About Us

Our Mission

To develop the most advanced neuroscience tools on the market while preserving ease of use and science-driven customization.

Brainwave is trying something new. Our hybrid approach is to design and sell powerful hardware that interfaces with an open-source software platform supported by a large community of scientists and developers. Our goal is to support the efforts of the open-source community in a commercially-sustainable way.

Our Team

Mattias Karlsson

Mattias Karlsson

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Mattias has extensive experience as a team leader, software developer, neuroscientist, and product designer. Mattias earned his B.S. in Neurobiology, Physiology, and Behavior from UC Davis, his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from UCSF, and worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the HHMI Janelia Research Institute. Mattias enjoys singing punk rock lullabies to his kids and snowboarding in Tahoe.

Magnus Karlsson

Magnus Karlsson

Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer

Magnus has a broad background in electronics, with over 40 years of design experience in both industry and in academia. He draws from experience gained as an ASIC designer for both Apple and NVIDIA, where he designed high- performance circuits for high-speed and complex data processing, and from working as a hardware engineer at HHMI’s Janelia campus, where he interacted with neuroscience labs who were developing new tools for data collection and processing.Magnus has a MSEE from Linköping University, Sweden. For fun Magnus races cars and sips margaritas by the pool.

Maxim Borius

Maxim Borius

Chief Product Officer

As one of Brainwave’ earliest employees Maxim has designed most of the products in our line. After receiving his B.A. from the University of California Berkeley in neurobiology, he spent time in neuroscience labs at UC Berkeley and UCSF. He left academia to pursue a passion in tool-building instead. In his spare time he enjoys cooking, climbing, and flipping over bike handlebars.

Sarah Goss

Sarah Goss

Director of Operations

Sarah worked in project coordination previously at an active transportation urban planning company and where she worked on dozens of both small and state-wide projects. Now she juggles many of Brainwave critical operations like invoicing, product manual creation, website development, order workflow, and managing the office chocolate stash. She earned her B.A. in English literature from Allegheny College. After work and on the weekends Sarah spends a lot of her free time boxing or buried in a book.

Carlos Williams-Moreiras

Carlos Williams-Moreiras

Embedded Software Engineer

Carlos has experience working on embedded systems, electronics, and firmware in numerous domains including robotics, signal processing, and embedded control. He leverages these skills at Brainwave to make devices talk to each other using chip to chip and RF protocols (with optimized power efficiency, of course). Carlos has a B.S. from Michigan Technological University in Computer Engineering. In his free time he reads fantasy and science fiction novels, as well as the occasional non-fiction. His favorite place is out on the water, or traveling somewhere he’s never been.

Joey Novello

Joey Novello

Mechanical Engineer

Joey has a B.S. in Biochemistry and an M.S. in Biomedical Engineering, and spent 5 years as a research neuroengineer at the University of Wisconsin in Justin Williams’s lab. He also spent time working on cutting neuroscience technology at Neuralink before moving to Brainwave to engineer high-density probes in collaboration with the Xie and Luan labs at Rice University. Outside of the office Joey loves to be outside; you can find him hiking, camping, or adventuring on a bike.

Daria Genzel-Wehrfritz

Daria Genzel-Wehrfritz

Product Designer

Daria earned her PhD at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in behavioral neurobiology studying the dynamics of echolocation in bats. Daria continued to work there as a postdoc and research assistant studying auditory processing in bats and humans. After her time at LMU, Daria joined Michael Yartsev’s lab at UC Berkeley where she designed and built a fully automated behavioral setup (FAB flight room). Using her extensive neurobiological tool design experience, she is now designing cutting-edge products at Brainwave. Daria loves anything outdoors: cold feet in a tent, jogging, and hiking. She also has a lot of fascinating bat stories.

John Cordes

John Cordes

Electronics Assembly and Testing Technician

John had interests in electronics and science since a young age, playing with microscopes, telescopes, rockets, electric motors, RC cars, and planes. He attended Wright State University for engineering and computer science, as well as tech schools. John holds certificates in CNC Programming/Machining, IPC Specialist (IPC-A610), and is an Engineering Tech and Electronics Technician level III. John’s myriad experiences as an engineering tech, lab tech, electronics inspector, and quality specialist make him especially qualified to build your neuroscience system. He is also a musician, DJ and keeps busy by wandering San Francisco with his cameras, and practicing yoga and zen meditation.

Brian Holcomb

Brian Holcomb

Production Manager

Brian has diverse and extensive experience in Production Manufacturing leadership that spans a multitude of industries. He earned his B.S. in Information Technology Management from Purdue University. He’s using his myriad skills to ensure quality and efficient production of all the MCUs, ECUs, and headstages in your order. Brian enjoys the outdoors, baseball, history, landscape photography, and searching for adventures, big and small.

Trevor Nguyen

Trevor Nguyen

Software Engineering Intern

Trevor is currently an undergraduate at the University of Texas Austin expected to graduate in Spring of 2022 with a double honors major in computer science and neuroscience making him an excellent match to work on coding for Brainwave’ open-source software, Trodes. Trevor is interested in answering clinically-relevant neuroscience questions using technology and looking to apply to computationally focused MD-PhD programs for the 2021-2022 application cycle.