Management Team

Overview

Nufern is a motivated team of dedicated professionals capable of "Front-to-Back" program execution. We pride ourselves on the personal service we provide and the enthusiasm we bring to a customer's program. Our passion is infectious. Our knowledge is complementary. And our commitment to producing the finest optically-enabled components and devices available is unmatched.

Martin Seifert, President and CEO
Martin Seifert has been a business leader for more than twenty years. Additionally due to his technical background, he is named on a number of Nufern fiber, chip, and laser patents. Prior to Nufern, Martin was President and GM of Lucent Specialty Fibers, a position which came as a result of his turn around of the floundering SpecTran specialty optical fiber manufacturing company and its subsequent sale to Lucent. In the early 90s he started and managed a successful combined hardware and software business at Rockwell where he was also involved with merger, acquisition, and divestiture activities. Prior experience was as Chief Operating Officer of Schweitzer Engineering Labs, and manager of the specialized global high tech drives and control system service provider organization within Bucyrus-Erie. Martin holds a B.S. degree from the University of British Columbia.

Dr. Adrian Carter, Chief Technology Officer
Dr. Carter was founder and General Manager of Redfern Fibres Pty. Ltd. which later became Nufern. Prior to that he was Assistant Professor and Research Associate for Lightwave Technology at Brown University. Dr. Carter also worked as a Quality Assurance Director and Postdoctoral Fellow at the Optical Fibre Technology Center in Sydney, Australia where he focused on the design and fabrication of novel specialty optical fibers. He received his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry and his B.S. in Mathematics and Chemistry from the University of Sydney. Dr. Carter holds several U.S. patents and his work, particularly with respect to photosensitive and high-power fibers, has been widely published.

Dr. Kanishka Tankala, VP Operations
Dr. Tankala was Technical Manager at Lucent Specialty Fiber where he was responsible for specialty fiber preform production and development of polarization maintaining fibers. Prior to that, he was a scientist with SpecTran Specialty Optics where he developed a wide range of rare earth doped fibers and focused on novel double clad fibers. Dr. Tankala also worked as a Research Associate at the Norton Company. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University in Metals Science and Engineering. He received his B.E. in Metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science.

Dr. Bryce Samson, VP Business Development
Dr. Samson joined Nufern from Corning where he served as Senior Research Scientist in the areas of doped fibers, fiber amplifiers and fiber lasers. Prior to that, he worked as a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton focusing on novel fibers and fiber device physics. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Essex University in the UK and his B.S. degree in Applied Physics from Heriott-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. He is an inventor on several patents in the amplifier and fiber laser field and has been published in scores of industry journals.

Alan Levesque, VP Administration
Mr. Levesque joined Nufern from United Technologies Corporation where he served as Executive Assistant to the Chairman and CEO and as Assistant General Counsel in the Otis Elevator subsidiary. While at United Technologies, he focused on mergers and acquisitions work, negotiation of commercial transactions, and management of complex litigation. He also worked as a litigator at Day Berry and Howard LLP. Mr. Levesque served as an officer in the U.S. Army where he commanded a field artillery unit. He received his B.S. in Engineering from the United States Military Academy and his J.D. degree from Columbia University, New York, NY.

Lori Arsego, Controller
Ms. Arsego worked as Assistant Vice President of Information Systems and Management Planning with Pentron, Inc., where she was responsible for a full ERP implementation. Prior to that, she was an Accountant with Corometrics Medical Systems responsible for all general and cost accounting functions. Prior experience was as Accountant for Siegmund, Inc. She received her B.S. degree in Management from Post University, Waterbury, CT.

Nick Jacobson, Director Process Engineering
Mr. Jacobson has over 22 years of engineering and operations experience in the manufacture of multilayer printed circuit boards, night vision electron multiplier microchannel plates, and optical fiber. After working at Galileo Electro-Optics, Nick held several positions during ten years at SpecTran Corporation in Sturbridge, MA, as well as at SpecTran Specialty Optics Corporation in Avon, CT, working with both their telecommunications and specialty fibers product lines. He later served three years as Process Engineering Manager for Alcatel's singlemode fiber plant in Claremont, NC, before joining Nufern. Mr. Jacobson received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Masters in Business Administration degrees from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA.

Dr. David Machewirth, Director Laser Engineering
Prior to joining Nufern, Dr. Machewirth was Senior Development Scientist in the Fiber Development Group at Corning, Inc., in the area of rare-earth doped fiber characterization and development. This work directly supported one of the world's largest optical amplifier manufacturing facilities. He is the author of numerous papers and a key generator of I.P. at Nufern. Dr. Machewirth received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Ceramic Science and Engineering from Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ.