Member Recognition Archive - Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering

ARKA Group

ARKA Group is awarded the Connecticut Medal of Technology for the company’s 60-year legacy of developing world-class optical technologies, ground processing and analytics and next-generation space solutions, supporting science and national security and providing sustained and significant benefits to Connecticut’s economy.

ARKA is a world leader in the design, development, manufacture, integration and test of precision optics, telescopes and electro-optical payload systems for defense, aerospace and scientific applications. ARKA’s mission has grown to include groundbreaking communications, software development, and data processing capabilities, expanding their reach to new areas of innovation.

“At ARKA, we are committed to solving our customers’ hardest problems with ingenuity and expertise, to protect our military and advance our understanding of the universe,” said ARKA Chief Executive Officer Andreas Nonnenmacher. “Congratulations to our engineering team, whose talent and passion are second to none. We are honored to receive this prestigious award and look forward to pushing the boundaries of innovation and technology even further in years to come.”

In December, the Danbury-based company entered a $136 million, five-year contract with the U.S. Army for AN/VVR-4 Laser Detecting Sets, designed to optimize military operations and ensure the safety and effectiveness of troops in the field.

In April, ARKA completed a two-year, $85 million expansion of its 550,000 square-foot facility in Danbury to increase production capability of smallsat systems, payloads and optical coating capabilities.

Based in Danbury, Connecticut, ARKA is a fully integrated mission partner providing world-leading technologies and services with an unrivaled reputation for excellence. ARKA’s 60-year legacy reaches back to the beginnings of our country’s space endeavors. Our advanced capabilities address the needs of the warfighter, including world-class optical technologies, ground processing and analytics and next-generation space solutions. ARKA helps create a safer world driven by innovation, mission performance, and advanced engineering. For more information, visit arka.org.

Menachem Elimelech

Menachem Elimelech
Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at Yale University

Dr. Elimelech is recognized for his pioneering developments of energy-efficient, sustainable membrane-based technologies for desalination and the management of brines and industrial wastewaters. He is a leading international authority who has transformed the field of environmental engineering, particularly in these areas.

Elimelech’s research and development is in the application of membrane processes including forward osmosis or FO (for desalination and water reuse), high-pressure reverse osmosis or HPRO (for brine concentration and management), and low-salt-rejection reverse osmosis or LSRRO (for brine management and minimal- and zero-liquid discharge applications).

HPRO and LSRRO are expected to revolutionize low-energy, low-cost brine management. Gradiant, a US company specializing in brine management (minimum- and zero-liquid discharge, MLD/ZLD), is commercializing a variant of the LSRRO and FO technologies, which is called Counter Flow RO (CFRO). The current market of brine management is estimated at $11.5B.

Elimelech’s innovative work on forward osmosis (FO) profoundly impacted the desalination and water industry. He was a co-founder of Oasys Water, a company which commercialized the ammonia-carbon dioxide FO desalination technology. More than 13 new FO start-up companies have been formed following his pioneering FO research.

In a recent breakthrough, Elimelech showed that the solution-diffusion model, which has been used to describe water transport in reverse osmosis (RO) membranes for more than 50 years, is fundamentally flawed and he proposed an alternative mechanism and theory for water transport consistent with experimental observations. This finding has direct implications for the design of high-performance desalination membranes.

Elimelech earned his BS and MS degrees from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and his PhD in environmental engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 1989. In his first appointment, Elimelech served as professor and vice chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UCLA. He joined Yale in 1998 as director and founder of the university’s Environmental Engineering Program as well as Llewellyn West Jones Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. In 2005, he was named Roberto C. Goizueta Professor and became chair of Yale’s Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department.

In 2021, he was appointed Sterling Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, the university’s highest academic rank; the first engineering professor at Yale to earn this distinction.

