Dr. Noureddine Abidi | BOARD CHAIR/ADVISOR

Interim Associate Vice President of Research & Innovation

Associate Dean for Research | Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources

Leidigh Endowed Professor | Plant and Soil Science, Director | Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute Texas Tech University

Office: 806.834.1221

Cell: 806.252.3476

Email: noureddine.abidi@ttu.edu

Dr. Abidi is serving as Interim Associate Vice President of Research and Innovation at Texas Tech. He also serves as Associate Dean for Research for the Davis College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources and Director of the Fiber and Biopolymer Research Institute at Texas Tech University. He holds a “Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches” in Engineering Sciences from the University of Haute Alsace in France and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Montpellier II in France. Dr. Abidi has authored 171 refereed journal publications, 4 books, 20 book chapters, over 186 conference papers, and 11 patents/provisional patents. Abidi has served as PI or co-PI on funded research grants totaling more than $22 M.

Dr. Abidi received several awards: Fulbright Award, American Chemical Society Cellulose Division Fellow award, TTU Chancellor’s Council Distinguished Research Award, TTU President’s Excellence in Commercialization Award, TTU Integrated Scholar Award, TTU Outstanding Research Award, TTU President’s mid-career Award, Discover Natural Fibers International Innovation Award, CASNR Research Award, CASNR Student Advising Award, and TTU Chancellor’s Award of Excellence. He was inducted as a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors (June 2024).

Dr. Alexander Kott | BOARD VICE CHAIR/ADVISOR

Former Chief Scientist for U.S. Army Research Laboratory

Email: alexkott@yahoo.com

Dr. Kott served as the Chief Scientist for the U.S. Army Research Laboratory. In this role, he provided leadership in the development of the laboratory’s technical strategy. He was also the Army ST for Cyber Resilience. Between 2009 and 2016, Dr. Kott served as the Chief of the Network Science Division, Computational and Information Sciences Directorate, U.S. Army Research Laboratory. He was responsible for, and helped initiate, a diverse portfolio of fundamental research and applied development in network science and science for cyber warfare. In 2013, Dr. Kott served as the Acting Associate Director for Science and Technology of the ARL’s Computational and Information Sciences Directorate. In 2015 he also served as the Acting Director of the Computational and Information Sciences Directorate.

From 2003 to 2008, Dr. Kott served as a Defense Advanced Research Programs Agency (DARPA) Program Manager responsible for a number of large-scale advanced technology research programs. Technologies developed in programs under his management ranged from adversarial reasoning about the enemy intent to command and control of human-robotic forces. His earlier positions included Director of research and development at Carnegie Group, Pittsburgh, PA, one of the world’s first AI companies, and Information Technology Research Department Manager at Allied Signal, Inc., Morristown, NJ. There, his work focused on using Artificial Intelligence in complex problems in engineering design, and planning and control in manufacturing, telecommunications and aviation industries.

Dr. Kott received the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Public Service Award and accompanying Exceptional Public Service Medal, in October 2008. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 1989, where his research proposed artificial intelligence approaches to innovative design of complex systems. Dr Kott published over 100 technical papers and has served as the initiator, co-author and primary editor of 14 books.

Dr. Werner G. Kuhr | BOARD ADVISOR

Associate Vice President, Innovation and Entrepreneurship/Office of Research and Innovation Texas Tech University

Office: 806.834.0394

Cell: 303.241.5209

Email: wkuhr@ttu.edu

Dr. Werner G. Kuhr serves as Associate Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Texas Tech University, where he oversees TTU’s robust innovation ecosystem and supports TTU and Texas Tech Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) entrepreneurs, as well as the entire West Texas region. Previously, he served as Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO. He led academic initiatives in entrepreneurship and technology commercialization efforts. Prior to that, he served as the Technology Commercialization Director and the founding Director of the Stevens Venture Center at Stevens Institute of Technology. In prior work as an academic and research scientist, Dr. Kuhr has published roughly 100 papers (10,929 citations, H-index =63) and co-authored 29 US Patents, 11 EP Patents, and 5 Japanese patents, many of which were licensed to companies that he co-founded. He has received major awards, including being named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, 2023; a Presidential Young Investigator Award, National Science Foundation, UC Riverside, 1989; the Jubilee Silver Medal, The Chromatographic Society, England (UC Riverside), 1994; and the Young Investigator Award, Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry, UC Riverside, 1993.

