Alcor Board of Directors

Dr. Ravin Jain is a neurologist practicing in the Los Angeles area and also serves as Assistant Clinical Professor of Neurology at the UCLA School of Medicine. He attended Northwestern University, where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a double major in geology and integrated sciences. He received his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine. At Baylor, he was a recipient of the Presidential Scholarship. He did residency training in internal medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston. His neurology residency was done at the UCLA Medical Center. He also completed a fellowship in Clinical Neurophysiology and Neuromuscular Disease at UCLA. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He has been a suspension member of Alcor since 1989 and a member of the Alcor Medical Advisory Board since 1999.

Saul Kent

Saul Kent has been a member of the Alcor Board for five years. In 1965, he was one of the founders of the first cryonics organization, the Cryonics Society of New York. Kent is CEO of Suspended Animation, a research company in Boynton Beach, Florida that offers cryonics services to members of cryonics organizations. Kent is co-founder of the Life Extension Foundation, a non-profit organization in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, which offers information about the latest advances in the biomedical sciences and dietary supplements for health and longevity. Kent is also co-founder and director of three research companies: 21st Century Medicine, Critical Care Research, and BioMarker Pharmaceuticals, as well as co-founder of the Timeship Project.

Ralph Merkle, Ph.D.

Dr. Merkle received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1979 where he co-invented public key cryptography.He joined Xerox PARC in 1988, where he pursued research in security and computational nanotechnology until 1999. He was a Nanotechnology Theorist at Zyvex until 2003, when he joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as a Professor of Computing until 2006. He chaired the Fourth and Fifth Foresight Conferences on Nanotechnology, was co-recipient of the 1998 Feynman Prize for Nanotechnology for theory, co-recipient of the ACM’s Kanellakis Award for Theory and Practice and the 2000 RSA Award in Mathematics. Dr .Merkle has fourteen patents and has published extensively. He is now a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. In 2001 he and Robert Freitas co-founded the Nanofactory Collaboration and in 2008 he and Freitas published "A Minimal Toolset for Positional Diamond Mechanosynthesis" which describes positionally-controlled atom-by-atom fabrication of diamondoid materials. Dr. Merkle's home page is at www.merkle.com.

Michael Riskin, Ph.D., CPA

Michael Riskin, Ph.D. / CPA, has been an Alcor member since the mid 1980's and a board member for 14 years. Michael has served Alcor in various capacities over the years including that of Membership Ombudsman, Vice President, and Chairman of the Board. He is currently the Alcor Board representative to the Alcor Patient Care Trust Board. Michael's wife, Anita Banker Riskin, also an Alcor member since the 80's, suffered legal death in early 2006 and is now in long term bio-stasis in Scottsdale. His daughter and two grandchildren have their Alcor suspension funding in place and are in the process of completing the membership paperwork. He is both a California State Licensed Psychotherapist and Certified Public Accountant, with a private psychology practice in Santa Ana, California. The other half of his professional life is that of a business consultant to startups and more mature companies facing a variety of organizational and marketing challenges. Michael believes that being alive, healthy, and happy is a good thing. He intends to enjoy as much of that trinity as long as is possible.

Michael Seidl, Ph.D., J.D.

Michael R. Seidl has been a member of the board of directors of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation since September 2002; prior to that time, he served as an advisor to the board, and he has been an Alcor member since 1998. Mr. Seidl has lived in Delaware since 1998, where he practices law as a partner in a boutique firm specializing in corporate insolvency and related litigation. From 1996 to 1998, he served as the judicial law clerk to the Honorable Jonathan R. Steinberg on the United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University Law Center (J.D., 1996), where he served as managing editor of the Journal of Law & Policy in International Business. He is also a graduate of the University of Delaware (Ph.D., English, 1995) and James Madison University (M.A., 1990; B.A. 1988). Mr. Seidl dates his interest in cryonics from his fortuitous (and nearly simultaneous) reading of both Engines of Creation by K. Eric Drexler and Society of Mind by Marvin Minsky in the summer of 1990. Mr. Seidl's wife, Lisa L. Lock, is also an Alcor member.

Brian Wowk, Ph.D.

 

Brian Wowk, Ph.D., is a biophysicist employed as a Senior Scientist at 21st Century Medicine, Inc., a company specializing in low temperature preservation of tissue and organs for medical applications. He holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in medical physics, specializing in radiation oncology physics and magnetic resonance imaging. He is a leading expert in cryopreservation by vitrification. Dr. Wowk has maintained an interest in cryonics since 1986. He has served on Alcor’s board of directors since 2004.