Meet the Calyx Team
Our technology is capable of detecting gases that are very small, but our team is consistently getting bigger! We started in 2014, as two co-founders at University of California, Berkeley, and Jimmy joined us from USC in 2016. Since then, we have spread across the Pacific Ocean, growing our teams both in Taipei, Taiwan, and in the San Francisco Bay Area. We now have 20 people adding value to our Sensor as a Solution and aroma library efforts. Learn more about our team and our shared vision below.
Ray Chiu
Ray Chiu is the CEO & co-founder of Calyx and a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Energy. He is a visionary entrepreneur breaking boundaries in the way people sense and smell things. Ray’s background in Chemical Engineering, paired with an unfortunate series of gas explosions in his home country of Taiwan, inspired him to create a bio-based sensor that can detect specific gases in real time.
Benson Fan
Benson Fan is an award-winning scientist and a co-founder of Calyx. He has been studying phage-based colorimetric sensors since 2013. Originally from Canada, Benson earned his master’s degree in Bioengineering in 2014 from UC Berkeley, where he was a Fung fellow and where he also met Ray.
Jimmy Leu
Jimmy Leu joined the Calyx team as a co-founder in 2016 to expand his vision of improving human health at the macro level, developing our advanced air chemical sensing platform. Previous to joining Calyx, Jimmy Leu founded a B2C wearable ankle activity tracker to help improve consumer health. His studies began in Taiwan, where he earned his BS in Mechanical Engineering. He earned his master’s degree from USC in 2006.
Our co-founders each have unique stories about why they joined Calyx, and so does our team. Learn from Daniella in our Bay Area office, and Tim from our office in Taipei, about why they joined the Calyx team, and are so passionate about our mission.
Daniella Fonseca (Bay Area)
“I learned about Calyx in 2017 from an old friend of mine during a discussion about brand new discoveries in the nanotechnology field! Joining the team here at Calyx was a no brainer after a meeting with the founders! The passion that everyone shared about the company and products was amazing. Knowing the support that our team has makes it easy coming to work every day!
Here at Calyx we have an amazingly supportive team! We frequently have open discussions about projects and any issues that arise, which often leads to new ideas to push our projects forward! Calyx’s future is extremely bright! The most exciting thing for me is to see a product that I helped make finally make it to the public market!”
Tim Chen (Taipei)
“I heard about Calyx from my friend who worked as an intern in Garage+. It was back in 2016 when I was pursuing my master’s degree. I was working on electrochemical sensor development and always wanted to create new things that have a good impact on our lives. When I saw the recruitment post, I sent out my resume to Jimmy right away though I still had one year to finish my master degree. It was the fancy technology of Calyx and the transparent, open minded and cross-cultural working environment that had me decide to work in Calyx.
The best part about the Calyx culture is that you can always learn new things from your colleagues and they are very generous to tell you what they had acquired from their past experiences. It’s like everybody is backing up one another and that’s the precious culture you can only experience in a small and flat startup. From prototype design to product presentation in front of customers, the invaluable experience to take part in every aspect of a product development process is what I love the most!
I get most excited about the opportunity to talk to different customers, and knowing that our products are beneficial to their industries or working environments. For example like the aroma analyzer system we’re currently working on, knowing its potential application and successfully deploy it in different industries will definitely be a great joy. Also, seeing Calyx’s steady improvement in every aspect gives me a good sense of accomplishment. It’s like watching your own child grow up.”
