NanoKnow^™ Leadership

Board of Directors

Samantha Roberts

President & Co-founder

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Samantha Roberts, Ph.D.

President & Co-founder

Samantha Roberts, Ph.D., is Director of the Nanofabrication Facility at the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) and Research Assistant Professor at the CUNY Graduate Center. A Cornell-trained solid-state physicist, she is an expert in the design and fabrication of nanoscale devices spanning electrical, photonic, biological, and mechanical applications. Over two decades, she has held positions at Cornell, Case Western Reserve University, Columbia University, and CUNY, and has worked hands-on across many of the leading nanofabrication core facilities in the Northeast. This experience gives her a rare, cross-institutional view of how shared research facilities operate.

As an AI engineer and developer, Dr. Roberts designs and builds generative AI applications, knowledge systems, and agentic workflows to solve real operational challenges in complex research environments. Her work combines retrieval-augmented generation, structured knowledge layers, and practical AI architectures that integrate with messy data, existing infrastructure, and human workflows. She is the creator of nanobot.chat, a domain-specific chatbot for nanofabrication knowledge management, and co-founder of NanoKnow^™, a nonprofit AI data platform dedicated to democratizing nanofabrication knowledge across the nation’s nanofabrication facilities.

Mary Tang

Secretary & Co-founder

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Mary Tang, Ph.D.

Secretary & Co-founder

Mary Tang received her Ph.D. in Joint Program in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley, studying DNA nanoparticles for gene delivery. Her professional experience includes working at Intel as a plasma process engineer as well as post-doctoral and research associate appointments exploring microfluidics and biosensors. She previously managed the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility (SNF) and is now Managing Director of nano@stanford, the consolidation of SNF with Stanford’s Nano Shared Facilities (SNSF), providing a complete suite of nanofabrication and characterization resources supporting R&D innovation and translation. She is also the Facilities Coordinator for the Pacific Northwest AI Hardware Hub of Microelectronics Commons.

Claudius Mundoma

Treasurer & Co-founder

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Claudius Mundoma, Ph.D.

Treasurer & Co-founder

Claudius Mundoma, Ph.D., is currently the Director of Shared Instrumentation Facilities in the Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Research at Stanford University.

He leads the strategy, implementation, and evaluation of the Community of Shared Research Platforms initiative (C-ShaRP), as well as oversees planning of future activities that elevate Stanford’s shared facilities to the next level. Among his many core duties, he collaborates with shared facilities leadership to address strategic and operational issues that impact the community, and supports the development of new services to advance Stanford’s research and education missions.

Previously, Claudius led the Core Facilities and Shared Instrumentation team as the inaugural Director in Research and Innovation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Before that, he directed the Physical Biochemistry Facility in the Institute of Molecular Biophysics at Florida State University for nearly two decades.

He is a member of the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF), where he served as an Executive Board Member until 2022. He is also an Editorial Board Member of the Journal of Biomolecular Techniques (JBT).

Claudius earned his Ph.D. in non-linear dynamics of chemical reactions at West Virginia University and completed postdoctoral research in the structure and dynamics of RNA-metal interactions as potential therapeutic agents. He also holds an MBA in Strategy and Operations Management from Florida State University.

AI Advisory Committee

Aakash Rao Nallabothula Surya

AI Advisor

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Aakash Rao Nallabothula Surya

AI Advisor

Aakash is the founder & CEO of Jovian, an online education platform for Data Science & AI with over 500,000 registered learners. Courses designed and taught by Aakash have garnered over 20 million views online. Aakash previously worked at Twitter as a software engineer (APIs and data platforms) and holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. Aakash is also an avid blogger and open source contributor.

Vijay Kris Narasimhan

AI Advisor

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Vijay Kris Narasimhan, Ph.D.

AI Advisor

With a career rooted deeply in nanoscale science and its commercial translation, Vijay has spent over 10 years weaving together the threads of nanotechnology innovation, industrial development, and digital transformation. Vijay is a scientist-turned-investor: he recently transitioned from his role as Director of R&D Collaborations at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, to become the Director of Technology Investments and Partnerships in the corporate venture capital group.

Vijay holds a PhD in Materials Science from Stanford University, an MPhil in Nanotechnology from the University of Cambridge, an MBA jointly awarded by IE University and Brown University, and a BASc in Computer Engineering from the University of Ottawa. He has 17 peer-reviewed publications, 2,900+ citations, and 6 patent families in advanced electronics and nanostructures. His journey includes:

• Co-founding an early-stage hardware startup focused on MEMS-enabled reconfigurable RF systems.
• Conducting global energy-access and sustainability research at the United Nations Foundation.
• Publishing foundational materials science research on nanoscale optoelectronic interfaces and ferroelectric memory materials.
• Driving AI-enabled R&D partnerships and cross-sector sustainability initiatives in the global semiconductor industry.
• Leading an academic research consortium applying AI to the development of sustainable semiconductors.
• Serving as the chair of the external advisory board of nano@Stanford, the NSF-funded shared facilities at Stanford University.
• Investing in companies building the future of AI applied to physical, industrial, and deep-tech problems.

Vijay has been a longtime mentor and guest lecturer for nanofabrication courses at Stanford, and serves as a visiting faculty member at Middlebury College in Vermont, where he delivers an undergraduate class on nanotechnology. Anyone who has met Vijay knows that he finds genuine fun in every moment—whether he’s working to enable new digital discoveries, working with students, or out hiking, swimming, kayaking, and taking photos. Vijay lives in Connecticut with his wife.