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Our Team

Alan Liu, Quintessent
Alan Liu
CEO

Alan currently serves as the CEO of Quintessent. He was previously an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton and advised on various photonics R&D programs for clients at DARPA and ARPA-E. Alan obtained his PhD from Professor John Bowers’ group at UCSB where he performed research that is now part of Quintessent’s core technology.  

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Bob Nunn
COO

Bob Nunn has helped build several successful start-up companies, including Vitesse Semiconductor (IPO), Fulcrum Microsystems (acquired by Intel), E2O Communications (acquired by JDSU), Nurlogic Design (Acquired by Artisan Components), among others. Most recently, Bob was CEO of Everactive, a start-up company building batteryless IoT solutions. Before Everactive, Bob was Managing Director at Intel Capital, focused on Data Center technologies, having joined Intel as part of their acquisition of Fulcrum Microsystems. Bob holds a BS in Computer Engineering from UCLA and an MBA from Harvard Business School.  

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Brian Koch
VP OF ENGINEERING & CO-FOUNDER

Brian Koch has over 20 years of expertise in the design, testing, and manufacturing of lasers and silicon photonics, with experience as an engineer, manager, and technical leader. He contributed to significant breakthroughs in silicon photonics at Juniper Networks, Aurrion (acquired by Juniper), and Intel’s Photonics Technology Lab. Brian earned his Ph.D. from UCSB, where he was co-advised by Professors John Bowers and Daniel Blumenthal.

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Michael Davenport
DISTINGUISHED ENGINEER & CO-FOUNDER

Michael L. Davenport received the Ph.D degree from The University of California, Santa Barbara in 2017. Before co-founding Quintessent, Michael worked at Ayar Labs and Intel on laser devices for high-performance data networking applications. His expertise is centered around the design and fabrication of integrated circuit lasers, particularly mode-locked lasers, widely-tunable lasers, and lasers integrated with silicon photonics.

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Steven Estrella
DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Steven Estrella, PhD, is the Director of Business Development at Quintessent, Inc., and is responsible for identifying and developing new market and product opportunities, sales and marketing of products, technology, and services, and managing the company’s public relations. ​Dr. Estrella has almost two decades of experience within the photonics industry, having previously worked at Freedom Photonics (acquired by Luminar Technologies in 2022) as a Senior Engineer, Technical Lead, Principal Investigator, Program Manager, and Director of Business Development. Dr. Estrella received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2022, where he investigated high-speed silicon photonics for use in harsh environments, with Professor Clint Schow as his advisor.

John Bowers, Quintessent
John Bowers
CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD & CO-FOUNDER

John is a serial entrepreneur in the field of photonics and has co-founded Aurrion (acquired by Juniper Networks), Aerius Photonics (acquired by FLIR), Terabit Technologies (acquired by Ciena), Calient Technologies, and has been an advisor to many others. John currently holds appointments at the UCSB ECE/Materials departments, and also serves as Deputy CEO of AIM Photonics.

Alex Fang, Quintessent
Alex Fang
BOARD MEMBER

Alex is a managing partner at Entrada Ventures and serves on the Board of Quintessent. Alex was co-founder and CEO of Aurrion, which was a company he co-founded with Professor John Bowers to commercialize his thesis work at UCSB. Alex led Aurrion from its inception all the way to its eventual acquisition by Juniper Networks.

Manny Stockman, Quintessent
Manny Stockman
BOARD MEMBER

Manny is a Partner at Osage University Partners. At OUP he has focused on investment opportunities across semiconductors, optics, and computing, and he is a board member or observer at Quintessent, Opsys, SiFive, and NuMat. He joined the venture world after a career developing optical sensor technologies at Lockheed Martin after receiving his PhD in Applied Physics and Aerospace Engineering at Princeton University.

Milton Chang, Quintessent
Milton Chang
ADVISOR

Milton is managing partner of Incubic and was previously president of Newport Corporation and New Focus, which he took public. The companies he incubated have resulted in six IPOs and seven acquisitions. Milton is a Trustee of Caltech and served on the SEC Advisory Committee on Small and Emerging Companies. He earned his BS from the University of Illinois and PhD from Caltech.

Chris Cole, Quintessent
Chris Cole
ADVISOR

Chris is currently an Adviser to several optics companies. Previously he was Vice President, Advanced Development, Finisar Corp. (acquired by Coherent/II-VI) where he architected and led the development of 40, 100, 200 and 400 Gb/s Ethernet optical transceivers for Cloud Data Centers (DCs), and Carrier Central Offices (COs), leading to over $1 billion of Finisar and billions of optics industry revenue. Prior, at Hughes Aircraft (now Boeing), and Lincoln Laboratory he contributed to military communication satellites. At Acuson (now Siemens), he was an architect and senior manager of the first coherent ultrasound imager, which accounted for $5 billion in revenue. 

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Larry Schwerin
ADVISOR

Larry Schwerin has had a distinguished career that includes applied research at AT&T Bell Labs, leadership roles at Lucent Technologies, and venture capital work at Vanguard Ventures. He has served as CEO for multiple companies, most recently leading Elenion Technologies until its acquisition by Nokia in 2020. An expert in scenario planning and gaming theory, Larry uses his extensive experience to guide clients at Blueline in developing successful strategies. He has lectured and published works on telecommunications and venture investing. Larry holds a Bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, both with highest honors, from Drexel University and Cornell University, respectively.

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