Company

Simon Waddington

Co-founder/Chief executive Officer

Simon is a serial entrepreneur who has spent his entire professional career working at the intersection of different sciences and technologies.

Prior to Cambium, he was the co-Founder and CEO of Abunda that was sold to a Swiss publicly traded company, Evolva and subsequently became Evolva’s COO and then its CEO. Prior to that he spent more than a decade in venture capital investing across materials, life sciences and related technologies in US, Europe and Israel. In his earlier career he was Product Development Manager for Zeneca’s biopolymers business and Senior Research Scientist for ICI Advanced Materials.

Simon holds a PhD in physics from the University of Liverpool, UK and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Stephan Herrera

Co-founder/Chief Marketing Officer & Head of Government Affairs

Stephan has held senior and executive leadership & strategy roles in a wide range of biotech firms, most of them publicly held, each of them pioneers in novel platforms such as synthetic biology, nanotechnology, RNAi, and fermentation-produced specialty ingredients.

He has been part of billion-dollar merger transactions with big pharma; participated as a delegate at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity; and is a sustainability/product-life-cycle expert. Before that he was an investigative reporter for nearly 20 years covering all aspects of biotechnology.

Stephan earned his MS at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and his BS in business and economics at Colorado State University.

Nicholas Madren

chief operating officer

Nicholas is a former Naval Officer, Pilot, Program Manager, and leader of teams supporting DoD missions globally for over two decades. Prior to Cambium, he was a US Navy Officer and Pilot for over 20 years with over 4 years deployed at sea to multiple combat zones. His last military assignment was at Defense Threat Reduction Agency as deputy to the program manager for three international DoD programs that reduced the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems operating 19 projects in 22 countries.


Nicholas holds an MBA from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and a BS in Physics from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Nicholas is a licensed fixed wing and helicopter commercial pilot with instrument rating and instructor certification.

James Griffin

Chief Technology Officer

James’s career has encompassed leading the development & qualification of aerospace composite materials, as well as various commercial & manufacturing leadership roles at advanced material companies. Prior to Cambium, he led the composites business unit at Lyten, an advanced materials start-up in San Jose, CA.

Prior to that, James spent more than a decade at Cytec/Solvay (now Syensqo), developing & qualifying aerospace composite materials for both commercial and military applications. James holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Imperial College London, and an MChem degree in Chemistry from the University of Hull, England.

Timothy Gardner

Chief Informatics Officer

Tim is a pioneer of synthetic biology, a life science and software entrepreneur, and inventor of multiple computational and biotechnology innovations. He has three decades of experience in technology organizations leading all facets of corporate, commercial, R&D functions.

Prior to Cambium, he was Strategy Leader and also General Manager of the Digital Solutions at Cytiva. Before Cytiva, he was the founder and CEO of Riffyn, a provider of SaaS for process data management and analytics. Riffyn was sold to Siemens in 2022. He also served as Vice President of Research & Development at Amyris, where he was co-inventor of the yeast metabolic pathways that now power the full-scale biomanufacturing for Amyris and its licensees. Tim was an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University, where he focused on microbial physiology, genetics and data science. He has been recognized as a technology pioneer by MIT Technology Review, The New York Times, and Scientific American.
 
He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University, and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Princeton University.

Nate Monroe

Vice President of Composite Products

Nate has expertise in engineering, product development, sales, and 
business development of advanced materials.

Prior to Cambium, Nate qualified composite and additive manufactured materials for use in space at Redwire and Virgin Galactic. Nate led sales and business development at Toray for the novel eVTOL market. He’s developed new composite products at Park Aerospace and started his career working on the Space Shuttle at Kennedy Space Center.

Nate holds an MBA and BS in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Egle Puodziukynaite

Vice President of Chemistry, IP & Regulatory

Egle brings extensive expertise in polymer chemistry and advanced statistical experimental design to advance the development and commercialization of innovative advanced materials.

Prior to joining Cambium she was a research scientist at the US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division. Before that she worked at PPG where she led the development of new automotive coatings technologies launched globally.

