About Us

office CW Optics is a technology company specializing in both hardware and software development of optical devices/systems. We are experienced in system design and development, simulation/modeling, and data management. Our staff are highly educated, motivated, experienced, and multi-disciplined. We are dedicated to provide our customers with the best service in a most efficient manner.

Nee-Yin Chou, PhD, President/CEO

Nee-Yin Chou

Dr. Chou has more than 25 years of scientific management experience in the field of laser spectroscopy and optics. She holds a M.S. in Organic Chemistry and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry and is a member of the SPIE and the Association for the Advancement of Wound Care, a Fellow of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery, and an alumna of Springboard Enterprises, a highly selective and unparalleled premier venture-catalyst platform that helps build great women-led businesses. Dr. Chou is passionate about sharing the joy of learning science, engineering and math with others, especially young people, and her volunteer work reflects her values. Her local involvement includes being a member of the York County School District Education Committee, the Advisory Board of the Physics, Computer Science, and Engineering Department at CNU, and the Executive Committee of the Sensors Technology Cluster in Hampton Roads. The Virginia Lawyers Media has recently selected Dr. Chou as one of the 2012 "Influential Women of Virginia."

Leonard Winchester, PhD, Vice President/CSO

Len Winchester

Dr. Winchester has a Ph.D. in Physics. He has conducted research at the University of Hull, England and the University of Regensburg, Germany. Dr. Winchester has been involved in R&D of optical systems and simulation for more than 30 years. His experience includes the development of optical prototypes for human physiological monitoring, LIDAR systems for the detection of molecular species, a complete end-to-end simulation of the first spaceborne lidar system, and eye-safety analyses. Dr. Winchester is an internationally known expert in multiple scattering analyses. His computer models have been incorporated into the Army Electro-Optical System Atmospheric Effects Library, the Army Night Vision Laboratory Static Performance Model, and the Air Force Geophysics Laboratory models including LOWTRAN, MODTRAN, and HITRAN. He has authored more than 90 technical publications. Dr. Winchester is a frequent ad-hoc reviewer on NIH study groups, an Associate Professor at the Biomedical Engineering Department of Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Senior Member of IEEE.

Rebecca Braun, MBA

Becca Braun

Ms. Braun has a wealth of knowledge and experience from a variety of entrepreneurial companies. She was co-founder and initial CEO of SupplierInsight, a company that offers supplier management services and software to corporations and government agencies and that was ultimately acquired by Ariba (Nasdaq: ARBA). Ms. Braun was formerly a Vice President at Kirtland Capital Partners (KCP), a $300 million private equity firm located in Willoughby Hills, Ohio. Prior to KCP, Ms. Braun was a principal at The Parthenon Group, a strategic advisory and principle investing firm in Boston, Massachusetts, and an associate at LEK, an M&A advisory firm. Ms. Braun graduated from Harvard Business School in 1997 and has a Linguistics degree Magna Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard University. She is a co-founder of Boston-based Harbus Foundation, and, in Cleveland, she co-founded the Founders Cafe and ClevelandClicks. She serves on the boards of Red Cross Blood Services and Cleveland Skating Club, and is an alumna trustee of Springboard Enterprises. For her work with entrepreneurship, she has been awarded the Heroes Award from the ERC Group in Cleveland as well as the "40 Under 40" honor from Crain's Cleveland Business magazine.


Keith D. Ignotz, MBA

Keith Ignotz

Mr. Ignotz is a senior corporate executive with over 30 years of experience in global healthcare market and 20 of those in diabetes. He was recently President & CEO of DiaKine Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing drugs for diabetes and is currently the President of InnoVision Therapeutics, LLC a drug licensing and development company. He joined DiaKine from SpectRx, Inc., a diabetes management company which he co-founded in 1993 where he served as President and Chief Operating Officer. While in that position, he raised over $60 million in venture capital and public company funding, negotiated a $26.5 million strategic partnering collaboration and brought the Company through an IPO. Previously, he was President of Humphrey Instruments SmithKline Beckman (Japan) and Humphrey Instruments (Germany), and Senior Vice President of Allergan Humphrey. He has a B.A. from San Jose State University and an M.B.A. from Pepperdine University. Mr. Ignotz currently serves as a Trustee of Salus University , Pennsylvania College of Optometry and several private and public company boards.


Brent W. Lambert, MD, FACS

Brent Lambert

Dr. Lambert is a board-certified ophthalmologist, is a graduate of Harvard College, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, Harvard Medical School, and Massachusetts Eye & Ear Infirmary residency program. Prior to the founding of Ambulatory Surgical Centers of America, Dr. Lambert was the developer and owner of three ambulatory surgical centers, including the first eye ASC in New England. Currently Dr. Lambert is responsible for business development at ASCOA.



