Magnolia Optical Technologies, Inc. team consists of highly talented individuals who previously held prestigious positions in industry and academia. Members of the Magnolia team have expertise in materials technology, device development, chip packaging, foundry operations, skilled technicians, and contracts/finance. Prior to joining Magnolia, each member of the team had over a decade of experience working at the forefront of science and technology in their field combined with technology commercialization know-how. Magnolia has assembled a world-class team with extensive hands-on management experience in many advanced materials, devices, and product technologies.
Dr. Ashok Sood is President and CEO of Magnolia Optical Technologies, Inc. He is a 30-year industry veteran with experience that includes developing and managing solar cells, optical, and optoelectronics technology products for several major corporations, including Lockheed-Martin, BAE Systems, Loral, Honeywell, and Tyco International. Dr. Ashok Sood developed and managed optical and optoelectronics technology for these companies as a senior manager in the optoelectronics group and worked to develop ribbon silicon solar cells, CdTe, CdS and HgCdTe, GaN/AlGaN, ZnO semiconductor devices. Many of the technologies and products developed have become large product lines at these companies.
Dr Sood was involved in design and development of solar cells at Mobil-Tyco Solar Energy Corporation now under the management of RWE-Schott Solar. He contributed to design and development of Silicon Ribbon solar cells and was instrumental in design improvements to enhance the solar cell efficiency of EFG ribbon solar cells. Dr Sood was also Senior Engineer at Tyco Laboratories, Inc., (now Tyco International) where he built and set up optical and electronic measurement facilities for silicon p-n junction solar cells and developed processes for building high efficiency solar cells for space applications. This work led to a joint venture with Kyoto Ceramics in Japan.
Dr. Sood has also led the development of optoelectronics and imaging devices using CdTe, HgCdTe, GaN and ZnO for various defense applications, including EO, IR and UV imaging, secure communications, and self-protection applications. Dr. Sood has led the efforts resulting in DARPA sponsorship of several Magnolia projects. He has also led various industry and University teams bridging centers of excellence for material sciences across the United States.
Dr. Sood received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and has an M.S. and a B.S. in Physics (Honors) from Delhi University in India. At the University of Pennsylvania, he was part of the Optical/Semiconductor Materials technology group, where he attended seminars given by two Nobel Laureates in Physics. His Ph.D. dissertation was on the study of optoelectronic properties of PbS/CdS for detector and laser applications in the visible to near infrared spectral bands. Dr. Sood has also taken management courses and attended professional development programs at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Sood is a member of IEEE and the SPIE. He has chaired sessions on optical and nanotechnology at conferences of those organizations.
Dr. Yash R. Puri is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Magnolia Optical Technologies, Inc. He is responsible for overseeing Magnolia's financial operations and negotiates all contracts. Yash brings many years of photovoltaic technology and applications experience both in the private sector and in the academia. Dr. Puri brings experience in startup environment and growth management to the Magnolia team. He was VP of Finance for a privately held equipment manufacturer serving the solar PV industry and was actively involved in managing this high technology business to grow to a revenue of about $20 million. Previously, he was also a Professor of Finance and Chair of the Finance Department at the University of Massachusetts Lowell where he worked on PV grants and was director of a technology commercialization program for engineering students.
In 2009 Magnolia Optical spun-out Magnolia Solar, Inc., which was listed on OTCQB as MGLT. Dr. Puri managed all financial aspects of this company and successfully complied with all SEC regulations for listed companies. The company maintained successful listing for eight years and was acquired in 2016 by a private technology company. Dr. Puri worked with this company for a year to help them transition from private to a listed company, now listed on NasdaqCM.
Previously Dr. Puri was VP of Finance for GT Equipment Technologies, Inc., an equipment manufacturer serving the semiconductor and the photovoltaic industries. He helped this high technology startup, formed in 1994, to grow to revenue of about $20 million. The company won many rewards and much recognition; it was a New England finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award. In this position, he was actively involved in running a high-technology business, and he successfully negotiated a $3.5 million line of credit with a major bank, established an audit relationship with one of the big-five accounting firms, established a foreign sales corporation, implemented a R&D credit program to reduce tax liabilities, and established company-wide management software to integrate manufacturing and financial operations. Near the end of his term there, he also successfully negotiated the company's first subordinated debt issue. The company was later listed on NASDAQ as GT Solar, Inc. The company was later named to GT Advanced Technologies (NASDAQ: GTAT).
