Date/Time Date(s) - 09/10/20262:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Categories
Prof. Kari Dalnoki-Veress
Dept.of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University
Cofounder and CTO of MesoMat Inc.
How does fundamental research become a commercial product? In our case, not by following a carefully planned path. I will describe the evolution of MesoMat from curiosity-driven research in soft matter to a technology company, and eventually to a tire sensing platform. Along the way, we pursued ideas that did not work, searched for applications that did not have markets, changed direction repeatedly, and learned that a good technology is only one small part of building a successful product. This talk is about that rather random journey, the mistakes and pivots along the way, and some of the lessons we learned in moving from the lab toward commercialization.
Kari Dalnoki-Veress is Faculty of Science Research Chair in Experimental Soft Condensed Matter Physics in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster University, and an Adjunct Professor at the ESPCI in Paris. An experimental physicist with a passion for soft condensed matter, teaching, and entrepreneurship, he leads a research group focused on fundamental experiments in soft and living matter at surfaces and interfaces. His work has been recognized with the Canadian Association of Physicists Brockhouse Medal, the Rutherford Memorial Medal in Physics from the Royal Society of Canada, and the American Physical Society Division of Polymer Physics Dillon Medal. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and a recipient of the McMaster President’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Supervision in Science. Dalnoki-Veress has served as Chair of the NSERC Physics and Astronomy Discovery Grants Evaluation Group, Editor of the European Physical Journal E, Editorial Advisory Board member for Macromolecules and ACS Macro Letters, and Divisional Associate Editor for Physical Review Letters. He is also cofounder and CTO of MesoMat Inc., a VC-backed company developing advanced sensing technologies and cloud-based analytics. At MesoMat, he directs the core scientific breakthroughs behind the company’s sensor architecture.
In-Person only: ABB 102