Advisory Board

Joseph Ben-Dak, Ph.D., is HB’s Advisory Board Chairman. Dr. Ben-Dak is currently Chairman, Knowledge Planning Corporation. Having served the United Nations as the founder and Chief of the Global Technology Group (1992-1997), Ben-Dak has established technology and science businesses in some 60 countries. He has had extensive academic, administrative and licensing experience in institutions such as the Oslo University, Israeli Air Force, University of Sao Paulo, Korea's KAIST and Japan's MITI. He was elected fellow of AAAS in 1972 in Mathematics and won the National Academy of Science Award for Peace Studies. Ben-Dak is a graduate of Hebrew University in Social Sciences and Middle Eastern Studies. He also has a Masters Degree and Ph.D. in Mathematical Sociology, Conflict Resolution and Management from the University of Michigan.

Daniele Struppa, Ph.D., is HB’s Science and Technology Director. Dr. Struppa served as Dean for the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, from 1997 through 2005. Now serving as Provost of Chapman University in Orange, California (www.chapman.edu) the native of Italy has served as a professor of mathematics at George Mason since 1989. He has been interim dean of CAS since July 1997. Prior to that, he was CAS's associate dean for graduate studies from 1996 to 1997 and chair of the Department of Mathematical Sciences from 1994 to 1996. He is a member of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at the University of California at Berkeley and is extensively published in mathematics. Before coming to George Mason, Struppa taught at the University of Calabria, at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy, and at the University of Milano. He was a visiting lecturer at the University of Maryland in 1985 and at the Research Institute for Mathematical Sciences of Kyoto University in 1987. He earned a laurea in mathematics from the University of Milano and his doctorate at the University of Maryland.

Garrison Rapmund, M.D., is HB’s Government Affairs Director. Dr. Rapmund has spent his entire career in biomedical research. He was the assistant surgeon general of the U.S. Army for Research and Development and retired in the grade of major general. From his role as a scientific advisor at the National Institutes of Health, at the Federal Aviation Administration, and at national laboratories of the Department of Energy, he has extensive knowledge of biological science activities in the civil sector. For 10 years Rapmund was also a member of a review panel concerned with technology transfer and commercialization of technology from the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization to the life sciences. He served for six years on the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board where he was exposed to technologies addressed in various projects of the Space Dynamics Laboratory. He also serves as an external advisor to the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. He is a board-certified pediatrician and senior fellow of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at the George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. He is a graduate of Harvard and the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University. He was awarded the Joseph E. Smadel Medal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America for his research on mite-borne typhus in Asia.

Vernon L. (Leo) Towle, Ph.D., is HB’s Neuroscience Director. Dr. Towle is Associate Professor, Department of Neurology, The University of Chicago, where he is also Director of the Evoked Potentials Laboratory and O.R. Monitoring Service. Dr. Towle's clinical duties include managing the outpatient evoked potential testing service and electrophysiologic recordings in the operating room. A particular emphasis is placed on intraoperative functional cortical mapping of language, sensory and motor areas, and merging the functional findings with other tests, such as functional MRI. Dr. Towle's research has utilized functional MRI, direct electrophysiologic cortical recordings obtained during surgery and noninvasive human cerebral evoked potentials as tools for understanding the functional organization of the human neocortex. His primary focus is to relate electrophysiologic findings to specific brain areas, which can be imaged with EEG and MRI. He has also studied cognitive event-related potentials as they relate to sensory and cognitive dysfunction in MS, stroke, and renal disease patients participating in drug trials. In addition, Dr. Towle is currently performing NIH sponsored testing of cortically implanted visual prosthesis for restoration of sight in visually impaired patients.

Judy Illes, Ph.D., is HB’s Ethics Advisor. Dr. Illes is Senior Research Scholar and Director of the Neuroethics Imaging Program at Stanford University, where she holds a joint appointment in the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and the Department of Radiology. She is the author of many publications in neuroethics, neuroimaging, and mentoring, editor of “Ethical Challenges in Advanced Neuroimaging" (Brain and Cognition) and "Emerging Ethical Challenges in MR Imaging" (Topics in Magnetic Resonance Imaging), and the author of a book on strategic research development. Dr. Illes is co-founder and former Executive Director of the Stanford Brain Research Center, and current President-Elect for Women in Neuroscience.

Steve Mandell, Esq., is HB’s Legal Counsel and Legal Affairs Advisor. Mandell is a partner in the Washington office of Pepper Hamilton LLP. He provides sensible business solutions for complex, high-risk legal problems. He frequently assists clients in circumstances requiring new and unusual approaches in business formation, organization and governance; funding; protecting and transferring intellectual property; acquisitions and business combinations; incentive, benefit, retirement and succession planning; contract negotiations and dispute resolution; bankruptcy and workout situations; and other, special circumstances. He serves as counsel for established and emerging entrepreneur-owned and managed companies, hedge funds, and others active in buy-side acquisitions, and businesses, universities, foundations and others that wish to maximize value from their intellectual property. Mr. Mandell has been in senior management positions with MCI Communications Corporation and Xerox Corporation, and he has founded and managed four businesses of his own. Through these experiences, his education in technology, business and law, and more than 25 years as a business lawyer, he is able to quickly identify, understand and develop significant opportunities on behalf of clients.

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