RSE Leadership

Colin Angle is the Chairman of the Board, CEO and Co-Founder of iRobot. Colin guides the strategic direction of iRobot. One of the world’s leading authorities on mobile robots, Angle is an industry pioneer with more than two decades of experience. Under his leadership, iRobot is at the forefront of the growing robot industry, delivering home cleaning and military robots that are making a difference. Angle’s keen sense of business strategy is a driving force behind iRobot’s successful identification and execution of expansion opportunities. With Angle’s guidance, iRobot has formed key strategic partnerships, building on decades of expertise from each partner to create new and innovative robot solutions.

Angle’s leadership and vision for the future of robots have been recognized with numerous professional awards. He has been named CEO of the Year by the Mass Technology Leadership Council, a Mass High Tech All-Star, one of Fortune Small Business Magazine’s Best Bosses and New England Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young. Angle is a member of the board of directors at Striiv, Inc. Angle holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in computer science, both from MIT.

Erika Ebbel Angle received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 2012 from Boston University School of Medicine. She holds a B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Erika is the Executive Director and Founder of Science from Scientists, a non-profit which sends real, charismatic scientists into classrooms to teach 4-8th grade students STEM. She is also the CEO and co-founder of Ixcela: The Internal Fitness Company, a Biotechnology company aimed at developing diagnostic tests and natural interventions to improve gut microbiome efficacy and prevent neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases.

In 2014 the Boston Business Journal selected Erika as one of the “40 Under 40” and the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce awarded her the Pinnacle Award for Emerging Executive. In 2013 the Boston Chamber of Commerce selected her as one of the “Ten Outstanding Young Leaders” in Boston. She was selected by L’Oreal Paris as a 2007 Woman of Worth for her work with Science from Scientists. Erika served as a Commissioner for the MA Commission on the Status of Women. Erika was Miss Massachusetts 2004 in the Miss America Scholarship program.

John Rizzi is an accomplished business leader having grown three high technology start-ups from formation to success over his 22 year entrepreneurial career. All three of Mr. Rizzi’s companies were involved in email technology, and each was a success. The first, founded in the late 80’s (well before the internet) was one of the earliest pioneers in commercial email. It went public in 1995 and was later bought by Computer Associates. The second was acquired by The New York Times digital group, and the third became part of eBay. His companies created over 1,000 jobs and operated directly in 8 countries and dozens of others through partnerships. These successes came in a fiercely competitive and constantly changing marketplace where many companies failed.

His recognition as an industry leader was uniquely validated when he was invited to testify before Congress in 2003 in support of anti-spam legislation. He was a key driver in the creation and passing of the CAN-SPAN law. Prior to his business career Mr. Rizzi was an officer in the U.S. Navy for over six years. He held engineering management positions on an aircraft carrier and at a defense contractor. He holds an MBA and has a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

After being awarded an SB degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT in 1981, Geoffrey entered the investment and banking industry. He first worked with The Bank of Bermuda, now HSBC. In 1987, he became a Chartered Financial Analyst and founded the Bermuda Society of Financial Analysts. In 1989 he joined the predecessor firm to the Orbis Group of companies and over the following 22 years held various senior executive positions in the group with responsibilities that included trading, portfolio management, equity research, systems development and client service. During that time, he was also a Director of the core Orbis mutual funds. Geoffrey retired from Orbis in 2012. Geoffrey also served for nine years as a board member and chairman of The Bermuda Housing Corporation, which, on behalf of the Government, owned and managed housing and housing services for less advantaged Bermudians. He has been a member of the Bermuda Pension Commission. Currently, he is an adviser to PRP Performa Ltd, a Bermuda-based manager of captive insurance asset portfolios, and he holds various positions as Director, Trustee or Adviser for a number of private investment firms and businesses.

He held the position of Acting Director of The Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute from 2012-2014 and Chairman in 2014 and 2015. He is Deputy Chairman of the Bermuda Historic Wrecks Authority and a PADI Divemaster. He is a member of the Bermuda Lionfish Taskforce.

Over the last nine years, Orin Hoffman has significantly impacted the state of the art in robotics both in the research and warfighter community. As a member of iRobot’s Research Group, Orin has been the principle investigator on over a dozen programs ranging from SBIRs to Programs of Record. Leveraging those research programs as well as through external partnering, Orin has also fielded several JUONs related innovations into the hands of the warfighter. He has been embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan on five different occasions, providing in theatre support, training, and gathering of warfighter feedback. Due to Orin’s developmental efforts and an unwavering dedication to end user needs, iRobot, in collaboration with government partners, has successfully productized a number of these innovations. Most notable is the User Assist Payload which is the first widely fielded incremental autonomy package, providing warfighters in Iraq and Afghanistan with the potentially lifesaving capabilities of Retrotraverse upon communications loss and automated self-righting.