Prior to his academic administrative career, Dr. Kuhr was Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Riverside. At UC Riverside, he ran a research program that graduated 25 Ph.D. and MS students in fifteen years, received extramural funding in excess of $8 million from a variety of Federal and commercial sources (NSF, NIH, NASA, DARPA, ONR). AT UCR, he participated in the formation of six start-up technology companies, several of which were based on translation research in protein diagnostics and genomics (Clinical MicroSensors, Inc.). He left his academic career to become Vice President of Research at ZettaCore, Inc., a company he co-founded and helped sell into the semiconductor and printed circuit board industry. Altogether, he helped raise roughly $95M in venture capital and return over $400M in equity to investors and shareholders. Two of the key companies where core technologies were based on patents that he authored, were acquired by major multinational firms (Clinical MicroSensors become GenMark Diagnostics, was acquired by Roche for $1.8B in 2021; ZettaCore was acquired by Atotech GMBH, and in August 2022, MKS Instruments, Inc. purchased Atotech for approximately $4.4 billion).

Dr. Burak Eksioglu | BOARD ADVISOR

Professor and Chair, Industrial, Manufacturing, & Systems Engineering

Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering Texas Tech University

Office: 806.742.3543

Cell: 806.834.1513

Email: Burak.Eksioglu@ttu.edu

Dr. Burak Eksioglu is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing & Systems Engineering at Texas Tech University. He guides a dynamic interdisciplinary program noted for innovative research and education in optimization, logistics, healthcare, energy, and supply chains. Dr. Eksioglu holds a Ph.D. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Florida, a master's in Engineering Business Management from the University of Warwick, and a bachelor's in Industrial Engineering from Bogazici University.

Before joining Texas Tech in 2025, he was a professor and program director at the University of Arkansas and held faculty and leadership roles at Clemson University and Mississippi State University. His research expertise centers on mathematical optimization, particularly stochastic programming and combinatorial optimization, with applications across transportation, supply chains, healthcare, and energy systems. He has secured over $29 million in funded research from agencies including NASA, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Department of Homeland Security.

Dr. Eksioglu’s leadership extends beyond academia through active involvement in professional organizations as an IISE Fellow and INFORMS Senior Member. He has served as conference co-chair, journal editor, and division president, earning multiple awards for teaching and research. His dedication to impactful research, teaching excellence, and mentorship continues to shape the future of industrial engineering at Texas Tech and beyond.

Dr. Stephen Bayne| BOARD ADVISOR

TTU Vice President for National Security

Executive Director of the Critical Infrastructure Security Institute

John R. Bradford Endowed Chair in Engineering Texas Tech University

Office: 806.834.0526

Email: Stephen.Bayne@ttu.edu

Dr. Bayne is a professor and previous interim Dean for the Whitacre College of Engineering and previous Department Chair for Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas Tech and has several years of experience in leadership and technical research. Before joining Texas Tech, he was chief of the directed energy branch at the Army Research Lab, where he managed three teams consisting of engineers, technicians and support staff.

In 2009, Dr. Bayne joined Texas Tech as an associate professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering. He was promoted to full professor in 2015 and became associate chair for graduate studies. As associate chair, Bayne led the effort to recruit graduate students, managed the admissions process and led the graduate committee.

Dr. Bayne was named department chair in 2021, where he led a team of 28 faculty and instructors and was responsible for the recruitment and retention of undergraduate and graduate students. As a department chair, he managed the budget, conducted annual reviews for faculty and staff and was responsible for recruiting new faculty into the department. An active researcher in the department, Bayne brought in more than $32,691,998 ($11,541,066 credited) in research funding to Texas Tech and established a robust energy research program.

With more than 219 publications, a book and a book chapter to his credit, Dr. Bayne also has two U.S. patents. He has earned several research and teaching awards, most notably the Barnie E. Rushing, Jr. Faculty Distinguished Research Award STEM Disciplines; TTU Lockheed Martin Excellence in Engineering Teaching award; Army Greatest Invention Award; and the Army Research Lab Achievement Award for Engineering.

Dr. Bayne is an Air Force veteran who prioritizes outreach and inclusion of a diverse student population. He established the National GEM Consortium at Texas Tech, which works to increase the number of underrepresented groups that receive master’s and doctoral degrees and worked with the Army’s Educational Outreach Program (AEOP) developing a summer program to mentor high school students.

Dr. Trung T. Pham | BOARD ADVISOR

Chief Scientist & Technical Advisor in AI/ML, Federal Aviation Administration

Office: 281.461-2551

Cell: 832.525.1109

Email: trung.t.pham@faa.gov

Dr. Trung T. Pham is the FAA’s Chief Scientific and Technical Advisor (CSTA) for Artificial Intelligence (AI) – Machine Learning, supporting leadership in research and knowledge related to how AI & Machine Learning may be used in aviation systems, and how to evaluate integration of components based on AI & Machine Learning with aircraft software.

