Chief Executive Officer - Justin Otani
Justin Otani enjoys the opportunity to help Ornicept become a leader among cleantech businesses and environmental innovators. The son of a U.S. Forest Service wildlife biologist, Otani has spent his life enjoying the outdoors and now has the opportunity to automate the years his father spent counting birds in the field. He received his JD in business law and intellectual property at the IU Maurer School of Law and his MBA in entrepreneurship and corporate finance at the IU Kelley School of Business. At Indiana University, he served as an Innovation Fellow for the Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and as a practicing member of the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic, which provides legal assistance to start-up companies and small businesses. He enjoyed the business development experience he gained working in the technology transfer office at Indiana University and serving as the Chief Operating Officer for Hydraulic Wind Power, LLC, an Indiana based start-up company. He provides business development leadership to Ornicept with a focus on innovation.
Chief Technology Officer and Head of Research – Russell Conard
Russell Conard is a passionate entrepreneur and computer scientist with an interest in developing win-win solutions for environmentalists and wind developers. He began applying computer optimizations to environmental issues five years ago in the Purdue Climate Change Research Center and has most recently focused on object recognition research in the field of computer vision. A devout “birder,” Conard focused his research on creating a novel software algorithm to identify birds in flight using video cameras. While doing this graduate research at Indiana University, Conard realized the greater implications for his efforts and determined that commercialization had the greatest potential to make a difference. His award winning research is the foundation for the proposed system. He has run two previous startups in which he gained experience in project management, managing employees, and business finance. Conard is excited to build Ornicept into an innovation based leader providing tools to meet emerging demands in the wind industry.
Head of Web Services – Kristopher “K.C.” Baker
Computer Vision Researcher – Guanyu Zhou
Guanyu Zhou is an electrical engineering and computer science researcher whose research interests include computer vision and machine learning. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at Tsinghua University in China and his master’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Michigan. Zhou has been a specialist in the field of machine learning since 2010. His focus is on developing unsupervised and semi-supervised feature learning algorithms, and applying cutting-edge machine learning technologies to solve computer vision problems. While doing research in the University of Michigan, he realized that next generation software tools would be intelligent and incorporate learning technologies. Zhou enjoys building an intelligent and lightweight bird tracking system for Ornicept. He currently focuses on video retrieval, motion detection, and feature learning for images.
Systems Engineer – Carol Goodman
Carol Goodman is an avid birder who found Ornicept through the Michigan birding community. As a (semi)retired programmer, Goodman brings over 20 years of embedded systems experience in the automobile industry. She feels that Ornicept is the perfect combination of her two passions: birds and programming! Carol also enjoys birding, gourmet cooking, ceramics, neuroscience, and is a trained concert pianist.
Science Policy Analyst – Terry Ryan Kane
Terry Ryan Kane recently returned to Michigan following a Science and Technology Policy Fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Washington DC working in the US Senate. Kane is a veterinarian by trade, and in her decades of growing a solo practice into a veterinary hospital, she gained significant experience in business operations and management. Kane loves outdoor travel, especially with her five sons. Today she is down to one pet, Gita, a cat she found with her boys in northern woods.
Business Development Specialist – Dominique Dallas
Dominique is a senior at the University of Michigan majoring in Psychology with a focus in Business, Systems and Organizations. She is also pursuing a minor from the Program in the Environment. Dominique is passionate about entrepreneurship and is involved with MPowered Entrepreneurship at Michigan. Originally from Pennsylvania, Dominique grew up with a love for nature. She has field experience in the rainforest of Costa Rica from her time studying howler monkeys during the summer of 2012.