His major awards and honors include the International Water Association (IWA) Membrane Technology Award (2023); Honorary Doctorate, Ben-Gurion University, Israel (2023); Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (2023); Eni Prize for ‘Protection of the Environment’ — often considered the Nobel Prize in energy/environment — (2015); The Simon W. Freese Environmental Engineering Award and Lecture, American Society of Civil Engineers (2011); The American Institute of Chemical Engineers Lawrence K. Cecil Award in Environmental Chemical Engineering (2008); and The Athalie Richardson Irvine Clarke Prize, National Water Research Institute (2005).

Professor Elimelech is an elected member of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (2022); Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering (2021); Chinese Academy of Engineering (2017); Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (2007); and United States National Academy of Engineering (2006).

Josh Geballe

Josh Geballe
Senior Associate Provost for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, Yale University, and Managing Director, Yale Ventures

Josh Geballe is recognized for his leadership in the state as a key advisor to Governor Ned Lamont, specifically his guidance to the people and the state of Connecticut during the COVID-19 pandemic as Chief Operating Officer for the Governor and Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services, and for his work at Yale University and Yale Ventures.

During his time at the state, he was responsible for all executive branch agencies (a total of 30,000 employees) and led successful initiatives to modernize state operations and expand the use of technology to improve services and reduce costs.

In his role as senior associate provost for entrepreneurship and innovation at Yale University and managing director at Yale Ventures, Josh is responsible for a wide range of services and programs for students, faculty, and the broader New Haven community to launch new startups based on Yale research, provide training in entrepreneurship and innovation, expand external research partnerships, and foster the growth of the local innovation and entrepreneurship community.

Before his state service, Josh’s professional background included serving as CEO of Core Informatics, a venture-backed scientific software company that was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific, where he served as vice president and general manager of digital science. Previously, he spent 11 years at IBM in a variety of international executive roles.

Josh serves on the boards of directors of several nonprofit organizations, including ClimateHaven where he is the founding board chair, Connecticut Innovations, AdvanceCT, BioCT, and the Mory’s Association.

Josh holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a bachelor’s degree from Yale University.

Jack Crane

Jack Crane
Senior Advisor, CONNSTEP

Jack Crane is honored for his lifelong commitment to K-12 education and his support of Connecticut’s manufacturing and small businesses. He has served the New Haven Public Schools Science Fair Program for 28 years. The Program engages the district’s K-12 students in hands-on science projects as a vehicle for fostering excitement in learning, promoting science literacy, and introducing the opportunities available through careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics).

Jack has served as Program Director and led the New Haven Science Fair Program Steering Committee. His leadership helped the district’s fair to thrive despite the pandemic. He continues to focus on the future and how the New Haven Science Fair Program can have a greater impact by reaching out to elementary school students and their parents; making them aware of opportunities for STEM jobs in the area.

As a senior advisor for CONNSTEP, a consulting group that helps manufacturers and other smaller businesses, Jack is particularly sensitive to the need for a highly skilled workforce to meet current and future business demands. He works closely with ReadyCT, a leader in K-12 career pathway programming, to ensure that students and employers have what they need to set them up for future success. Both CONNSTEP and ReadyCT are affiliates of the Connecticut Business & Industry Association (CBIA).

In 2001, he and the rest of the NHSF Program team received the sixth Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring to recognize their efforts on behalf of traditionally underrepresented students in STEM. In 2002, he was recognized by the New Haven Public Education Fund for his contribution to students, staff, and parents. He received the 1998 Elm-Ivy Award for his outstanding contributions to building bonds between New Haven and Yale University. In 2023, Jack was named Volunteer of the Year by the Greater New Haven Chamber of Commerce.

Jack earned a BS at Purdue University and a master’s degree at Yale University, both in metallurgical engineering. He was Director of New Products R&D for Olin Corporation’s Metals Division, has authored or co-authored more than 50 papers on new products, synthesis, and fabrication of materials, and is also the holder or co-holder of more than 30 patents related to alloys, processes, and products. He is a fellow of the American Society of Materials, a recipient of the UCONN Engineering Services Award, and the first-ever recipient of the National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership Lifetime Achievement Award. Jack also received the Manufacturing Hall of Fame’s 2017 Leadership Award.

