Kitware Announces 2024 Promotions As the Company Prepares to Take on New Challenges in the Coming Year

Raphaël Cazorla
Senior Director France – Europe

Raphaël joined Kitware Europe in 2021 as Director for France – Europe. With his technical expertise, project management skills, and organization leadership experience, Raphaël quickly integrated into the Kitware culture, began mentoring technical team leaders, and strengthened technical and operational excellence to ensure Kitware Europe’s success in its next phase of growth. Under Raphaël’s guidance, Kitware Europe has promoted two new technical directors and focused on strong customer support for Kitware’s products and services. In his expanded role, Raphaël will continue to expand Kitware Europe’s technical expertise to enhance impact, and focus on showcasing the breadth of Kitware’s capabilities to industry, government, and academic organizations across Europe.

Rachel Clipp, Ph.D.
Assistant Director of Medical Computing, Medical Computing

Rachel joined Kitware in 2017 and helped launch a new business area in physiological simulation powered by the Pulse Physiology Engine, a virtual human physiology simulator. Under Rachel’s leadership, this technology has been integrated into several commercial and government-funded projects. In 2022, she took over managing iMSTK, a software toolkit for creating interactive multi-modal surgical simulations. Her leadership in developing and maintaining both Pulse and iMSTK has been instrumental in expanding modeling and simulation-based medical education, research, and training technologies for Kitware’s customers. Beyond her technical achievements, Rachel fosters a collaborative culture at Kitware and is committed to team building and community engagement.

Julien Finet
Director of Application Development, Software Solutions

Julien started at Kitware in 2008 as an R&D engineer in the North Carolina office. He played a key role in the migration of 3D Slicer and led the development of several Slicer-based applications. In 2014, Julien moved to Kitware Europe’s France office, where he significantly contributed to the expansion of Web-based applications. He was also involved in various VTK, 3D Slicer, and CMake projects. Julien holds a remarkable track record in customer satisfaction and has an innate ability to spot emerging technologies and trends. He fosters a culture of innovation and excellence within his team of developers and engineers.

François Mazen
Director of Scientific Visualization, Scientific Visualization

François joined Kitware Europe in 2021 and immediately played a significant role in fostering strategic initiatives in the European and Asian markets. He focuses on achieving operational excellence and business development while successfully managing his team. François proactively suggests and implements important initiatives, including organizing the first ParaView User Day in Europe, which directly contributed to the enhancement of the European ParaView community. François also advocates for using open source software in industry and research, and has given several talks and scientific contributions at prestigious conferences. In this role, he will continue to impact Kitware and the scientific visualization community.

Scott McCloskey, Ph.D.
Director of Computational Imaging, Computer Vision

Scott made an immediate impact when he joined Kitware in 2020 as an assistant director of computer vision. Within a few months, he led winning proposals for multiple DARPA and IARPA programs. As a result of his expertise, Kitware has a substantial suite of projects in computational imaging, a focus area of computer vision. In addition to his technical achievements, Scott proactively takes on other tasks to support Kitware’s growth, including opening a new Kitware office in Minneapolis in March 2023. In his expanded role, he will oversee Kitware’s computational imaging projects, lead crucial business development efforts, and maintain strong customer relationships.

Kristen Rinaldi
Director of Compliance, Compliance

Kristen joined Kitware as a compliance manager in 2018, and has led the team responsible for Kitware policies, compliance training, and internal audits. Kristen has helped Kitware take on projects that involve PHI through the creation of HIPAA compliant policies and procedures. She’s also been instrumental in developing a wide range of other information security policies, including preparing Kitware for the monumental task of passing a CMMC audit. Kristen has done all this while effectively balancing the company’s commitment to collaboration and open source technology. Kristen’s promotion recognizes these accomplishments and positions Kitware to expand into new domains.

Daniel Davila
Technical Leader, Computer Vision

Daniel joined Kitware in 2019 and immediately made contributions to Kitware’s DARPA URSA effort. Since then, he has taken on leadership and business development for government-funded AI/machine learning programs, including growing our portfolio with AFRL and C5ISR. He has also focused on commercial business development, playing an important role in nurturing opportunities into projects. Daniel has a record of excellence and positive feedback from team members and customers on his projects thanks to his dedication, creativity, and well-rounded skillset.

Sankhesh Jhaveri
Principal Engineer, Scientific Computing

Sankhesh joined Kitware in 2011 as an R&D engineer. He has lent his expertise in graphics and volume rendering on a variety of different projects for VTK, ParaView, medical imaging, and software application development. He particularly excels in rendering visualizations on the desktop, Web, and augmented reality/virtual reality environments. Due to his wealth of institutional knowledge, Sankhesh serves as a mentor on rendering and project execution/application development to others at Kitware.

Dan LaManna
Principal Engineer, Data and Analytics

When Dan joined Kitware in 2015, he introduced several key technologies to the company, including Django, Terraform, and Heroku, and continues to serve as an expert on these technologies. He also successfully leads and executes technical projects. In addition to his technical contributions, he serves on Kitware’s Data and Analytics Tech Council to advise on high-level architecture and technology decisions across the company. He has played a large role in automating Kitware’s hiring process, allowing Kitware’s HR team to work more efficiently.

