. Pyle has established numerous corporate partnerships between small technical companies and some of the world’s largest corporations. He has directly supervised and coordinated both business development and operational activities within large co-development partnerships. Dr. Pyle has worked in finance, technical and manufacturing transactions in Singapore, Japan, and China. His post-doctoral research focused on the large-scale expression and control of neural proteins. He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Physiology and an M.D. from Stanford University. He received degrees in optical engineering and physics from the University of Arizona.

Mr. Mendez has held a number of top industry positions at the forefront of the molecular biology revolution. In addition to serving as Director of Bioengineering at GenWay, Mr. Mendez was also associate director of Exploratory Research at Syrrx, Inc. (presently Takeda Pharmaceuticals). There he established a new department that focused on novel platforms for over-expression, purification, and crystallization of membrane proteins. Mr. Mendez co-founded and led the technical program at MemRx, a structural biology company that focused on the structure determination of membrane proteins, specifically GPCRs. Mr. Mendez is widely regarded as one of the lead pioneers in the development of fully human antibodies and is the lead author and co-inventor of the Xenomouse platform technology that formed Abgenix, Inc., most recently acquired by Amgen for $2.2 billion. He created all the viral vectors for the Cell Genesys Platform technology, GVAX. Mr. Mendez has served as a genetic consultant and scientific adviser for numerous biotech and academic institutions, including Geron Corporation, Gentrol, Inc., Expression Systems, Aliva, Inc., and the California Institute of Technology. He is also the founder and principal scientist of Gryffin Consulting, Inc., a genetic engineering consulting firm specializing in the areas of gene therapy and antibody and membrane protein production.

Dr. Goodall’s career has spanned three decades in the petrochemical, materials and energy industries. An expert in all areas of catalysis, his commercial successes include the catalyst used to make 40% of the world’s polypropylene. He has worked for Royal Dutch Shell, BFGoodrich, Albemarle, Rohm and Haas Company, and, most recently, Imperium Renewables, where his team recently delivered the 1000 gallons of biojet fuel used on Virgin Atlantic’s first-ever commercial “green” jet flight. He is a corporate honoree at the National Inventors Hall of Fame, and is responsible for over 80 patents, 60 papers, countless academic collaborations, and winning $20 million in federal funding in the last decade. He holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry from the University of Bristol, UK.

Tim Zenk has spent much of his distinguished career shaping public policy – in helping leaders become better leaders and the public become more educated about key issues impacting the nation and the globe. His more than 20 years of rich experience has taken him from the front lines of Washington D.C., to the back roads of the Middle East, and to rural areas working on big issues in small towns. His passion is apparent and his experience varied. Most recently, as executive vice president for Edelman, an international communications firm, he built and led numerous campaigns, organized public-private partnerships, and counseled energy, biotech and technology leaders. Some clients included Louis Dreyfus Commodities, NorthernStar Natural Gas, Fate Therapeutics and Ikaria. Prior to that, he was founder and vice president of Chameleon Technology, a venture funded cutting-edge leader in wireless infrastructures. He also was a top executive for Telecommunications Systems (NYSE - TSYS), a leading provider of mission critical wireless data systems for wireless carriers, governments and intelligence organizations.

Tim is known nationally for his political acumen, particularly regarding his work on key campaigns ranging from gubernatorial to congressional to presidential. His global work for the Clinton/Gore administration has left him with professional and life experiences that will last forever. Today, his passion for legacy energy solutions are top on his agenda and he is working to help Sapphire be the foremost leader in solving one of today’s biggest environmental, economic and political quandaries – energy dependence.

Tim is married with one child. He is an avid fisherman and science junkie. His favorite channel is sci-fi where he frequently gets confused as to whether the aliens are real or not.

Dr. Aravanis has over ten years of R&D experience developing products at the interface of engineering and biology. He was a pioneer in developing the first biological applications of micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), microfluidics, and polymer optics. He has held R&D positions at Stanford University, Hewlett Packard, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories, and Pria Diagnostics, where he was a co-founder and the Vice President of Engineering. While there, he led the R&D team that developed Pria's disposable diagnostic system, which has been licensed world-wide.

Dr. Aravanis received his M.D. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University where he was a fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, the Walter V. and Idun B. Berry Foundation, the National Science Foundation, Stanford University, and the NIH. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed journal articles and conference proceedings, is an inventor on issued and pending patents, and has presented his work in seminars at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, MIT, Oxford, and The Society for Neuroscience.

Dr. Olaizola has over twenty years of experience in the fields of algal biology and oceanography. Prior to his role as Director of Production for Sapphire Energy, Dr. Olaizola was Chief Scientist at Pacific Sun Energy in Hawaii, and Operations Manager at GreenFuel Technologies in Cambridge, MA. As Director of Research at Mera Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Olaizola developed new algal bioreactor technology, novel extraction technologies and created the first algal collection used to research photosynthetic carbon sequestration. Dr. Olaizola has extensive aquatic field experience in both fresh- and salt-water environments, including expeditions in Alaska, the Baltic Sea, Lago Maggiore, Hawaii, the North Atlantic, and the Sargasso Sea. The author of over twenty published papers and reviewer for such publications as Aquaculture, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, and Biotechnology and Bioengineering, Dr. Olaizola has presented his work at prestigious conferences and seminars worldwide.

Dr. Davis was formerly director of emerging technologies at Pacific Ethanol Inc where she was responsible for cellulosic ethanol development. Dr. Davis was the Principal Investigator on a grant from the US Department of Energy awarded for a 1/10^th scale demonstration integrated biorefinery. As a senior consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Sydney Australia, Dr. Davis worked in the Advisory Performance Improvement business. She was also the technology expert on biotechnology pre-IPOs.

Dr. Davis received her MSc. and PhD in Microbiology and Biotechnology from the Universities of Western Sydney and New South Wales in Australia where she also held academic and Board positions. Her PhD work was in collaboration with Manildra Group – the largest ethanol producer in Australia. Her research focused on technological and process improvements of ethanol production integrating 1^st and 2^nd generation ethanol technologies. Dr. Davis has authored several peer-reviewed journal articles on the biochemical conversion of cellulosic waste streams to biofuels.

Peter Attia comes to Sapphire Energy from McKinsey & Co., where he was a consultant in the Palo Alto office as a member of the corporate risk practice and healthcare practice. Prior to arriving at McKinsey, Mr. Attia spent 5 years at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland as a general surgery resident, where he was the recipient of several prestigious awards. He also spent 2 years at the National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland as a surgical oncology fellow. The author of numerous medical and research papers, he holds a M.D. from Stanford University and a B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.