Meet the Team
Navid Gougol
CEO & Founder
Navid Gougol is the original inventor of YektaSonics core technology at University of California, Berkeley. He is a former chip designer at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Sun microsystems (now Oracle) worked on next generation computing chips, part of the High Speed IO and microprocessor design teams. He had extensive studies in electrical and computer engineering, physics, and neurosciences at the University of California, Stanford, University of Southern California, and University of Tehran. Before his PhD studies at the University of California, he holds MS and BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from USC and University of Tehran.
Ali Niknejad
Ali Niknejad advises YektaSonics Inc. on RF/mixed-signal circuits.
Ali Niknejad is a professor in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at the University of California, Berkeley.
He has started innovative startups in the field of Radio Frequency, received the prestigious ISSCC and Jack Kilby awards, to name a few.
Ted Selker
Ted Selker is a former professor at MIT and CMU and a former IBM Research fellow.
He is an advisor, Chief Scientist, and CTO for various startups. He has worked for CTO’s and CEO’s on innovation and strategy for large companies.
Current Staff
Balaram Behera — Software Engineer
He is a senior at the University of California in Santa Cruz, in Computer Sciences and Mathematics. He has been developing mathematical algorithm for our beam-former feedback control system. He joined YektaSonics in 01/2020.
Richard Fan — Software Engineer
He is a senior at the University of California in San Diego, in Computer Sciences. He is part of our embedded computing interface for our beam-former. Priorly in summer 2018, he developed a graphical user interface for our software.
Ambrose Liu — Mechanical Engineer
He is a junior at the University of California in Berkeley, in Mechanical Engineering. He has been developing our 3D enclosure mechanical box for our array technology. He joined YektaSonics in 11/2019.
Former Staff
Trevor Muraro — Software Engineer (contractor)
He was University of California, Computer Engineering graduate with magna cum laude honors. Also, a former software engineer at Vigilent. He developed high level desktop application for our beam-former in Pyhton and C++.
Desiree Minkler — Market Researcher
She joined from the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in Bioengineering. She worked on our focused ultrasound commercialization opportunity, which led to our pivot to uDBS.
Alexander Lill — Software Engineer
He joined from the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in Computer Science. He worked on embedded computing interface of the beam-former.
Samuel Angeles — Digital Marketing
He joined from the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in Business and Economy. He worked on our digital marketing and customer outreach.
Atira Nair — Website Designer
She joined from the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in cognitive sciences. She worked on UX design of the website and logo design..
Kyle Jeffery — Hardware Engineer
He joined from the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in Robotics Engineering. He worked on our PCB assembly and bringup.
Finnegan Johan — Software Engineer
He joined from the University of California at Santa Cruz, majoring in Computer Science. He worked on our high level package software design.
Ray Huang — Software Engineer Intern
He is a National Taiwan University presidential award recipient. He conducted research on molecular and cell biology big data at NTU. He also was an intern at NASA. He made our beamformer software machine interface 10x faster.
Meghna Mandava — Hardware Engineer Intern
She is from UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences Department. She was part of our board level debug and assembly for our beam-former.
Phil Zhang — Business Staff Intern
He is from UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. He contributed for our customer discovery efforts.
Priya Calaimany — Software Engineer Contractor
She is University of California, Computer Sciences graduate with honors. She was part of embedded computing development efforts.
Minh Quan — Computer Engineer Contractor
He is SJSU, Computer Engineering graduate. He is contributing to our high level software package and UI.
Jahnvi Doshi — Business/Technical staff Intern
She was from University of California, Berkeley, Electrical Engineering and Haas school of business. She was part of customer discovery team.
Elias Argand — Hardware Test Engineer Contractor
He was SJSU Electrical Engineering graduate. He helped in some of hardware debug and assembly for our boards.