Mark Licata, MS, PE

Mark Licata

Mr. Licata is Vice President of Industrialization and Quality at Intelliject. He has been in the medical device industry for 26 years starting with Bayer USA where he was responsible for medical device applications in the plastics division. At Medtronic Neurosurgical, he launched several products including an implantable morphine pump before holding senior engineering positions at two start-up companies; O.R. Solutions and Hemodyne Inc. Most recently Mr. Licata was founder of Bio-Track, a medical device commercialization company. Bio-Track developed medical device concepts and provided regulatory assistance to a broad range of clients. He has been granted 23 patents in the medical device field. He is a member of the Society for Biomaterials, American Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. Mr. Licata holds a Masters degree in Colloids, Polymers, and Surfaces (Biomedical Engineering) from Carnegie-Mellon University.


Joseph P. McMenamin, MD, JD

Joseph McMenamin

Dr. McMenamin is a member of the McGuire Woods' Life Sciences Industry Team. He focuses on products liability, risk management, claims avoidance, and health law. Dr. McMenamin earned his MD and JD from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of the College of Legal Medicine, an Associate Professor of Legal Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University, and a Senior Fellow of the Jefferson School of Population Health. Dr. McMenamin is AV-rated by Martindale-Hubbell and named one of the "Best Lawyers in America" in 2011 by Woodward/White, Inc.


Warren Brennan, MHA

Warren Brennan

Mr. Brennan is the CEO of Strategic Medical Alliances, Inc., a national healthcare informatics provider serving hospitals, health plan providers, medical device companies, and investment banking organizations. He is the founder and executive leader of New Health Analytics, a provider of analytic services (Clinical Integration) for multi-hospital networks and physician organizations seeking to improve health care quality and efficiency. He has more than 30 years experience in academic medicine, physician practice management, and the development of healthcare informatics companies. Mr. Brennan holds a B.S. from the Univ. of Pittsburgh and a M.H.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University.


Becky Voorheis, MBA

Becky Voorheis

Ms. Voorheis is V.P. of business development at ApeX Therapeutics where she has successfully helped raise venture financing and execute key strategic partnership agreements. Before joining ApeX, she was a V.P. of investments at CHV Capital. Prior to CHV, Ms. Voorheis was in corporate development at Cadence Design Systems where she completed numerous acquisitions, licensing agreements, and strategic investments. She closed more than 25 venture capital investments in four years while she was at Intel Capital. Ms. Voorheis has an M.B.A. from Fuqua School of Business at Duke and B.A. from Swarthmore College. Her experience also includes working with Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School on his renowned book The Innovator's Dilemma and the late professor Jeffry Timmons of Harvard Business School and Babson College on his flagship publication New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship in the 21st Century.

Community Investment

At CW Optics, we make it our business to not only be generous with our ideas and expertise, but to empower the people and communities around us. We believe there's more to running a technology company than developing hardware and software. At the heart of our programs is a strong belief that service to others makes the world a better place. In the same spirit of empowerment and commitment to community, CW Optics reaches out to the future talent of our industry by encouraging grade school students to pursue careers in science and technology through award donations to the annual York County School Division Science Fair.

Careers

CW Optics is always looking for bright, dedicated professionals to join our company. We are looking for highly motivated and multi-disciplined employees to help develop medical devices, especially in areas of optical imaging and physiological monitoring.

Don't hesitate - send us your resume today!

Send resumes to careers@cwoptics.com

    Upcoming Event: November 2012 - MEDICA

    • CW Optics will be attending MEDICA in Düsseldorf, Germany from November 14-17.

    October 2012 - 2012 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Mid-Atlantic Innovation Conference

    • CW Optics was selected to present its WoundImager® technology at the 2012 National Heart Lung and Blood Institute Mid-Atlantic Innovation Conference in Rockville, MD on October 15, 2012. This inaugural event featured presentations by top NHLBI SBIR-funded companies with innovative technologies on the brink of commercialization and bring together small businesses, angel investors, venture capitalists, strategic partners, and business leaders from the biotech and pharmaceutical industries.

    September 2012 - New Patent Issued

    • The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has granted a patent ( Pat. No. 8,275,450, Multiple images, multiple exposure times, optical imaging of blood circulation velocities) for technology developed at CW Optics, a Virginia-based medical device R&D company. Nee-Yin Chou, CW Optics CEO, said "The use of multiple images and exposure times for our previously patented laser speckle imaging technology allows us to apply our proprietary scattering analysis algorithms to more accurately measure blood flow velocities in vivo. We are currently conducting two clinical trials that apply this technology in monitoring wound healing. The potential for this technology is huge, given that microcirculation is used as a model for many disease states."

    September 2012 - Virginia Biomedical Association 2012 Annual Meeting

    June 2012 - AAMI 2012 Conference & Expo

    • CW Optics led a session entitled "Understanding and Using Laser Speckle Imaging for Wound Monitoring" during the AAMI 2012 Conference & Expo in Charlotte, NC, June 2-4.

    May 2012 - The Vision Show and Conference 2012

    April 2012 - 2012 SAWC Spring Conference

    February 2012 - KOTRA Biotech Business Partnering Forum

    • CW Optics attended the KOTRA Biotech Business Partnering Forum in Bethesda, MD, February 23.

