Executive Team

Gregory J. Galvin, Ph.D.

President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors

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Dr. Galvin has been at the forefront of multidisciplinary technology commercialization since 1993, when he launched Kionix Inc. to commercialize a novel micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) technology platform. Dr. Galvin sold the Kionix telecommunications platform to Calient Networks Inc. in 2000 and purchased the rights to the name and access to certain markets in 2001. Dr. Galvin continued his successful commercialization of Kionix with applications in MEMS technology for semiconductor applications including a highly successful accelerometer product for smartphones. Dr. Galvin spun out Rheonix Inc. from Kionix in 2008 to capitalize on non-MEMS-based microfluidic opportunities in the molecular diagnostics industry and sold the second incarnation of Kionix Inc. to Rohm Co. Ltd.

Dr. Galvin is a member of several scientific societies, has published more than 20 technical papers and holds 58 patents. He is a member of the Advisory Councils of the Cornell Engineering College, Entrepreneurship at Cornell and the Cornell Materials Science Department and has served as a member of the Cornell Board of Trustees. He also serves as a director of the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research and Ithaca Area Economic Development. He was named Cornell Entrepreneur of the Year 2014.

He holds a B.S. from the California Institute of Technology in electrical engineering and a Ph.D. in materials science and MBA from Cornell University.


Christopher Smith, CPA

Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer

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Mr. Smith was named Chief Operating Officer in 2020 after joining Rheonix, Inc. in 2010 as chief financial officer and vice president of administration, bringing with him years of public and private industry experience in finance, accounting and operations with both startups and high-growth manufacturers. Prior to joining Rheonix, he served as corporate controller of Kionix Inc. from its early development stage through its exponential growth, highlighted by the 2009 acquisition by Rohm Co. Ltd. of Japan for $233 M. During his tenure with Kionix, he was actively involved in the company’s financing, the spin-off of the company’s microfluidics division into Rheonix Inc., and the due diligence associated with the Rohm transaction. Mr. Smith also served as the CFO for BinOptics, a manufacturer of semiconductor lasers for the telecom and datacom industries, where he was instrumental in guiding that company to profitability, and was actively involved in the acquisition of BinOptics by Macom for $230 M.

Mr. Smith holds a B.S. in accounting from Le Moyne College and is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.


Stephen Thomas, MD

Chief Medical Officer

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Dr. Thomas is a Professor of Medicine, Professor of Microbiology & Immunology, and Infectious Diseases physician-scientist from SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is the Director, Institute for Global Health and Translational Science (IGHTS) and the interim Chair, Microbiology and Immunology. Prior to joining Upstate Dr. Thomas spent twenty years in the U.S. Army serving at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and completing his career as the institute’s Deputy Commander for Operations. Dr. Thomas specializes in the study of viruses and vaccine development and spent more than 5 years of his early career living and working in Thailand. He played key leadership roles in the U.S. government response to the West Africa Ebola outbreak (2014-2016) and MERS-CoV and Zika epidemics and was instrumental in the development and advancement of vaccines for each. Currently, he is the global coordinating principal investigator for Pfizer’s phase 1/2/3 COVID vaccine trial.

Dr. Thomas earned his Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Biomedical Ethics from Brown University, his Medical Degree from Albany Medical College, and completed his Internal Medicine residency and Infectious Diseases fellowship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.


Richard Montagna, Ph.D., FACB

Senior Vice President for Scientific and Clinical Affairs

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Dr. Montagna has over 40 years of corporate leadership experience and has managed the commercialization of over 40 biotechnology products, including FDA-approved diagnostics. He has published more than 40 scientific papers, holds a number of patents in the biosensor area, and has been awarded over $10 million in grant funding. He was an adjunct professor in the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering at Cornell University for 20 years and is a Fellow of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemists.

In 1988, he was invited to testify before President Reagan's Presidential AIDS Commission, providing data in support of a recommendation that the U.S. initiate mandatory screening of its donated blood supply for the presence of antibodies to HTLV-1, a human retrovirus related to the AIDS virus. Nationwide testing was implemented soon thereafter.  In 2008 he was nominated for a National Research Discovery Award and is frequently invited to speak at international meetings.

Dr. Montagna earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Buffalo and served post docs at the New York University Medical Center, as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Fellow in Experimental Pathology and at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in the area of chemical carcinogenesis.


Andy Carmichael

Vice President of Quality

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Mr. Carmichael joined the Rheonix team in 2018 as vice president of quality. He has 27 years of experience in the medical device and diagnostic industry, delivering results and building trust to earn positions of increasing responsibility in quality/compliance, operations, engineering and laboratory operations for Eastman Kodak, Johnson & Johnson and Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics. For the past 12 years, Mr. Carmichael has managed multidisciplinary worldwide quality organizations responsible for execution and oversights of all aspects of FDA-regulated and ISO-certified quality systems. Mr. Carmichael holds a B.S. in medical technology from SUNY Geneseo and is an ASCP-certified medical technologist.


Greg DeVivo

Vice President of Sales

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Mr. DeVivo’s sales and leadership experience spans nearly 20 years in the medical device industry. Previously, he was the director of corporate account sales for the West region at BioFire Diagnostics. Prior to joining BioFire, he enjoyed a highly successful career with Beckman Coulter Diagnostics for over 14 years in a variety of roles. Mr. DeVivo is an experienced executive leader with a demonstrated history of managing $200M+ in revenue.

Mr. DeVivo holds a BA in Economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.


Gwendolyn Spizz, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

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Dr. Spizz is one of the original members of the Rheonix team, joining in 2007 as part of Kionix prior to the Rheonix spin-out in 2008.  She is an inventor on several patents associated with Rheonix and, working closely with the Rheonix engineers, was instrumental in moving benchtop molecular biology onto the fully automated sample-to-result microfluidic platform developed by Rheonix.  She continues to lead the development of new molecular assays building menu for the platform in both the clinical and applied markets.

Prior to joining Rheonix, Dr. Spizz spent 3 decades in academic research focusing on cancer at the cellular and molecular level, including earning her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Subsequently, she worked as a Scientist at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the Duke University Medical Center, The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and Cornell University.  She has co-authored 22 peer reviewed articles, numerous scientific abstracts and presented her research at national and international scientific conventions.

In addition to her Ph.D., Dr. Spizz earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from the State University of New York at Buffalo.