Dr. Pham joins the FAA with more than 35 years of software and AI experience. Before joining the FAA, Dr. Pham was at the United States Air Force Academy (USAFA) in Colorado where he worked as an academic professor, teaching in the Department of Computer & Cyber Sciences, and conducting research & development in AI & Machine Learning applications in for the US Air Force Cyberworx (Center of Innovation in Cyber Security) where he was granted the US Top Secret Security Clearance. Previously he taught Control Theory, AI, and Neural Networks at the University of Houston, and was a technical specialist and staff engineer at NASA Johnson Space Center working in the area of Automation & Robotics in the Space Station Program. He also spent a stint at the University of Talca in Chile, South America as a visiting professor and director of the Center of Research in Information Technology, teaching computer sciences, and directing two nationally sponsored R&D projects on product authentication with embedded double-encryption in RFID and data mining on the IoT authentication activities. While in Chile, he received the US State Department’s Fulbright Funding for a project on using swarm intelligence for coordinating a fleet of inexpensive drones to detect forest fire. Earlier in his career, Dr. Pham was a Process Engineer at both Seiscom Delta United, and AMF GeoSpace, doing seismic signal processing for the oil exploration in the energy sector. Throughout his career, Dr. Pham has produced more than 50 publications, two technical books, and many technical presentations. In 2018, he was the recipient of the Best Paper Award at the ENEFA Conference in Valparaíso, Chile.

Dr. Pham is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (IEEE) and a Senior Member of the International Society of Automation (ISA). He is also an active member of the Technical Committee on Measurement in Robotics, and a Distinguished Speaker in the International Measurement Confederation (IMEKO). Dr. Pham obtained his B.S.E.E. (Rice Endowment Scholarship, Texas Valedictorian Scholarship, and the Welsh Foundation Scholarship), M.S. (Office of Naval Research Fellowship), and Ph.D. (The National Aeronautic & Space Administration Fellowship) from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas, and his M.B.A. (McDonnell Douglas Scholarship) from the University of Houston – Clear Lake in Houston, Texas.

Darrell J. Guthrie, JD, Maj. Gen., USA, (Ret.) | BOARD ADVISOR

Managing Member of the Law Office of Darrell J. Guthrie, PLLC

Office: 806.535.2072

Email: dguthrie342@gmail.com

MG (Ret.) Guthrie retired in 2022 after a 37-year career in the U.S. Army. In his last two assignments, he was the Commanding General of the 88th Readiness Division at Fort Snelling, MN and the Senior Commander of Fort McCoy, WI; and the Commanding General of the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, NC.

Additionally, MG (Ret.) Guthrie is the Co-Founder, President and Executive Director of the Texas National Security Institute, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit; and currently serves as an advisory board member for Enhanced Mechanical Systems, Colorado Springs, CO. He is a mentor at the Texas Tech University Innovation Hub, where he provides leadership and organizational structure insights to sponsored startup businesses. MG (Ret.) Guthrie is also a Senior Peace Fellow with the Public International Law and Policy Group, a 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Washington, D.C. and a board member of Crossfire Christian Ministries, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

Steven C. Schultz | BOARD ADVISOR

Sr. Vice President, AVX Technologies

Office: 817.789.7209

Email: steve.schultz@avxtechnologies.com

Mr. Schultz is the Sr. Vice President at AVX Technologies in Ft Worth, Texas. In this role since Sept 2021, Mr. Schultz reports to the AVX President and leads strategic growth and capture for all aspects of the AVX business.

Prior to joining AVX, Mr. Schultz held several leadership positions at Raytheon Technologies over a seven-year period to include Director of Business Development for the Land Warfare Systems business segment in Tucson, AZ and Director of Business Development for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Systems (ISRS) in McKinney, TX. These roles extended across services and included domestic and international customers.

Mr. Schultz’s career at Bell Helicopter, Ft. Worth, TX spans 25 years leading organizations on both military and commercial sides of the business. He began his career as a Field Service Engineer and held positions in Engineering, Flight Test, Training, Logistics, Program Management and Business Development. Mr. Schultz served in the US Marine Corps as an avionics and weapons systems technician prior to joining Bell Helicopter in 1988. Mr. Schultz’s education includes degrees in business from Dallas Baptist University, Texas Christian University (MBA) and executive education courses from Thunderbird, Ohio State and Northwestern Universities.