Innovation happens at the intersection of experience and ingenuity. Our leadership team possesses a long history of technical expertise and innovation, bringing new products to market, overseeing U.S. and international organizations, and managing new ventures. Thanks to a relentless pursuit of excellence, our management and engineering teams continue to set a higher standard for sophisticated RF over Fiber and antenna technology solutions that influence the future of communications.
President
Austin Farnham has over 25 years of experience bringing product concepts to market as well as managing new ventures. He previously worked at Allied-Signal, now Raytheon, where he led a team developing new civilian air traffic control, military IFF, and airborne TCAS systems. After Allied Signal, Mr. Farnham joined Invensys, which funded his opening of a new business, Densei-Lambda, in Tokyo, Japan. There, Mr. Farnham led their expansion of product development and production activities from Japan to China, Europe, and North America. During his employment at Invensys, Mr. Farnham led engineering and manufacturing teams developing stand-alone uninterruptible power supplies and embedded power supplies for the small office/home office market sold through national retailers. He then joined the venture-backed Dorsál Networks startup where he initiated the initial customer engagements, participated in Venture Capital solicitation, and managed the R&D and New Product Introduction activities related to undersea long-haul optical fiber systems. After Corvis acquired Dorsál Networks, Mr Farnham co-founded Pharad, now Octane Wireless.
Mr. Farnham received his MBA from Duke University and his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland.
Vice President of Engineering
Dr. Novak has over 25 years of experience working in the fields of optical and wireless communications. She has a successful track record of R&D leadership and product development in the industrial and academic sectors. Prior to co-founding Pharad/Octane Wireless, Dr. Novak was a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at The University of Melbourne. Later she led cross-disciplinary R&D teams developing WDM hardware for long-haul transmission systems at Dorsál Networks and Corvis Corporation.
Dr. Novak received the degrees of Bachelor of Engineering and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia, in 1987 and 1992, respectively. She is a Fellow of the IEEE and is recognized internationally as an expert in the areas of microwave and millimeter-wave photonics. Dr. Novak has published more than 300 papers in these areas, including seven book chapters. In 2018 she was awarded the IEEE Photonics Society Engineering Achievement Award for her work developing breakthrough technologies for the microwave photonics field. She is currently serving as a member of the IEEE Board of Directors.
Chief Technology Officer
Rod Waterhouse is a co-founder and the Chief Technology Officer at Pharad/Octane Wireless. He is world-renowned for his innovative approaches to creating optimally performing antennas as well as highly efficient radio over fiber communication links. During his career, Dr. Waterhouse has undertaken pioneering endeavors in both academia and venture backed industry, focusing on breakthrough technologies in antennas, electromagnetics and microwave photonics engineering.
Dr. Waterhouse is an IEEE Fellow and in 2018 was elected to the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society (AP-S) Administrative Committee. He is the current Chair of the IEEE AP-S Industrial Initiatives Committee and also serves on the IEEE AP-S Future Directions and Strategic Planning Committees. Dr. Waterhouse is also a member of the IEEE Future Networks Initiative Steering Committee. Dr. Waterhouse received his BEng, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Queensland, Australia, in 1987, 1989 and 1994, respectively, and has over 300 publications to his credit, including two books.
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