Akiko Iwasaki

AKIKO IWASAKI
Sterling Professor of Immunobiology and Professor of Dermatology and of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and of Epidemiology (Microbial Diseases), Yale School of Medicine

Investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Dr. Iwasaki is recognized for her major discoveries in the areas of innate sensing of viruses, and instruction of adaptive anti-viral immunity. She has laid the foundation for key concepts in viral immunity and introduced innovative approaches in vaccine design to combat COVID-19. Dr. Iwasaki currently leads investigations into the pathophysiology of long COVID, including Co-Lead Investigator for the Yale LISTEN Study. The medal-bestowing ceremony will be scheduled at a time to be determined and the honor will be shared with members and guests at CASE’s 48th Annual Meeting and Dinner, to be held May 24, 2023, at the Woodwinds in Branford.

Dr. Iwasaki’s discoveries have resulted in paradigm shifts in our understanding of the immune response to infection and vaccine design. She is an expert on immune responses to viruses that occur at mucosal sites of host entry and has made key contributions to our understanding of how the host detects viruses, innate host defense mechanisms, generation of specific acquired immune responses, and design of new and improved vaccine strategies. Her two-stage vaccination strategy called “prime and pull” informed the development of a vaccine currently in a clinical trial to treat women with precancerous lesions in the cervix to prevent cervical cancer.

Dr. Iwasaki earned a BS in Biochemistry, with a minor in Physics, and a PhD in Immunology, all from the University of Toronto, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health. In 2022, she was awarded a Sterling Professorship, the highest academic honor professors receive at Yale University.

She is an elected member of the council for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the American Association of Immunologists (AAI), and an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and CASE. Iwasaki has received multiple awards to date, including the Inspiring Yale Award, the Seymour & Vivian Milstein Award for Excellence in Interferon and Cytokine Research, the Charles W. Bohmafalk Teaching Award, AAI’s Thermo Fisher Meritorious Career Award, and BD Biosciences Investigator Award, to name a few. For more, see Dr. Iwasaki’s Yale profile.

Dr. Iwasaki and her husband, fellow Yale faculty member Ruslan Mezhitov, have two children and reside in Connecticut.

Bernard J. Zahren

Owner and founder of Zahren Financial Co., LLC
Manager of Clean Feet Investors I, LLC

Bernard J. Zahren is honored in recognition of his commitment to business-focused sustainability initiatives critical to reducing emissions that contribute to climate change. His entrepreneurial and management leadership capabilities have been instrumental in this effort. Mr. Zahren is the owner and founder of Zahren Financial Co., LLC (est. 1984; ZFC), with ZFC the manager of Clean Feet Investors I, LLC (CFI I). CFI I is a private, multi-million-dollar investment fund, with a nationwide portfolio focused on solar photovoltaic, SREC (Solar Renewable Energy Certificates) aggregation and finance, energy efficient hydroponic greenhouses, battery storage, water heater controls, solar thermal, and other renewable energy projects. CFI I, co-founded by Bernard and Sun Edison founder Jigar Shah, is a Connecticut-based fund that seeks socially responsible investments in small to medium-sized renewable energy and energy-conserving projects. Mr. Zahren truly believes in “Doing Well” by “Doing Good”.

Prior to ZFC, Mr. Zahren developed successful investment syndications for a subsidiary of CIGNA Corp., and in his early career held senior management positions in firms including Angeles Leasing Corp., Architectural Wood Products, Inc., and The Koppers Company.

His contributions to public service include serving as chair of the Avon CT Clean Energy Commission and the Advisory Board for the Partnership for Responsible Growth. He previously served as a board member for Talcott Mountain Science Center and Academy, Special Olympics, and Community Health Charities of CT where he received the Ellsworth S. Grant Founders Award.