Betsy McPhail
Technical Leader, Software Solutions

Betsy joined Kitware in 2014 as a software developer. Over the past nine years Betsy has charged more than 10,000 hours on commercial projects at Kitware and is an expert at delivering high quality services to Kitware’s customers. She has worked with some of Kitware’s most high-profile commercial customers, many of whom are unable to publicly identify. In the past few years, Betsy has been leading projects for Toyota Research Institute, and several other commercial customers. She brings excellent project and people management skills to her new role at Kitware.

Chet Nieter, Ph.D.
Principal Engineer, Computer Vision

Chet joined Kitware in 2016. He possesses strong software development and debugging skills across a wide variety of operating systems, programming languages, computing hardware, and development environments. This skillset has made him a critical participant on a number of computer vision projects, including TeleSculptor and CORE3D. He has also been working on growing his expertise in the niche area of 3D reconstruction from synthetic aperture radar (SAR). His expertise has resulted in him taking on project leadership roles for multiple government-funded programs.

Thibault Pelletier
Expert R&D Engineer, Software Solutions

Thibault joined Kitware Europe in 2019 as an R&D engineer. His expertise in 3D Slicer, ITK, RTK, and MONAI allows him to focus on medical imaging projects, from stereo camera measurements to CT reconstruction to liver segmentation using AI. Thibault advocates for clean code, test-driven development, and adherence to best practices, setting a high standard within the team. His exceptional contributions and positive influence significantly enrich the team’s capabilities and reinforce Kitware’s standing as a pioneer in medical imaging software.

Samantha Schmitt
Marketing Communications Principal, Marketing

Samantha joined Kitware in 2020 as a marketing communications specialist. She has spearheaded several key projects to elevate Kitware’s branding with external customers and collaborators. Samantha also manages Kitware’s conferences and works closely with Kitware’s technical teams. She is always focused on efficiencies, from updating team processes to negotiating costs with vendors. In her new role, Samantha will continue to support all of Kitware’s external marketing and communications while leading more of the day-to-day management of key marketing campaigns and initiatives.

Paul Tunison
Principal Engineer, Computer Vision

Paul started at Kitware as an intern in 2010 and was hired full-time as an R&D engineer in 2012. He has provided excellent technical contributions for numerous computer vision projects, including important DARPA programs, and regularly receives positive customer feedback. Paul is the designer and lead developer for SMQTK, which has provided foundational capabilities for a variety of other projects at Kitware. Paul also excels at managing SCRUM processes, providing guidance for software engineering best practices, code reviews, and documentation.

Jared Vicory, Ph.D.
Principal Engineer, Medical Computing

Jared joined Kitware in 2016 as an R&D engineer after completing a three-month internship. He is one of Kitware’s leading algorithm experts in medical image analysis and statistical shape analysis methodologies. Jared has led several commercial and government projects and developed vital machine learning and deep learning algorithms. Some of his non-technical contributions to Kitware include being a member of the company-wide AI consulting committee and being involved in Kitware’s hiring process.

David Allemang
Senior R&D Engineer, Medical Computing

David joined Kitware in 2020. Since then, he has proven to be a very strong developer with excellent knowledge of C++/Python. His strong mathematical skills are crucial to Kitware’s large research projects, including SlicerSALT. David delivers great value for Kitware’s customers, who enjoy working with him. His non-technical contributions include being part of Kitware’s interview process.

Patrick Avery
Staff R&D Engineer, Scientific Computing

Patrick started as an intern at Kitware in 2018 and became full-time in 2019. Since then, he has significantly contributed to multiple scientific visualization projects and lent his expertise to projects like trame, VTK Looking Glass, and HistomicsTK Digital Slide Archive. Patrick is also working to expand Kitware’s materials science work by reaching out to new collaborators and customers.

Christopher Funk, Ph.D.
Staff R&D Engineer, Computer Vision

Christopher joined Kitware in 2019 as an R&D engineer. He has contributed to many government projects over the years and successfully led two DARPA projects. He also contributes to the proposal process to secure new government funding. Christopher has been very successful in publishing multiple research papers in top-tier computer vision conferences.

Alessandro Genova, Ph.D.
Staff R&D Engineer, Scientific Computing

Alessandro joined Kitware in 2018 as an R&D engineer. Leveraging his C++, Python, JavaScript, and TypeScript expertise, Alessandro has contributed to many commercial and open source projects, including trame, OpenChemistry, and PyVista. He often leads commercial efforts around VTK and VTK.js, and his professionalism and dedication make Kitware stand out.

Jacob Nesbitt
Senior R&D Engineer, Data and Analytics

Jake joined Kitware as an intern in 2019, then returned in 2020 as a full-time employee. In that time, Jake has become a highly capable and independent full-stack engineer, with a special focus on Kubernetes and scalable systems. He was the lead engineer of a machine learning-as-a-service application and has made significant engineering contributions across a variety of projects.

Adam Romlein
Senior R&D Engineer, Computer Vision

Adam joined Kitware as an intern in 2018 and became a full-time employee in 2020. He has made important contributions to a variety of computer vision projects and has been a lead developer for multiple government-funded efforts. Adam brings good judgment, a positive attitude, and valuable experience to his new role.