While a Professor of Finance at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Puri was Principal Investigator of a photovoltaic commercialization project as well as several other grants and has been a director of a technology commercialization program for engineering students, Chairman of the Management and Finance Department, and acting Associate Dean. In these positions, he successfully managed several externally funded projects and developed many years of experience in technology and growth management.
Dr. Puri holds a B.S. in Physics, a M.S. in Solid State Physics, and a M.B.A. from the University of Delhi. He also holds a M.B.A. in Finance and a D.B.A. in International Business from Indiana University, Bloomington. He has published many papers, has made numerous conference presentations, and holds three patents.
Dr. Dhrubes Biswas is an internationally recognized expert in compound semiconductors for radio frequency integrated circuits (RFIC), advanced photovoltaics, optical communication technologies and has lead numerous advanced technology ventures and laboratories worldwide. Dr. Biswas has made fundamental contribution to PHEMT process-based Ka Band Power Amplifier MMICs, Switch MMICs, InGaP HBT process-based Power Amplifier MMICs, ultra-high efficiency quantum structured advanced photovoltaics and III-V optical devices including high power lasers. Apart from providing superb technical leadership for creating next generation advanced technologies in his global start-ups in Albany, Houston, San Francisco, Singapore, Kolkata & Hsinchu, he has taken an instrumental key role in establishing and advising on strategic technology ventures in wireless communication, optical networking electronics and advanced photovoltaics worldwide.
He has over 30+ years of experience in advanced materials for technology development and managing business and technology partnerships for electronic and optoelectronic materials/devices, OEM manufacturers to develop new chipsets and business for PHEMT, HBT, and optical devices. His team in Magnolia has delivered record breaking novel massively quantum structured solar cell surpassing 30% efficiency. He has previously managed numerous semiconductor IC fabrication facilities and processes at Anadigics, Skyworks Solutions Inc., M/A-COM and IBM/EG&G, initiating high power lasers, first PHEMT based switch ICs for handsets/WLANs, first 6" GaAs Fab, and first 6" InGaP HBT and InGaP/InGaAs PHEMT based IC processes. Dr. Biswas has also served as principal research scientist at the National Nanofabrication Facility at Cornell University. Prior to this, he was in multifunctional leadership roles for over 10 years at Indian Institute of Technology, as Professor of Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering, Professor of Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship. He had successfully proposed and brought in novel research projects of over $20 million into IIT (highest in India university system) and successfully guided to completion over 18 doctoral students including 14 out of IIT. He had championed advanced research in "beyond Moore's" electronic and optical devices in Metamorphic HEMT/ HBT, & SiGe devices at his nationally acclaimed "High Performances Devices Fab Lab" at IIT in compound semiconductors.
Dr. Biswas is B.Tech (EE) from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, M.S and Ph.D. in Engineering (Electronic Devices and Materials) from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He has authored over 95 key journal papers, 134 peer reviewed conference papers, 3 books (McGraw Hill (Semiconductor Physics & Devices)/PanStanford & CRC Press (III-V Integrated Circuit Fabrication Technology)/IGI Global) and holds several patents. He is on the Editorial Board of Semiconductor Science & Technology (IOP), Physica Scripta (IOP, Institute of Physics, U.K.), Applied Innovation Review (University of California at Berkeley) and Human Technology Journal (Finland).
Dr. Chowdhury has over 13+ years of experience in advanced compound semiconductor simulations, epitaxial growth and processing of resonant tunnelling structures, HEMT, HBT, detectors, photovoltaic and various other electronic devices. She has made pioneering contributions to the understanding of the physics and technology of the growth of high quality AlN/GaN buffer layers on silicon substrates. She has notable accomplishments in the growth of ultra-thin AlGaN/GaN and AlInN/GaN barriers that includes epitaxial strain reduction methodologies.
She has played a crucial role in leading and developing novel massively quantum structured GaAs solar cell at Magnolia Optical Technologies and prior in Magnolia Solar. She has been a research scientist in Colleges of Nanoscale Science & Engineering (CNSE, SUNY POLY) working on nanostructured anti-reflective coatings and other light harvesting device structures and at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) working on AlGaN/AlInN/GaN/Si resonant tunnelling structures. Dr. Chowdhury is B.Tech (Electronics) and Master of Technology (Electronics) from West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata, and Ph.D. in Engineering from Advanced Technology Development Center at Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, specializing in Compound Semiconductor Heterostructures on Silicon. She has authored over 15 key journal papers and 12 peer reviewed conference papers besides numerous presentations in technical forums.
