Our Team
Meet Our Team of Visionary Minds
Hans-Christian Lüdemann
CEO and Founder
Hans developed Meniscense's technology and founded the company in 2014.
Before founding Meniscense, Hans worked as a risk consultant to large institutional investors and developed custom instrumentation in the Process Technology group at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA.
Earlier in his career, Hans was a Research Fellow at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School and worked on mass spectrometry instrumentation and applications at the Institute for Medical Physics and Biophysics of the University of Münster in Germany.
Hans holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Münster and an MBA from Babson College.
Rita Vicaire
Application Development
Rita has 20 years of experience as a bench scientist and liquid handling specialist in life science laboratories. Since 2007, Rita has operated The Robot Whisperer, LLC, a liquid handling automation consultancy she founded. Prior to that, she was a Lab Automation Manager at Millennium Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA and a Field Automation Specialist for Tecan.
In her practice at The Robot Whisperer, Rita supports big pharma as well as biotech and diagnostics companies in the transfer of assays onto automated liquid handlers of various manufacturers, in the subsequent verification of the performance of these liquid handlers, as well as configuration, troubleshooting and maintenance of liquid handling equipment.
Rita holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from Worcester State University.
Hugh Douglas
Advisor
Hugh has 35 years of experience in Operations and Business Development roles in the research tools space, including C-level roles. He has worked at Hoefer Scientific, Pharmacia, and Amersham Biosciences. Most recently, he was COO and Senior Vice President, Strategic Alliances at BioCision. He is the President of Bridge4Bio.
Hugh holds an MBA from Golden Gate University, and a BS from UC Berkeley.
Andy Zaayenga
Advisor
Andy has been involved in laboratory automation and robotics since 1989, as an engineer at Zymark, Founder & CEO of TekCel, Director of Tecan-REMP; and Vice President of Business Development at HighRes Biosolutions. Presently he is Managing Director of SmarterLab, a consultancy for laboratory automation in biospecimen science and drug discovery.
Andy is Executive Chair of the Laboratory Research & Innovation Group (LRIG) and was Regional Ambassador, Americas and Past President and Past Board Director of the International Society for Biological and Environmental Repositories (ISBER). He served as Board Director of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), and is a past Board Director and past Scientific Program Chair of the Association for Laboratory Automation (ALA) and a past Board Director of the Society for Biomolecular Sciences (SBS), both predecessors of SLAS. Andy is a member of the Public Population Project in Genomics (P3G), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biospecimens Interest Group, and Standardisation in Lab Automation (SiLA).
John Bradshaw
Advisor
John has been engaged in developing tools for life science laboratories for over 20 years. His introduction into this space came as part of the team at Artel that developed systems for measuring liquid delivery from both handheld pipettes and automated liquid handlers. As such, he has emerged as a leader in liquid delivery measurement, liquid handler verification and process optimization. His experience in developing new concepts into finished tools ready for customer use brings significant strength to the Meniscense team.
John earned a B.S. in Chemistry from Utah State University and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Arizona.
Andrew Langlois
Advisor
Andrew brings over 25 years of diverse expertise in sales, marketing, and operations to our team. With a background that includes serving as the COO of an industry leading distribution company and most recently as the Director of Sales and Marketing at Avidien Technologies, a Massachusetts-based manufacturer in the life science tools sector, Andrew has demonstrated a keen tactical vision and a track record of driving early stage growth. His strategic leadership significantly contributed to the successful acquisition of Avidien Technologies by Mettler-Toledo Rainin in November 2022. Andrew’s wealth of experience and industry knowledge make him a valuable addition to our organization.
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