Ranulfo (Randy) Allen, Phd Email & Phone Number

New York, Ny, Us

Boston, Massachusetts, United States

My goal is to contribute to keeping MI as an example of the good version of a VC, actively helping entrepreneurs to make their intended impact on the world. My day to day activities include: - Helping portfolio companies overcome any hurdles as they arise to help them progress toward an eventual successful exit - Market exploration to find opportunities to start and build companies (possibly led by myself) - Typical investor activities like sourcing and diligence

Greater Boston

As MD, I mentored and supported science entrepreneurs as they moved from laboratory proof of concept to commercial product, fostering a safe and open environment among the community of fellows. I also interacted with the local entrepreneurial ecosystem to spread awareness of Activate and to promote entrepreneurship as a viable career for scientists.An independent nonprofit, Activate manages a fellowship program for entrepreneurial scientists and engineers. Activate Fellows receive stipends, funding, mentorship, and training as they develop as entrepreneurs and build an organization. We empower scientists to reinvent the world by bringing their research to market.

Greater Boston

As an EIR, I worked on multiple projects that were geared toward supporting the next wave of scientific entrepreneurs

As a venture associate, I connected the firm to promising founders that are leveraging proprietary technologies to address billion dollar opportunities. My focus was primarily on startups in sustainability, cleantech, agtech, and other hard tech sectors.Pillar is an ultra founder-friendly firm that buys common stock instead of preferred stock. Pillar also provides substantial resources to founders like leadership development. Pillar makes pre-seed and seed-stage investments and is focusing on university spinouts or companies based in the greater Boston area.

I promoted new investments by examining the textile, advanced material, water purification, and smart manufacturing industries, screening 100s of potential leads in each category, and conducting detailed due diligence for five companies, which led to planned investments in two companies.I also assisted a portfolio company focused on semiconductor interconnects, SunRay Scientific, to quantify its value proposition and adjust business strategy by converging top-down industry trends coalesced from 10+ market research reports and scientific literature with bottom-up customer insights gleaned from primary research.Tech Council Ventures is a regional generalist venture fund, investing in the US Mid-Atlantic region. The fund is affiliated with one of the largest and most active technology councils in the US, the NJ Tech Council, providing for its portfolio investments an unmatched network of customer, key team recruits, business partner and service provider connections. TCV can leverage its corporate and academic relationships in the region to provide substantial value to entrepreneurs.

Hanover, Nh

As a fellow, I learned strategies for finding and investing in startups that have already generated traction and garnered venture capital attention. I developed a deal sourcing pipeline to establish connections with several new potential investments.Spike Ventures is a venture capital firm and community of Stanford alumni investors, executives, entrepreneurs, and innovation enthusiasts. It raises capital from Stanford alumni and invests in alumni-led startups. It is private, for profit, and not part of (but friendly with) Stanford. It is a branch of Alumni Ventures Group.

San Antonio, Texas Area

As a research analyst, I had several roles including identifying and elucidating growth opportunities for companies in the chemical, materials, and food industries, executing the primary and secondary research needed to provide growth insights, and recommending specific strategies and guidelines for clients. Business strategies often included finding potential acquisition targets, most probable use cases of various emerging technologies, and the company division with the most growth potential. I led analysis for a large share of North American consulting projects securing repeat clients and helping to make Visionary Science one of the fastest growing divisions.

Dallas

I worked to commercialize flexible pressure and temperature sensor arrays developed at UT Dallas for a variety of applications for the internet of things. Using these sensor arrays, we could create products such as a 3D-touchscreen for tracking finger movement above and through the screen, proximity sensors for tracking human activity, and on-skin sensor arrays for tracking pulse, blood pressure, blood flow, and temperature gradients. I focused on developing the technical strategy and underlying technology, manufacturing devices, and tailoring the devices to address specific consumer needs.

Dallas/Fort Worth Area

At UT Dallas, I explored novel polymer designs for applications in flexible electronics, wearable electronics, health monitoring, and 3D printing. I advised prototyping of bioelectronic devices and developed the microfabrication processing for flexible sensor arrays. I led several projects focused on commercialization and invented several new technologies including: • Ultrasoft elastomers capable of being highly elastic despite a modulus on the order of 1 kilopascal• Transparent, flexible, photolithography-defined pressure sensor arrays based on thin-film ultrasoft polymers• Self-healing, remoldable thermoset polymers as a potential 3D-printing ink• Photolithography compatible release layer for flexible electronics based on interfacial CO2 evolution• Substrates with photolithography-defined stiffness for use in stretchable electronics• Humidity sensors based on thin-film polymershttp://voitlab.com/people/ranulfo_allen/

Worked under Prof. Zhenan Bao and Prof. Gerald Fuller to study carbon nanotube/conductive polymer composite solutions. Specifically, I researched the potential to improve transparent electrode performance for solution-cast single-walled carbon nanotube films. I led the project by managing it from both a detail-oriented view and a general overview of the project. I discovered certain semidilute carbon nanotube/polymer dispersions produce a weak, birefringent gel that is amenable to alignment. I then correlated the alignment of deposited films with transparent electrode performance, finding that moderate alignment produced the greatest transparent electrode performance. I also produced aligned carbon nanotube fibers using similar dispersions. I published three first-author papers from this work.

Assisted in planning an undergraduate course in fluid mechanics. Expanded on lectures in a weekly discussion with students. Received positive evaluations from discussion attendants.

Worked under Richard Register to investigate the relationship between alignment of block copolymer thin films and oscillatory shearing. Wrote and defended thesis. Presented results to faculty via poster. Found that oscillatory shearing required a greater stress than simple shearing to achieve alignment and that there was a critical frequency, above which alignment was not possible.

Princeton, Nj

Communicated with alumni, raising money to help sustain Princeton’s financial aid.Supervised callers while checking the corresponding statistics and handling difficult calls.

Mayaguez, Pr

Investigated ability to create nickel nanowires in one-dimensional porous zeolites. Successfully synthesized zeolite VPI-8 and impregnated the zeolite with various amounts of nickel. Prepared and presented an oral presentation at the university.

Princeton, Nj

Guided students through organic chemistry problems while giving ideas on the order in which material was presented

San Jose, Ca

Researched the effect of ion beam patterning on block copolymer self-assembly. Found that ion beam exposure does not affect the self-assembling nature of block copolymers. Prepared and presented a poster demonstrating this information for an IBM poster session. Presented this research at the American Chemical Society’s 233rd National Meeting & Exposition.

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.), Chemical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Organic chemistry teaching assistant, Annual Giving supervisor, member of Black Arts Company: Dance, NSBE.

Doctor Of Philosophy (Phd), Chemical Engineering

Activities and Societies: Stanford Graduate Fellow, fluid dynamics teaching assistant, member of Black Graduate Student Association.

Master Of Business Administration - Mba

Activities and Societies: Tuck Scholar. Member of the Consortium (Wallace L. Jones Fellowship recipient), Center for Private Equity.