Arnold Furlong is the President and Founder of Dartmouth Ocean Technologies Inc. (DOT). Arnold is a serial entrepreneur this being his third company focused on innovative ocean technologies. His initial two companies were Brooke Ocean Technology Ltd. and GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. Arnold holds a BSc and a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Dalhousie University, and he has been bringing innovative ideas to life in the sector for more than 40 years.
Dr. Vincent Sieben, P. Eng, PhD
CTO
Professor Sieben, P. Eng, PhD, leads a laboratory at Dalhousie University that designs, tests, and deploys ocean sensors and instruments. These sensors are for measuring total alkalinity, phosphate, and nitrate in our waterways. Recent projects on the design and testing of novel eDNA samplers and eDNA sensors have been very successful at transitioning into the commercial space. These research prototypes have been transferred to Dartmouth Ocean Technologies and delivered to numerous international clients.
Dr. Robert Beiko, PhD
Bioinformatics & Data Analytics
Dr. Robert Beiko PhD is a Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, specializing in bioinformatics—the intersection of biology and computational analysis. From 2007 to 2017, he served as a Canada Research Chair in Bioinformatics. Dr. Beiko has developed influential software tools that have significantly advanced our understanding of microbial and marine biodiversity. Collectively, his software contributions have been cited over 15,000 times, reflecting their widespread adoption in the scientific community.
Dr. Julie LaRoche, PhD, FRSC
Biology
Julie LaRoche PhD, FRSC, is a Canadian marine biologist. She holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Marine Microbial Genomics and Biogeochemistry at Dalhousie University since 2012 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2021. She earned her Bachelor of Science from McGill University and a PhD in Biology from Dalhousie University. After completing her postdoctoral studies at Dalhousie University, LaRoche held a research scientist position at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), USA. She then took a professor position at the Geomar, a prestigious oceanographic institute in Kiel, Germany where she worked for more than a decade before returning to Canada. To date, LaRoche has published over 140 peer-reviewed scientific articles, which have been cited over 30,000 times.
Jim Hanlon
Business Development
Jim Hanlon, P.Eng. MBA FCAE LL.D. (Honoris Causa), is a 45-year veteran of the tech industry, having lived and worked in Atlantic Canada, Ontario, and New England. He has owned and operated two high-tech companies that have successfully grown and been purchased by multinationals. Jim was formerly the President of Ultra Electronics Maritime Systems in Halifax; he and his partners having sold their company to Ultra in May of 2008. In May of 2012, Jim assumed the role of initial CEO of the Halifax Marine Research Institute, a not- for-profit company established to foster collaborative ocean research among universities, government labs and private companies. This organization later became what is now COVE – The Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship which Jim continued to lead until his retirement in the Fall of 2020.
Roger Race
Innovation
Roger E. Race has over 30 years of oceanographic experience with such companies as Rolls Royce, BOT USA, and YSI. Mr. Race started and successfully ran two small businesses, which produced patented marine products for the Global Marine Market. As a director at YSI, Mr. Race was responsible for design, construction, and project management of numerous marine product lines, including tow bodies, floating platforms, ocean instruments, and cable and mooring systems. Mr. Race was also responsible for marketing these systems worldwide. At Rolls Royce, Mr. Race was program executive for advanced systems in the Naval Marine Group. Mr. Race holds degrees in both mechanical engineering and marine biology.
Tom Knox
General Manager
Tom Knox moved to Nova Scotia in 2004 after completing an advanced modern apprenticeship (engineering) at BAE systems in the UK. Tom moved to the ocean technology sector in 2007. Tom provided technical sales support at Focal Technologies, and MetOcean data systems before launching his own fibre optic-based start-up company EMO Marine Technologies in 2012, providing the smallest fibre optic multiplexer system available on the sub-sea market. EMO Marine was acquired by the MacArtney Underwater Technology group (Denmark) in 2016 and rebranded as MacArtney Canada. In 2020 Tom was Technical Lead on the Multi Sensor Seabed Platform (MSSP) named ‘Stella Maris’ at the Centre for Ocean Ventures and Entrepreneurship (COVE).
