Résumé

Education

Spheryx, Inc.
2017- present

Leadership team role
◦ Bring expertise with Spheryx’s foundational technology
including holographic video microscopy to company strategy
discussion
◦ Supervise and mentor direct reports
R&D team leader
◦ Implemented effective Kanban style planning process
◦ Maintain new product roadmap
◦ Formed the company’s scientific advisory board
R&D team member
◦ Identified and helped resolve sources of aberration in our
optical system
◦ Developed sample loading robot
◦ Improved how we scientifically validate our analysis
SW team member
◦ Trained machine learning object detection model to increase
recall from 72% to 92% on challenging test data
◦ Developed compliant version of our software satisfying 21 CFR
p11 requirements
◦ Created interface for controlling and training sample loading
robot
Commercial
◦ Iteratively improve Spheryx particle characterization
instruments leading to sales at top pharmaceutical companies
and academic laboratories
◦ Troubleshoot and solve difficult customer issues
◦ Capture and address feedback from customers
Infrastructure
◦ Setup and administer software services used by organization
◦ Purchase, configure, and troubleshoot on premise computers,
servers, and networking equipment

Spheryx, Inc.
2015-2017

T. Marcus, J. Lumer, R. Stasavage, D. B. Ruffner, L. A. Philips, F. C. Cheong, “Monitoring polysorbate 80 degradation in protein solutions using Total Holographic Characterization”, International Journal of Pharmaceutics 652, 123843 (2024).
R. E. Cavicchi, L. A. Philips, F. C. Cheong, D. B. Ruffner, P. Kasimbeg, W. Vreeland, “Distribution of average aggregate density from stir-stressed NIST mAb protein”, Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences 111, 1614 (2022).
D. B. Ruffner, F. C. Cheong, J. M. Blusewicz, L. A. Philips, “Lifting degeneracy in holographic characterization of colloidal particles using multi-color imaging”, Optics Express 26, 13239 (2018).
D. B. Ruffner and D. G. Grier, “Optical conveyors: A class of active tractor beams”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 163903 (2012).
D. B. Ruffner and D. G. Grier, “Optical Forces and Torques in Non-uniform Beams of Light”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 173602 (2012).

2014 The NYU Graduate School of Arts and Science Dean’s dissertation
fellowship
2012 Article on NewScientist.com: “Tractor beam built from rings of laser light”

2009 – present Member: American Physical Society
2011-2012 Organizer: New York Academy of Science’s Gotham-Metro Condensed
Matter Conference

Programming: Python, git/jj, SQL, scheme, Elixir, HTML/CSS/JS, CUDA, C
IT: bash, PowerShell, Ansible, Google Workspace admin, Linux
Data science/machine learning: Pandas, PyTorch, Tensorflow/Keras, OpenCV,
Scipy, DVC, scikit-learn
Data visualization: matplotlib, Dash, Plotly
Social/organizational: Agile methods/Scrum/Kanban, Non-Violent
Communication, meeting facilitation, sociocracy