Forest Baskett, Ph.D., serves as a Board Observer at NovaTorque. Forest joined New Enterprise Associates in 1999 as a Venture Partner and became a General Partner in 2004. Forest focuses on information and energy technology investments and is the NEA representative on the boards of Arch Rock, AstroWatt, Audience, Chelsio Communications, Fulcrum Microsystems, Serious Materials, SiBEAM and SuVolta. He also assists Alta Devices, Aprius, Azuray Technologies, Bandgap Engineering, Conviva, Fusion-io, Illumitex, Luxtera, NovaTorque, Solar Junction, Solar Storage Company, Svaya Nanotechnologies, Tableau Software, Telegent Systems, and Tintri as a board member, observer or advisor, usually in conjunction with another member of the NEA investing staff. In the past he has worked with, among others, Aeluros, Atheros Communications (NASDAQ: ATHR), Data Domain (NASDAQ: DDUP), E2O, Nanochip, Newisys, and RingCube Technologies. Forest also previously held advisory positions with FineGround, PolyServe, ReShape and SMIC.

Prior to NEA, Forest was Senior Vice President of R&D and Chief Technology Officer of Silicon Graphics Inc. He founded and directed the Western Research Laboratory of Digital Equipment Corporation from 1982-to-1986 before joining SGI. He was a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University from 1971-to-1982. He also spent two years at Los Alamos National Laboratory, building an operating system for the original Cray-1 computer and a year and a half at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center as a Principal Scientist doing VLSI research. At Stanford, he worked with Andy Bechtolsheim on the SUN workstation project, with Jim Clark on the Geometry Engine project, and with John Hennessy on the MIPS microprocessor project. Dr. Baskett received a BA in Mathematics from Rice University, a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.

Ronald Hoge

Ron Hoge serves as NEA's representative on the NovaTorque Board of Directors. He is currently a Venture Advisor in the energy technology practice at New Enterprise Associates. From 1971-to-1999, Ron had a number of global executive roles at Cummins, Onan Corporation, AlliedSignal and MagneTek. Since 2000, he has been involved in several venture-backed startups. Overall, Ron has led eight businesses on three continents through startup, growth, reorganization and disposition challenges. They have varied in size and scope from a $1.5B NYSE manufacturing company to an IT services startup.

Ron has served on many boards throughout his career. He is currently a director at Pinnacle Engine and NovaTorque, Inc. In the non-profit world, he is a board member of Chrysalis LA, on the President’s Advisory Council of ACCION International (the world’s largest microfinance institution) and a Trustee of the EARTH University Foundation.

Ron has a B.A. in Mathematics from Amherst College and an M.B.A. in Marketing from Stanford University. He speaks Portuguese from his five years living in Brazil.

Emily Liggett

Emily joined NovaTorque in March 2009 with thirty years of experience as engineer, technology entrepreneur and CEO. Her passion is to successfully commercialize new technology-based products, which she has successfully done many times in her career.

Emily was most recently CEO of Apexon, a supply chain analytics provider for discreet manufacturing companies, before which she served as CEO at Capstone Turbine, the world's leading producer of low-emission microturbine systems. Emily began her career with DuPont and then joined Raychem Corporation where she held assignments in Sales, Marketing, Operations and General Management, including GM of the Raychem Telecommunications Division and CEO of Elo TouchSystems, the global leader in touch technology products. She has had several international experiences; working in Switzerland with EPFL, Australia with McKinsey, Japan with TouchPanel Systems and Belgium with the European Community Task Force for Industrial Innovation.

Emily has a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University, an M.S. degree in Manufacturing Systems and an MBA from Stanford University.

Bruce M. McWilliams, Ph.D.

Bruce McWilliams, Ph.D. joined the NovaTorque Board in April 2009. Bruce is executive-in-residence at U.S. Venture Partners, and chairman of Tessera’s board of directors, a position he has held since joining the company in 1999. He was also the company’s chief strategy officer from August 2008 to April 2009, focusing on strategic issues facing the company, including growing its foundational intellectual property (IP) and expanding its presence in the debate over public policy issues involving IP. Prior to this, Bruce served as Tessera’s president and chief executive officer from 1999 until August 2008, during which time he defined the company’s growth and profitability strategy, steering it from an operating loss to a 65 percent CAGR rate between 2002 and 2006.

Bruce has more than 20 years of executive and technical management experience in the semiconductor industry. He has held numerous executive management positions, including senior vice president at Flextronics International, a position he assumed upon Flextronics’ acquisition of nCHIP, Inc. A co-founder of nCHIP, a multi-chip module packaging company, he served as the company’s president and CEO until its acquisition. Bruce was previously president and CEO of S-Vision, a silicon chip-based display company, which he also co-founded.

Bruce is a member of the board of directors for Intermolecular, Inc., a molecular engineering electronics company, NovaTorque, a high efficiency permanent magnet motor company, and is also on the board of trustees of Carnegie Mellon University. In 2005, he was awarded Ernst & Young’s Northern California Entrepreneur of the Year award. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s of Science degrees, and a Doctorate in Physics from Carnegie Mellon University.

John Petro

John is the founder and Chief Technology Officer of NovaTorque. John has developed the key elements of the innovative motor design that is the foundation of NovaTorque. He is responsible for the company's technical roadmap and the design and development of future products. He has an extensive background in innovative product design with particular expertise in electromechanical design, magnetic analysis and control theory.

John sold his previous company, Quizix, to Ametek, Inc. in 2005 so he could focus his efforts on the high potential motor innovations introduced through the NovaTorque technology. Quizix was founded in 1987 and John served as President and lead design engineer for eighteen years. Quizix designed and manufactured precision pump systems for use in oil field research labs and counted all the major petroleum companies in its customer base. John previously worked for the Federal Communications Commission, SRI International and Phase II Automation.

John obtained his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Virginia, and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University. John holds ten patents in the field of electrodynamics, including those covering NovaTorque's revolutionary motor technology.

Pravin A. Vazirani

Pravin Vazirani represents Menlo Ventures on NovaTorque's Board of Directors. Pravin joined Menlo Ventures in 2001. He began his career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he designed digital receivers for satellite communications. Later he worked as an engineer for Pacific Communication Sciences, Inc. and as a product manager for ADC Telecommunications in their Wireless Systems Group. Most recently, he evaluated investment opportunities for @Ventures, the venture capital subsidiary of CMGI. Pravin represents Menlo Ventures on the boards of BloomSpot, Carbonite, Credant Technologies, EdgeCast, Like.com and Sepaton. He is also involved with the firm's investments in Centrality Communications, newScale and Q1 Labs. Pravin is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering) and the Harvard University Graduate School of Business (M.B.A.).