Northstar Neuroscience  
About Us
 
The Northstar Team

The success of Northstar to date is due to the dedication and expertise of Northstar employees working together to pioneer the development of cortical stimulation therapies. Our solutions are tuned to the individual needs of patients – offering greater hope for the renewal and recovery from neurological injury, disorder or disease – enabling them to regain their quality of life.

The Northstar management team brings a depth of proven experience developing innovative medical products and building successful medical device companies. The company is led by John Bowers, President and Chief Executive Officer.

Meet our Leadership Team:
John Bowers, Chief Executive Officer
Alan Levy, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Ray Calvert, Vice President of Finance, CFO
Matt Gani, Vice President of Product Development
Brian Kopell, MD, Vice President of Medical Affairs
Deborah Sheffield, Vice President, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs

John Bowers.
John Bowers has been our Chief Executive Officer since July 2007 and served as our Chief Operating Officer since November 2006. Prior to joining Northstar in February 2004, John had 14 years experience at Guidant Corporation and Eli Lilly and Company in a number of marketing, business development and sales management roles, most recently heading the business development and marketing teams for Guidant's Drug Eluting Stent program (now part of Abbott Laboratories). John holds a B.A. in Economics-Accounting from Gonzaga University and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.

Alan Levy, Ph.D.
Dr. Alan Levy has been our Chairman of the Board of Directors since July 2007 and served as our President and Chief Executive Officer since inception when he co-founded Northstar in 1999. Alan has more than 30 years of experience developing medical products and running medical device companies. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Heartstream, Inc., a medical device company that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard, and as President and Chief Operating Officer of Heart Technology Inc., a medical device company that was acquired by Boston Scientific Corporation. Alan serves as a director of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. as well as several private companies. Alan holds a B.S. in Chemistry from City University of New York and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Purdue University.

Ray Calvert
Ray Calvert has been with Northstar since 2001, became our Vice President of Finance in February 2003 and has been our Chief Financial Officer since May 2005. Prior to joining Northstar, Ray was the Vice President of Finance at Altrec.com, Inc., an online outdoor products retailer; prior to that Ray had over 10 years experience with Ernst & Young. Ray holds a B.A. in Business Administration, Accounting from the University of Washington. Ray's responsibilities encompass finance, investor relations, risk management, human resources, information technology, and facilities and administration.

Matt Gani
Matt Gani has been our Vice President of Product Development since January 2007 and served as our Director of Product Development since June 2005. Matt has over 22 years experience in the development of Class III implantable medical devices. Previously Matt served as Senior Director, Program Management and Software Development at Micro Systems Engineering, Inc., an implantable medical device company. Matt holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the University of New South Wales. Matt’s focus at Northstar is to lead the development team in design and implementation of cortical stimulation technologies.

Brian Kopell, M.D.
Brian Kopell joined Northstar as a consultant in January 2008 as our Vice President of Medical Affairs. Brian is currently the Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he specializes in the neuromodulation and functional neurosurgical treatment of various functional neurological maladies such as movement, pain and psychiatric disorders. Brian holds an M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine where he also completed his residency. Brian's fellowships were completed at the University Hospital in Zurich, Cleveland Clinic Foundation and University Hospital in Ankara. Brian's special research interests include new applications of neurostimulation technologies and functional imaging.

Deborah Sheffield
Deb Sheffield has served as Northstar's Director of Regulatory Affairs since 2007. During her more than 20 year career, Ms. Sheffield has held various clinical, regulatory and quality leadership positions at leading medical technology companies, including the Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Indigo Medical, and Lifescan divisions of Johnson & Johnson. Prior to joining Northstar, Ms. Sheffield led regulatory, clinical and quality systems at Class III medical device companies Co-Aptus Medical Corporation and Therus Corporation. Ms. Sheffield received a B.S. in engineering from Kettering University and an M.S. in applied statistics from Oakland University, and holds a certificate in clinical research from the University of Cincinnati.