About Our Team

Nalu Scientific was founded by a team of engineers and experimental physicists with expertise in precision measurement and gravitational wave detector instrumentation. We create technologies that helps scientists, engineers, and professionals seamlessly acquire data, run measurements and control their experiments that further our understanding of physics.

We’re obsessed with designing technologies that will further our understanding how the world works

LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR COMPANY

FOUNDER AND CEO

SENIOR ENGINEER

SENIOR ENGINEER

Dean Uehara

Isar Mostafanezhad, pHd

Luca Macchiarulo, pHd

Dean has made a career in custom Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) ranging from functional, logic, circuit and device design to process technology development. His experience emphasizes design, verification (functional, timing, parametric, fault), design automation, physical chip floor planning, circuit layout, device characterization, and fabrication analysis. ASIC designs comply with industry standards and customers’ requirements for commercial, industrial, automotive, communication, computers, and government applications. Dean is one of Nalu Scientific's founding team members.

Isar received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and was a postdoctoral fellow at the department of Physics, where he worked on developing state of the art High Energy Physics instruments. Isar founded Nalu Scientific to bring microelectronics for radiation detection and particle physics to a wider market. Under his leadership Nalu Scientific has seen significant growth. Isar has been named Pacific Business News’ 40 under 40 in business in the state of Hawai'i and Nalu Scientific was recognized as the most innovative small business by Hawai'i Business Magazine.

Luca graduated with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Poltecnico di Torino (Italy). Luca was a post-doctoral researcher in Torino and at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and taught integrated circuits and digital design as an assistant professor at the department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Luca joined the Nalu Scientific team after collaborating with the Instrumentation Development Lab Physics at UH-Manoa to help develop the digital design and the architecture of the company's Systems-on-a-Chip. Luca is a founding member of the Nalu Scientific team.

LEAD PHYSICIST

SENIOR ENGINEER

SENIOR software ENGINEER

BEN ROTTER, PHD

MARCUS LUCK

RYAN PANG, MS

Ben received his Ph.D. in experimental particle physics in 2016. His research involved designing and implementing experiments to observe high energy cosmic rays and neutrinos over Antarctica. He is currently in charge of application development for Nalu Scientific’s portfolio of high speed digitizers. He has previously designed data acquisition electronics that have successfully flown or operated in harsh environments.

Marcus has worn many professional hats from Director of IT, project manager, to Chief Logistics Officer at a manufacturing company. Over the last two years at Nalu Scientific, he has led the software team and built the software suite leveraging his over 20 years of coding experience to create a user friendly tool for Nalu’s cutting edge tools.

Ryan specializes in the development of advanced electronic hardware and packaging with an emphasis on RF and high-speed digital circuits. Ryan has 10+ years working on aerospace, automotive, and consumer electronic systems and has a wide array of design and test experience ranging from antennas and microwave circuits to ADCs and power regulators.

senior ENGINEER

ENGINEER

senior ENGINEER

Chris Chock

Ruth Perron, pHd

John Stahoviak, MS

John is an electronics design engineer with 30 years of design and applications engineering experience in electronics design for test automation, avionics, and high energy physics. John is a lead engineer at Nalu and project manager for Nalu’s Independent design contracts.

Chris is an electronics engineer who has been a part of development teams with applications ranging from FDA cleared and CE marked medical devices, sanitation systems for the developing world and laboratory test equipment.

Ruth received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa. Her research focus is in Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) and RF-based biomedical devices where she helped develop a patented wearable RF-based cardio-pulmonary system. For over 10 years, she has worked on EM-based sensors and published studies on their designs.

graduate Intern

ENGINEEr

Administrative Assistant

Kenneth lauritzen

Ansel Bare

Jon Itokazu, MS

Jon Itokazo posing for a photo in Honolulu, Hawaii

Jon served for 12 years in the Army as a combat engineer and brings a strong military background to the team. He has a background in quantum optics, RF design, and advanced electromagnetics, and is pursuing a PhD at UH Manoa where he is researching ASIC design and instrumentation for high energy physics applications.

Kenneth received an engineering degree from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and first joined Nalu’s team as an intern. Kenneth assists with software development, test engineering, board design/layout, and data analysis. Additional responsibilities include minor reflow work and documentation.

Ansel received a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Iowa where he studied marketing and business consulting. At Nalu Scientific, Ansel provides operational support and works to complete marketing initiatives. He is happy to learn each day about the world of microelectronics and particle tracking technology.

Intern

Intern

Intern

Adrianna Saymo

Justine Horikawa

mitchell matsumori-kelly

Adrianna is an electrical engineering undergraduate with a concentration in electrophysics at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. As an electrical hardware intern, their responsibilities include board layout, library development, and documentation. Their previous work includes SmallSat projects with Hawaii Space Flight Laboratory, NASA Student Launch Program, and neural network research with NHSEMP.

Justine is currently pursuing her undergraduate degree at Hawaii Pacific University in Biomedical Engineering where she is performing research that assesses the effects of high intensity ultrasound on Mucus in Cystic Fibrosis.  At Nalu Scientific Justine is an intern under the software engineering team; her main focuses are in writing scripts in Python for chip validation.

Mitchell is an electrical engineering undergraduate student at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa and a software intern at Nalu Scientific. He has previously developed software for a small satellite kit designed for educational use.

Intern

Alvin Yang

Alvin received a bachelors in computer engineering from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa and has worked with UH Manoa’s cybersecurity laboratory dealing with RF security and communications. Alvin works as a software engineering intern, assisting with creating new modules for interfacing with the boards and solves various issues on the software side.

JOINING OUR TEAM?

As a growing start-up in Honolulu Hawai'i we are always looking for interns, engineers, and physicists excited about exploring new frontiers in technology.