Zahren committed himself professionally, and personally, to strategies to reduce greenhouse emissions. His home won two prizes from the Connecticut Zero Energy Challenge (2010-2011), including the lowest overall HERS (Home Energy Rating System) Index score and the lowest net energy annual operating costs. To achieve his goal of “net zero energy” consumption, his home includes a ground-source geothermal HVAC system and three renewable energy systems: a solar hot water system, solar PV panels, and a wind turbine.

Mr. Zahren has a BS from the University of Notre Dame and an MBA from the University of Pittsburgh.

Andrew Bramante

Andrew Bramante
Science Research Teacher & Director
Greenwich High School

Andrew Bramante is honored in recognition of his commitment to the education of students through his teaching and as director of Greenwich High School’s Independent Science Research program since 2006. His students consistently win some of the highest state, national, and international prizes awarded for science-related research at the high school level, including two Google Science Fair Finalists, one Google Science Fair winner, and 37 Regeneron/Intel STS finalists/Scholars. And, this year Mr. Bramante has extended his teaching to include middle school students interested in science research.

More than 49 of his Greenwich High School students have competed in the annual International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), winning eight First Place awards, five Best of Category Awards, and four Grand Prize Awards. His students are frequently the top winners of the CT Science and Engineering Fair and CT Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, with those students receiving top awards from the Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering, including the H. Joseph Gerber Medals of Excellence.

Bramante has a BS and MS in Chemistry from Fordham University. Prior to teaching, Bramante worked in industry for 15 years including Hitachi Instruments and PerkinElmer Instruments. In 2003 he met Ray Hamilton, a Greenwich High Science Research Teacher, at a local American Chemical Society event. Bramante offered to help with Hamilton’s instrumentation needs, which Ray accepted, and from that experience, his life changed. He obtained his teaching certificate in 2005, began teaching at Greenwich the same year, and a year later Hamilton retired, and Bramante became the science research teacher. Key to his success are high expectations for his students and an incredible work ethic. His students know he is available as needed, including opening his lab and classroom during out-of-school time. If students know he is in the building, word gets around – even at 8:00 am on a Saturday morning – and the lab fills.

Andy’s work with his students was profiled in “The Class”, a book by Heather Won Tesoriero, who shadowed Bramante for a year.

Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT)

Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT) is awarded the Connecticut Medal of Technology for its leadership of regional and national partnerships that assist the industrial base with the advancement of applied technologies and workforce initiatives to strengthen the global competitiveness of the manufacturing ecosystem in Connecticut.

CCAT, a non-profit incorporated in 2004, is a dynamic and innovative applied technology organization. An invaluable resource to the State, CCAT leads the promotion, demonstration, and adoption of applied technologies, particularly in the areas of model-based engineering, Industry 4.0 and digital technologies, additive manufacturing, advanced composites, and renewable energy. CCAT’s industry-led approach and delivery of transformative solutions enables manufacturing and technology companies to improve the critical KPIs required to remain a profitable industry leader.

Leveraging its Advanced Technology Centers, CCAT assists the manufacturing ecosystem with research and development, prototyping, technology readiness level /advancement, low-volume production, validation, and demonstration of leading-edge technologies. CCAT further leverages its technology capabilities through public-private partnerships with national consortia, industry associations, manufacturing institutes, global industrial companies, small to medium-sized enterprises and academia.

CCAT’s leadership in creating and administrating programs on the State and federal level has been a major multiplier for the Connecticut economy. Examples include: leveraging stimulus capital through matching grant voucher programs provided by the Manufacturing Innovation Fund; accelerating digital transformation through the Connecticut Defense Manufacturing Community Consortium’s Digital Model Initiative program; upskilling the manufacturing workforce and identifying the next-generation of talent from underserved communities which has been supported by the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Deloitte Foundation and other private entities.

