About Us
Our Mission
To develop the most advanced neuroscience tools on the market while preserving ease of use and science-driven customization.
SpikeGadgets is trying something new. Our hybrid approach is to design and sell powerful hardware that interfaces with an open-source software platform supported by a large community of scientists and developers. Our goal is to support the efforts of the open-source community in a commercially-sustainable way.
Our Team
Mattias Karlsson
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer
Mattias has extensive experience as a team leader, software developer, neuroscientist, and product designer. Mattias earned his B.S. in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior from UC Davis, his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCSF, and worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the HHMI Janelia Research Institute. Mattias enjoys singing punk rock lullabies to his kids and snowboarding in Tahoe.
Magnus Karlsson
Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer
Magnus has a broad background in electronics, with over 40 years of design experience in both industry and in academia. He draws from experience gained as an ASIC designer for both Apple and NVIDIA, where he designed high- performance circuits for high-speed and complex data processing, and from working as a hardware engineer at HHMI’s Janelia campus, where he interacted with neuroscience labs who were developing new tools for data collection and processing.Magnus has a MSEE from Linköping University, Sweden. For fun Magnus races cars and sips margaritas by the pool.
Maxim Borius
Chief Product Officer
As one of SpikeGadgets’ earliest employees Maxim has designed most of the products in our line. After receiving his B.A. from the University of California Berkeley in neurobiology, he spent time in neuroscience labs at UC Berkeley and UCSF. He left academia to pursue a passion in tool-building instead. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, climbing, and flipping over bike handlebars.
Sarah Goss
Director of Operations
Sarah worked in project coordination previously at an active transportation urban planning company and where she worked on dozens of both small and state-wide projects. Now she juggles many of SpikeGadgets critical operations like invoicing, product manual creation, website development, order workflow, and managing the office chocolate stash. She earned her B.A. in English literature from Allegheny College. After work and on the weekends Sarah spends a lot of her free time boxing or buried in a book.
Carlos Williams-Moreiras
Embedded Software Engineer
Carlos has experience working on embedded systems, electronics, and firmware in numerous domains including robotics, signal processing, and embedded control. He leverages these skills at SpikeGadgets to make devices talk to each other using chip to chip and RF protocols (with optimized power efficiency, of course). Carlos has a B.S. from Michigan Technological University in Computer Engineering. In his free time he reads fantasy and science fiction novels, as well as the occasional non-fiction. His favorite place is out on the water, or traveling somewhere he’s never been.
Joey Novello
Mechanical Engineer
Joey has a B.S. in Biochemistry and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering, and spent 5 years as a research neuroengineer at the University of Wisconsin in Justin Williams’s lab. He also spent time working on cutting neuroscience technology at Neuralink before moving to SpikeGadgets to engineer high-density probes in collaboration with the Xie and Luan labs at Rice University. Outside of the office Joey loves to be outside; you can find him hiking, camping, or adventuring on a bike.
Daria Genzel-Wehrfritz
Product Designer
Daria earned her PhD at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in behavioral neurobiology studying the dynamics of echolocation in bats. Daria continued to work there as a postdoc and research assistant studying auditory processing in bats and humans. After her time at LMU, Daria joined Michael Yartsev’s lab at UC Berkeley where she designed and built a fully automated behavioral setup (FAB flight room). Using her extensive neurobiological tool design experience, she is now designing cutting-edge products at SpikeGadgets. Daria loves anything outdoors: cold feet in a tent, jogging, and hiking. She also has a lot of fascinating bat stories.
Chris Leppla
Head Of Customer Experience
Chris earned his BA in Psychology from Kent State University, and PhD in neuroscience from MIT. Chris also did a postdoc at Brandeis University designing and developing hardware systems. He has extensive experience as an electrophysiologist and developer. Chris is leveraging these skills at SpikeGadgets to continually improve the customer experience by helping to develop more intuitive products, process and support. Chris enjoys running, cooking, video games and woodworking in his free time.
Nino Decaro
Electronics Assembly and Testing Technician
Nino brings his well-rounded education and experience to SpikeGadgets’ product assembly. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in Political Science. He’s lived in Alaska, Texas, and Italy and has served more than 5 years in Coast Guard Active Duty (some of it dangling from helicopters); continuing service in the Coast Guard Reserve at Small Boat Station San Francisco. Outside of SpikeGadgets, you might find Nino cycling around Alameda or traveling the world.