About Us

We are data scientists and material scientists dedicated to unlocking a new standard for quality in semiconductor manufacturing.
Leadership Team

Laura Matz
Laura Matz
Laura serves as CEO for Athinia and as Chief Science & Technology Officer of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. She aims to use digital capabilities to drive innovation as a source of business differentiation. Laura has responsibility for EMD Digital, including Syntropy and Athinia, as well as the digital transformation within Merck. She has 20 years of experience in the semiconductor industry in various commercial and R&D roles.
Laura holds a PhD in analytical chemistry from Washington State University and undergraduate degree from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

James Kugler
James Kugler
James serves as Chief Digital Officer of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany and CEO of its subsidiary, EMD Digital. He is also a member of the Board to Syntropy, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany’s partnership with Palantir Technologies.
His focus at Syntropy is to enable collaboration within and between institutions in a secure and ethical way to improve patient outcomes.
Previously, James led a transformational process for Sigma Aldrich and the creation of the largest eCommerce platform in the life science industry, generating more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Ryan Taylor
Ryan Taylor
Ryan serves as Palantir Board Member for Syntropy and Athinia as well as Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer.
Ryan has served in various positions with Palantir since 2010, most recently as the Chief Legal and Business Affairs Officer.
Ryan holds a B.S. in Computer Science and an M.S. in Management Science & Engineering from Stanford University, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

Jeremy Elser
Product & Implementation
Jeremy Elser
Jeremy is a passionate data scientist at Palantir Technologies. For the past 5 years he has been leading the Palantir engineering team at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, driving the data integration efforts in the Semiconductor Materials business unit of Electronics. Before his tenure at Palantir, he served as a consultant for the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on advanced financial modeling.
Jeremy holds a PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania and published “How to talk to Data Scientists: A Guide for Executives” (2021, Business Expert Press).

Chris Han-Adebekun
Business Development
Chris Han-Adebekun
Chris joined Athinia in 2022 with 20 years of experience in R&D, new product commercialization and P&L management in the advanced electronics space. Her expertise spans across materials including OLED, Inkjet Printed Electronics and, for the last 12 years, a focus on semiconductor materials. She has a proven track record of delivering new business growth and demonstrating successful use cases for data collaboration among material suppliers and device makers.
Chris holds an MBA from DeSales University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Wisconsin- Madison.
Connecting the semiconductor industry on a single, secure data sharing platform.
Brought to you by a partnership built on science and technology.
Values
Encourage the safe, free flow of information.
We believe transparency is the first step in making better decisions.
Our goal is to safely collect disparate quality, manufacturing and in-process data from within and across organizations into a uniform structure that can be easily analyzed.
Solve through science.
We take a scientific lens to help you move with precision.
We are both data scientists and material scientists. After aggregating relevant data, we combine our knowledge of materials and the manufacturing process to provide actionable recommendations on how to improve material quality.
Champion data ownership and security.
We believe transparency should never be at odds with security.
Built with the highest levels of security and data privacy, our platform is designed to encourage collaboration, but only when and with whom you choose to collaborate. We also anonymize our customers’ data to allow for greater sharing within and across organizations without compromising ownership.
Drive collaboration.
We want to deliver impact for individual companies and the entire industry.
Through deep partnership, we will work to create a unified data and analytics platform that allows for the free flow of information across the semiconductor industry, helping to raise our collective intelligence and performance.