Company and People
Ubiquiti represents many years of experience in business, consulting, technology and research. Ubiquiti is visible in articles, research papers, and books published in a number of subject areas. We offer software and services in the areas of information analysis, database management, and text technologies – and we have worked with small, medium and large companies as well as with advanced research efforts. While our main offices are based in Ann Arbor MI, we have other locations in the U.S. and overseas – and we have successfully addressed the needs of several clients located globally.
Key individuals associated with Ubiquiti:
James Lee was one of the first employees at Ubiquiti, and is the main technology architect. He joined Ubiquiti as a graduate student when it began business operations in Yr 2000. He was instrumental in the design and development of the core Ubiquiti technologies and user interfaces. He leads the efforts in Ubiquiti user-interface development, and has responsibility for all Ubiquiti Java-based components. The software interfaces seen by the Ubiquiti customer base, which at this point includes over a dozen companies with many daily users each, are designed and/or developed by him. Besides experience at Ubiquiti, he has worked at other small and large high-tech companies, and also has done contract development work for academic research efforts. An avid programmer, he has won well-known awards such as those from the TopCoder competitions for which he also helped set problems for other competitors. He holds a Bachelor’s degree (Comp. Sci.) from Stanford Univ., and a Master’s degree (Comp. Sci.) from Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Nandit Soparkar is involved with business & technical development at Ubiquiti. He is a former tenure-track professor in the College of Engineering at Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has been an advisor to software companies (e.g., B-Bop Assocs. acquired by Progress Software, Aalayance now part of HCL EAI, and OTelNet acquired by TeleCommunication Systems – all public-traded companies). In research efforts, he examined time-constrained transaction management, data mining & analyses technology, and logic-enhanced memory for data intensive computing. He received an IBM Fellowship, and a National Science Foundation Career Award (formerly, the Presidential Young Investigator Award); he worked at the AT&T Bell Labs at Murray Hill, and the IBM TJ Watson Research Center in New York. He has published and pending books, research papers, patents; and has performed peer reviews for research and business development. He has a B.Tech (Comp.Sci. & Engin.) from Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi; and M.S., Ph.D. degrees (Comp.Sci.) from Univ. Texas at Austin, and was in the Exec MBA program at the Business School at Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Keith Thompson is involved with software & services at Ubiquiti, and has two decades of experience in product design, process development, and quality control in several industries. At Ubiquiti, he leads the research, design and development of its high-end information analysis technologies, and is also the main technical liaison for client services. Formerly, he held senior technical positions at Ford Motor Company, and led the development of improved methods for designing and manufacturing. He has several pending patents, technical achievement awards, and numerous published papers. He has a B.S. degree (Engin.) Summa Cum Laude (Highest Honors) from the Univ. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; M.S., PhD degrees (Manuf. & Mech.Engin.) from Stanford Univ.; and an M.S. in Comp.Sci. from Univ. Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Claudia Rast has provided legal counsel to Ubiquiti since its early years. A shareholder at Butzel Long, she is based in the Ann Arbor offices. She has extensive experience counseling both start-up and well-established clients on emerging legal issues related to business and technology, particularly online and web-based companies. She blends the study of law, business, and technology to counsel companies in their choice and use of technology. Ms. Rast is a frequent speaker on matters ranging from Privacy & Data Breach under general commercial and HIPAA/HITECH contexts, eDiscovery, and Social Media.
Gary Hessenaur provides financial and accounting counsel to Ubiquiti, and is associated with Hessenaur & Associates, CPA, PC. Named the 2002 Michigan Accountant Advocate of the Year by US SBA, he is involved with numerous organizations such as the Ann Arbor SPARK to provide accounting, financial management, and general business counsel; he is on the Board of New Enterprise Forum; he is a member of the Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce, and treasurer of Kiwanis Club of Hamburg. He also volunteers services to the Univ. Michigan entrepreneurship program.
Akshay Gupta, an advisor to Ubiquiti, has a broad leadership background in driving innovation and growth in information technology businesses that serve the healthcare, manufacturing and financial services industries. He has served in similar capacities for RelayHealth, McKesson Health Solutions, and IntelliClaim. IntelliClaim, which he co-founded, provided claims processing solutions to healthcare payors. It was ranked #20 nationally in Deloitte’s 2004 list of the fastest growing technology companies and was acquired by McKesson Corporation in 2005. Mr. Gupta previously co-founded B-Bop Associates – a developer of XML-based Internet software that was acquired by Progress Software, and METAC – a consulting center at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute. His experience also includes various roles at pioneering companies such as Inference Corp. – an Artificial Intelligence software vendor, and Oxford Health Plans – an innovative health plan. Mr. Gupta holds engineering degrees from Tulane University in New Orleans, and from the Indian Institute of Technology in New Delhi.