CCAT’s contributions, and that of its team, have been nationally recognized for developing innovative solutions to industry challenges, such as the President’s “E” Certificate for Export Service, presented by the Secretary of Commerce for significant contributions to the nation’s Export Expansion Program, the DoD Patriot Employer Award, and awards for community and professional leadership.

Craig M. Crews

Craig Crews is awarded for pioneering research that launched the pharmaceutical field of Targeted Protein Degradation (TPD). TPD is hailed as a new paradigm for drug development and will almost certainly lead to novel therapeutics. Described as an exceptionally creative scientist, with an eagerness to ask piercing, mechanism-based questions, and a commitment to evidence-based, first-rate, definitive science, he has had a profound translational impact in drug development.

Combining his groundbreaking science with an entrepreneurial spirit, Crews and his colleague Raymond Deshaies co-founded Proteolix in 2003. Proteolix developed a therapeutic treatment approved by the FDA in 2012 for relapsed multiple myeloma. Drug development is a slow and arduous process, and few technological advances are truly transformative in the field. However, for Crews, this was just one step in his journey.

Since 2001, he has developed a new technology, known as PROTACs, or Proteolysis Targeting Chimeras. This innovative and potentially disruptive approach for inhibiting the function of disease-causing proteins is being commercialized in the biotechnology, New Haven-based, oncology-focused company Arvinas that he founded in 2013. The company has created more than 300 new jobs in New Haven with a $3.5B market cap, two drug candidates in clinical trials, and several partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies. Arvinas focuses on drugs to treat cancer, neurodegeneration, and other diseases [now in clinical trials for breast and prostate cancer].

Crews earned a BA in Chemistry from the University of Virginia, completed a research fellowship at the University of Tübingen (Germany), and received his PhD in biochemistry from Harvard University. His awards and honors are numerous, including the 2013 CURE Entrepreneur of the Year Award, 2014 Ehrlich Award for Medicinal Chemistry, 2015 Yale Cancer Center Translational Research Prize, a NIH R35 Outstanding Investigator Award (2015), elected a CASE Member (2015), the American Association for Cancer Research Award for Chemistry in Cancer Research (2017), Khorana Prize from the Royal Society of Chemistry (2018), Pierre Fabre Award for Therapeutic Innovation (2018), the Pharmacia-ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics (2019), the Heinrich Wieland Prize (2020) and the Scheele Prize (2021).

Dawn Hocevar

Dawn Hocevar
President and Chief Executive Officer, BioCT

Dawn Hocevar was elected an honorary member of the Academy in recognition of her efforts in support of the Academy’s mission to advise on issues of science and technology that affect the economic and social well-being of the people and the state of Connecticut.

As BioCT’s President and CEO, Ms. Hocevar is a leader in the state of Connecticut’s bioscience industry, including her contributions to strategic planning and the development of partnerships and collaborations critical to the industry’s growth. At BioCT she has been a catalyst, building collaborations with industry, academia, and government. In 2017 Dawn worked with Catherine Smith, who was serving at that time as the Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development, and the legislature to create a bill requiring the life science industry key stakeholders to develop the state’s ten-year strategic plan to guide investment in the Connecticut bioscience industry. Under Dawn’s leadership, BioCT has become an integral part of the life science industry ecosystem in Connecticut.

Dawn sits on the board of the Council of State Bioscience Association (CSBA), affiliated with the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO). Prior to BioCT, Dawn served as Women in Bio’s Program Committee Vice-Chair (2011 – 2012), National Chair of Programs and Development (2012 – 2015), and later as the organization’s president and board chair (2017). She spent 20 years at Thermo Fisher Scientific, followed by 10 years at BioSurplus, where she steadily rose in leadership positions within the company until last serving as Vice President for National Business Development.

Honors awarded to Dawn in Connecticut include the New Haven BIZ Power Class of 2020 and the Power 25 Class of 2021. Volunteer activities include Junior Achievement and Chair of Fundraising for The San Francisco School. Ms. Hocevar has a BS in Biology and Chemistry from San Jose State University.