While Director of Third Party Development, Orin led the development of iRobot’s Robot Developers Kit, which provides developers open access and hardware integration support on iRobot’s family of systems. Industry, government labs, and universities have been supported on over 100 projects ranging from the integration of Spawar’s Autonomous Behavior Suit to Stratom’s Tool changing manipulator to the integration of the Ahura First Defender on the Packbot system. These developmental collaborations have pulled capabilities out of the laboratory and into the hands of the warfighter to evaluate and further push the state of the art in robotics.

Matthew Lloyd is Chief Marketing Officer at RSE, with responsibility for communications, marketing and brand management. In addition to RSE, Matt serves as the head of corporate communications for iRobot Corporation where he partners with the executive team to develop and execute strategic campaigns and storylines to position iRobot as a global technology innovator and leader in consumer robotics. Prior to iRobot, Matt worked as a senior consultant to established and high growth technology companies, driving creative corporate communications transformations, managing brand positioning, and elevating executive thought leadership. Matt holds a bachelor’s degree in English and Political Science from University of Colorado, is an avid diver, environmentalist and outdoor enthusiast.

Chris Flook, a true naturalist, cares deeply for the environment. However, his real love is for the ocean. A native Bermudian, Chris is a former Olympic and National record holding swimmer. He is an avid fisherman and has been diving for more than 30 years. He was the Collector of Specimens and Dive Safety Officer at the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo (BAMZ) for 15 years. During his tenure he assumed the broad role of primary subject matter expert and liaison to Bermuda for some of the world’s leading marine scientists. His has had involvement in several projects sponsored by BBC, National Geographic, NOAA, Dauphin Sea Lab and Trinity College Schneider Seaweed Lab.

In 2007, Chris started the Bermuda Lionfish Project; bringing together the Bermuda Government, REEF, NOAA and domestic NGOs to adopt policies and protocols. The Lionfish Project in Bermuda has since been used as a management model by several Caribbean Countries. The initiative continues today though the Ocean Support Foundation and Chris is a member of the Board. From 2011–2014 Chris was the Director of the Blue Halo project through the Pew Charitable Trust. Currently, Chris works at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences.

He has received many awards for his commitment to Bermuda’s environment and heritage, notably the National Trust Award for Marine Conservation and more recently the Trust’s Clipper Award for Historic Preservation.

Dr. Philippe Rouja is a Bermudian Anthropologist with over 20 years of research experience working with indigenous coastal communities specializing in marine heritage, traditional marine resource management and human health and nutrition, with communities in Australia, the Caribbean and French Polynesia.

Philippe received his PhD in 1999 for his work with the Bardi people in North Western Australia cataloguing their seasonal traditional fishing practices. Philippe has held the role of Principle Scientist - Marine Heritage and Ocean Human Health, in the Bermuda Government since 2004 where he oversees the management of Bermuda’s shipwrecks and acts as a scientific director, partner and liaison on Bermuda-focused international marine science and media projects.

From 2003 to 2014 Philippe has been a Principle Investigator with the mobile ecotoxicology lab Atlantis working out of the WHO PAHO collaborating centre at the University of Laval Hospital under the direction of Dr Eric Dewailly. The labs have worked extensively in remote coastal communities from the Arctic to the Caribbean directly linking the health of the oceans to human health. Philippe was the PI on Bermuda’s first fetal cord blood ecotoxicology study followed in 2006 by a benefit/risk assessment of local fish. Interventions through the public health system led to a documented 5 fold decrease of mercury in Bermuda newborns by 2012.

In 2000 Philippe and Eric Dewailly founded the ongoing Ocean Human Health Research Programme to pursue “curious” research questions and tell science stories with local and indigenous marine specialists. Learn More: www.oceanhumanhealth.com

In 2010 Philippe was selected as the Bermuda College’s Corange/Roche Bermudian Scientist of the year. Philippe is a trustee of the Adara Foundation and the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute and is adjunct faculty at the Bermuda Institute for Ocean Sciences.

Dr. Goodbody-Gringley is a coral reef ecologist with a PhD in evolutionary biology from Harvard University. She currently leads the Reef Ecology and Evolution Laboratory at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, where her research focuses on understanding how coral reef ecosystems function and maintain biodiversity. Combining large-scale in situ ecological surveys, laboratory based manipulative experiments, and molecular ecology she addresses questions related to the health, evolution, and resilience of coral reefs, ranging from shallow reefs to the mesophotic zone.

Current projects include assessing biodiversity and ecosystem function on mesophotic reefs, reproductive patterns of corals across reef zones, and impacts of invasive lionfish. She is the President of the Ocean Support Foundation, a local charity dedicated to managing the invasive lionfish population in Bermuda, and has been a member of the Bermuda Lionfish Taskforce since its inception in 2012.