Dr. David E. Cole, an advisor to Ubiquiti, is Chairman Emeritus of Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor MI. Formerly the Director, Office for Study of Automotive Transportation (OSAT) at Univ. of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, he has worked extensively on internal combustion engines, vehicle design, and overall automotive industry trends. Dr. Cole’s recent research has focused on strategic issues related to the restructuring of the North American industry and trends in globalization, technology, market factors, and human resources. He was formerly a member of the Energy Engineering Board of the National Research Council and the US-Canada Free Trade Pact Select Panel. He is also a director of Original Equipment Suppliers Association, and a director of seven automotive supplier companies. In addition, Dr. Cole is a member of the Executive Committee of the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) and was recently appointed by the Governor to the Strategic Economic Investment and Commercialization Board and the Michigan Renewable Fuels Commission. He was named a co-chair of Detroit Renaissance’s “Road to Renaissance” Project in the fall of 2006. At Univ. of Michigan, he is a member of the Energy Research Council and the Mechanical Engineering External Advisory Board. He is also a member of the Denso Foundation Board. Dr. Cole was formerly a director of the Automotive Hall of Fame and a member of the Board of Trustees of Hope College. He is active in the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), including serving two terms on the Board of Directors. In February 1986, he was named a fellow of SAE. He is also active in the Engineering Society of Detroit and was elected to fellow status in 1990. In 2000, he received the Engineering Societyís highest award, the Horace H. Rackham medal. In 1993, he received the National Automobile Dealers Association Foundation’s International Freedom of Mobility Award. In 1994, Design News selected Dr. Cole as one of eight engineering leaders, and he was also selected to receive Sweden’s Order of the Polar Star. In the fall of 1998, Dr. Cole was named as the Marketing Educator of the Year by the Society of Marketing Executives. Additionally, he received the 1998 Rene Dubos Environmental Award for his contributions to the industrial ecology of the automobile and in 1999, Chevalier of the National Order of Merit from France. Dr. Cole has been actively involved in the start-up of five different Ann Arbor-based companies. Dr. Cole’s technical and policy consulting experience includes a variety of assignments for industry, labor, and government. Dr. Cole received his B.S.M.E. and Mathematics, M.S.M.E. and Ph.D. from Univ. of Michigan.
Dr. Elmer Bernstam, an advisor to Ubiquiti, is Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Internal Medicine, and Assoc. Dean for Research at Univ. Texas at Houston. His research has included areas such as MEDLINE searching, Consumer health informatics, Shareable executable clinical practice guidelines, and Informatics in clinical and translational research. He is widely published in research and technical forums, routinely makes presentations on healthcare informatics research, and he is closely associated with the Clinical & Translational Sciences Award activities at the Texas Medical Center. Dr. Bernstam holds degrees from Univ. Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Stanford Univ., and is licensed to practice medicine in Texas.
Prof. Pramod Khargonekar, an advisor to Ubiquiti, currently heads the Engineering Directorate at National Science Foundation. Previously, he was Deputy Director for Technology at ARPA-e, and the former Dean of Engineering, Assoc. Vice President of the Engineering and Industrial Experiment Station (EIES) and Eckis Professor Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida at Gainesville. He has taught and guided the research for university students at all levels, and has been on the faculty at the Universities of Florida, Michigan and Minnesota. Prior to joining Florida in 2001, he was Claude E. Shannon Professor of Engineering Science, and Chairman & Prof. of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science at Univ. Michigan, Ann Arbor. His current research interests are in learning and intelligent systems, control of semiconductor manufacturing systems, logic control of manufacturing systems, and machine learning. Prof. Khargonekar is a recipient of the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award (1985), the American Automatic Control Council’s (AACC) Donald Eckman Award (1989), the IEEE W.R.G. Baker Prize Award (1991), the George Axelby Best Paper Award (1990), the Hugo Schuck ACC Best Paper Award (1993), the Japan Society for Promotion of Science Fellowship (1992), and a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (1997). At Univ. Michigan, he received a teaching excellence award from the EECS department in 1991, a research excellence award from the College of Engineering in 1994, and the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship from 1995 to 1998. He is a Fellow of IEEE, has served as Vice-Chair for Invited Sessions for the 1992 American Automatic Control Conference. He was an associate editor of IEEE Transactions and Automatic Control, SIAM Journal on Control and Optimization, Systems and Control Letters, and International Journal of Robust & Nonlinear Control. He is an associate editor of Mathematical Problems in Engineering.