    February 2012 - 9th Annual Healthcare & Life Sciences Private Equity & Finance Conference

    February 2012 - VaBIO Greater Richmond Bioscience Luncheon

    January 2012 - SPIE Photonics West 2012

    November 2011 - McGuireWoods Third Annual Medical Device, Durable Medical Equipment & Diagnostics Conference

    October 2011 - 2011 SAWC Fall Conference

    June 2011 - 2011 BIO International Convention

    • CW Optics attended the 2011 BIO convention.

    June 2011 - 2011 CTSA

    June 2011 - MD&M East

    June 2011 - KTW 2011

    May 2011 - Joint Warfighting Conference and Expo

    May 2011 - 2011 CLEO/IQEC

    March 2011 - Women's Entrepreneurship Symposium

    November 2010 - INS National Academy of Infusion Therapy

    • Dr. Nee-Yin Chou will be attending the One-Day program taking place on Friday, November 19 at the 2010 Fall National Academy of Infusion Therapy and/or One-Day Program in Arlington, Virginia.

    October 2010 - Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference

    • Dr. Nee-Yin Chou will be presenting the WoundImager® at the 2010 Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference in Bethesda, Maryland.

    September 2010 - CW Optics awarded an internship grant from the Chesapeake Bioscience Education Foundation

    • CW Optics is one of five Virginia-based bioscience companies awarded an internship grant from the Chesapeake Bioscience Education Foundation (C-BEF), an initiative of the Virginia Biotechnology Association (VaBIO). The internship project was focused on the development of an optical sensor for early detection of arteriosclerosis.

    June 2010 - CW Optics, a New Member of Spring Board

    • CW Optics is proud to be a new member of Springboard. Springboard's track record is unmatched, since January, 2000, Springboard has helped over 400 women-led companies raise $5 billion in equity fincaning, including 7 IPOs, and legions of high value M&As. 855 of Springboard companies are still in business, and they have created over 10,000 new jobs.

    June 2010 - WoundImager® clinical trial begins

    • CW Optics is excited to announce the beginning of the WoundImager® clinical trial hosted at Chippenham and Johnston-Willis Medical Center in Richmond, VA. More information can be found at www.woundimager.com and www.clinicaltrials.gov

    May 2010 - CW Optics First Runner-Up of the Virginia Innovatorƒ_Ts Forum 2010

    • CW Optics is honored to be selected as first runner-up of the Virginia Innovator's Forum (VIF) and are pleased that VIF recognized the significance of the LSI technology...continue

    April 2010 - International Conference on Information Technology : New Generations

    • A collaborative paper titled "Comparative Study of Security in IEEE 802.11-2007 and IEEE 802.15.4-2006 for Patient Monitoring Environments" and a poster titled "Channel Access Comparison of IEEE 802.11-2007 and IEEE 802.15.4-2006" will be presented at the 7th International Conference on Information Technology : New Generations in Las Vegas, Nevada.

    April 2010 - SPIE Defense Security and Sensing Conference

    • Dr. Nee-Yin Chou was invited to give a presentation at 2010 SPIE DSS Conference. Her title will be "Whole-field, nonscanning, optical imaging for perfusion indication."

    February 2010 - Pittcon Conference

    • Alex Lesnick will be presenting "Use of Laser Speckle Method for Surface Roughness Determination" at the 60th Pittsburgh Conference on Analytical Chemistry and Applied Spectroscopy in Orlando, Florida.

    February 2010 - Southeast Venture Conference

    • CW Optics will be giving a company presentation at the 2010 Southeast Venture Conference in Tysons Corner, Virginia.

    January 2010 - AAMI: Biomedical Instrumentation & Technology

    December 2009 - HRTC Sensors Forum

    • Jason Naramore presented a talk at the Hampton Roads Technology Council Sensors Forum. Jason's talk was highlighted in an article published in the Virginia Pilot. excerpt

    November 2009 - Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference

    • CW Optics will attend the 2009 Mid-Atlantic Bio Conference in Washington D.C. We are a proud sponsor of VaBIO, the Virginia Biotechnology Association.

    October 2009 - ESICM

    • Leonard Winchester will be giving an oral presentation titled "Monitoring of Sublingual Blood Velocity using Laser Speckle Imaging" at the 22nd Annual Congress, European Society of Intensive Care Medicine in Vienna, Austria.

    October 2009 - SPIE/NIH Workshop

    • Nee-Yin Chou and Jason Naramore attended the SPIE/NIH Workshop, Inter-Institute Workshop on Optical Diagnostic and Biophotonic Methods from Bench to Bedside.

    June 2009 - AAMI

    • CW Optics attended the AAMI (Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation) 2009 conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

    June 2009 - CLEO

    • CW Optics attended the CLEO (Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics) conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

    March 2009 - CSIE 2009

    • Three CW Optics employees contributed to a collaborative paper, titled "Scenario-based Traffic Modeling for Data Emanating from Medical Instruments in Clinical Environment," that was presented at the 2009 World Congress on Computer Science and Information Engineering. A copy of the paper can be found on the conferences page.