Egle holds a Ph.D. in organic polymer chemistry from the University of Florida, and a B.S. in applied chemistry from Kaunas University of Technology. She is a recipient of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers’ Polymers in Industry Rising Star Award.

Ted Trigg

Vice President of Research & Development

Ted is a polymer scientist with expertise in advanced characterization methods, structure-property relations, and computational materials science.

Ted developed next-generation aerospace materials and manufacturing processes for 3 years at the United States Air Force Research Laboratory, where he worked with industrial partners such as Boeing. He is also a former Principal Research Scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute.

Ted earned his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, where he received awards and fellowships from the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the M.S.E. department at Penn. He also holds a B.S. in engineering physics from Stanford University.

Jim Wiley

Vice President of Manufacturing

Jim’s career has been centered around bringing new chemical and biochemical products through R&D all the way to commercial in a wide range of industries (specialty chemicals, agricultural biologics, food, pharma, cosmetics, F&F, petroleum additives, and fuel).  Prior to Cambium Jim led Manufacturing and Operations teams at Pivot Bio, Geno, Evolva, Aurora Algae, and Amyris.  Prior to Amyris, a large percentage of Jim’s career was spent developing the process to make Splenda Sucralose and then designing, building, and operating two of the largest sweetener plants in the world.  Jim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Georgia Tech.

Francisco Gimenez

board director

Francisco previously was the Resident Data Scientist at Formation 8, where he worked with portfolio companies to strategize, prototype, and recruit for data products. He was the founder of Catenus Science, a data science consulting and recruiting firm that used an apprenticeship model to help early stage companies build data science teams.



Francisco received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Informatics from Stanford, where he was a Ruth L. Kirchstein Fellow. His research focused on clinical decision support for Radiology, which won him the Martin Epstein award for best paper at the American Medical Informatics Association in 2014. He was the commencement speaker for the Stanford School of Medicine in 2015. He earned his BS in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley while doing research in Parkinson’s disease at UCSF.

Jeff Immelt

advisor

Jeff joined NEA in 2018 as a Venture Partner working with innovative growth companies in healthcare, industrial automation, clean tech, and IoT.
 
Prior to NEA, Jeff served for 16 years as Chairman and CEO of GE, where he revamped the company’s strategy, global footprint, workforce, and culture.
 
He has received numerous awards for business leadership and chaired the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness under the Obama administration.
 
Jeff earned a BA in applied mathematics from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Harvard University.

Nicola Sinclair

advisor

Nicola led the Air Innovation Fund within the Rapid Capabilities Office of the British Royal Air Force where she drove strategic innovation.

Previously, Nicola was a Chief of Staff within UK Strategic Command where she managed a division generating data-led insights in support of UK equipment program spending options. Prior to that, Nicola led the Joint Above Secret User team in Strategic Command and was a senior intelligence analyst providing decision support to the British Ambassador and the Commander and Deputy Commander International Security Assistance Force, Kabul.

Nicola holds a BSc from Edinburgh University.

Anna Tombazzi

Applications and Business Development Manager

Anna is a chemical engineer and hypersonic vehicle design cycle expert who has also worked in hypersonic propulsion systems and thermal-protection materials development.

She was previously at Virgin Galactic, first as a propulsion engineer on the world’s most powerful hybrid rocket, then led the materials program on their sustained hypersonic flight vehicle. She also worked at Stratolaunch on the Talon-A hypersonic vehicle program.

Anna holds degrees in chemical engineering and biochemistry with concentrations in business, mathematics, and polymer chemistry.

Shannon Clark

advisor

Shannon works for the technology company, Palantir, where she leads policy, strategy and growth decisions with their Defense clients.

Prior to joining Palantir, Shannon was a Director for Counterterrorism Policy on the National Security Staff at the White House. On the NSS she planned, directed, and coordinated the development of counterterrorism strategies. Before joining the National Security Staff, Shannon was a special assistant to the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, leveraging her expertise as an intelligence officer to provide analytic support to the Vice Chairman. Prior to working for the Vice Chairman, Shannon was a counterterrorism analyst with the Department of Defense.

Shannon holds a B.S. from Georgetown University and a MPA from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.