Board of Directors

Nobi Kambe

General Partner, Phoenix Venture Partners

Dr. Kambe is a partner and co-founder of Phoenix Venture Partners (PVP). He is a distinguished inventor and serial entrepreneur with deep expertise in nanomaterials and low-dimensional materials. Dr. Kambe has over 50 issued patents and is the founder of three successful start-ups, NanoGram Devices (acquired), Neophotonics (IPO), and NanoGram Corporation (acquired). Earlier in his career, Dr. Kambe was a Research Manager in semiconductor and carbon nanomaterials and devices at Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) where he became Senior Manager of New Business Strategy in Strategic Planning, with oversight responsibilities for thousands of patents and hundreds of commercialization and R&D partnerships. Dr. Kambe was also a Managing Director at the International Center for Materials Research (ICMR) in Japan and was the founder of ICMR-USA. Dr. Kambe earned his BS and MS from Keio University and his PhD from MIT. He has been a frequent lecturer at universities including the University of Tokyo, Kagawa University, and Keio University, and was a member of the Evaluation Committee for Nanotechnology at AIST, a major national laboratory in Japan. Currently he serves on the boards of C3Nano, Imprint Energy, Senova Systems, and NBD Nanotechnologies.

Kevin Yin

Partner, GSR Ventures

Kevin joined GSR Ventures as a Partner in 2008, focusing on investments in IT, with emphasis on mobile communications, including software, advanced materials, components, systems, and in clean tech/energy sectors such as renewable generation, energy efficiency, energy storage/conversion, waste-to-value, and natural/shale gas value chain.

Currently, Kevin serves on the boards of Avalon Battery, C3Nano, Clean Focus, Earthgen, Fugu Technology Enterprise, Sigma Resources, and Sunming Technologies. He is also a board observer of Aleees, and actively involved with SEEO and Airspan Networks.

Prior to GSR, Kevin was with Grand River Capital Management. He also held senior positions at Nortel, where he managed the GSM wireless product line in Greater China, and then the Carrier Networks division in Asia. Before coming to China, Kevin worked at Phonetic Systems, a start-up in Bedford, Massachusetts.

Kevin holds an MBA in corporate finance from MIT Sloan School of Management, and bachelor and master degrees in applied science and engineering from the University of Toronto.

Zhenan Bao

Professor of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University

Prior to joining Stanford in 2004, she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies from 1995-2004. She has over 350 refereed publications and over 50 US patents with a Google Scholar H-Index of 108.

Bao is a Fellow of ACS, AAAS, MRS, SPIE, ACS PMSE and ACS POLY.  She served as a Board Member for the National Academy Board on Chemical Sciences and Technology and Board of Directors for the Materials Research Society (MRS). She is an Associate Editor for Chemical Sciences. She was the recipient of the AICHE Andreas Acroivos Award for Professional Progress in Chemical Engineering 2014, ACS Polymer Division Carl S. Marvel Creative Polymer Chemistry Award 2013, ACS Author Cope Scholar Award 2011, Royal Society of Chemistry Beilby Medal and Prize 2009, IUPAC Creativity in Applied Polymer Science Prize 2008, American Chemical Society Team Innovation Award 2001, R&D 100 Award 2001.  She was selected by MIT Technology Review magazine in 2003 as one of the top 100 young innovators. She is among the world’s top 100 materials scientists by Thomson Reuters.

Cliff Morris

Chief Executive Officer, Board Member

Industry veteran Cliff Morris combines a deep background in thin film deposition technologies with extensive deal-making experience with Asian investors and electronics manufacturers. Since joining C3Nano as Chief Executive Officer in 2010, he has raised more than $20 million in Series A, B, and C funding, and closed several major joint development agreements with market leading companies.

His executive management and technical marketing experience has focused on new business development and product commercialization. As Vice President of Business Development at NanoGram Corporation, he was responsible for developing and expanding nanotechnology into applications including display films, lithium batteries, printed electronics, solar, and semiconductor materials. He spearheaded Nanogram’s successful merger with Teijin Chemicals.

Prior to NanoGram, Cliff served as Director of European Operations at Sheldahl-Multek, a wholly owned subsidiary of Flextronics, Inc. Located in Paris, France, Cliff led Sheldahl’s European business expansion and established new business and relationships with key European Fortune 500 customers.

As Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Sheldahl, Cliff introduced the first-ever roll-to-roll patterned ITO product line for the display industry and managed a lithium metal film for battery project funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

He holds a B.A. from Michigan State University, and an MBA from Xavier University.

Ajay Virkar, PhD

Co-Founder, Chief Technology Officer

Ajay oversees C3Nano’s research and new technology development, production, intellectual property, and manages several commercial and technical partnerships. He has helped C3Nano raise more than $50 Million dollars in strategic and venture capital.

Ajay has more than ninety patents (issued or pending), and has co-authored eleven technical publications in peer-reviewed journals.

He completed his BS in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering (with honors) at the University of Illinois (UIUC) and his PhD in Chemical Engineering at Stanford University where he received the Melvin P. Klein Award (from SLAC), and the Springer Prize, which recognized and published his doctoral thesis as amongst the top dissertations globally. In 2010, Ajay helped C3Nano win the MIT Clean Energy Grand Prize and the NASA Game Changer Technology Award. He was an inaugural recipient of the University of Illinois Young Alumni Award (department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in 2019). Ajay is also an associate producer for the documentary film  Infinite Potential about the life and times of physicist and philosopher David Bohm.