Randy Allen, PhD

Randy has been immersed in early-stage science entrepreneurship for the past decade, most recently leading Activate’s Boston community. As Managing Director, he mentored dozens of first-time science entrepreneurs – work that has equipped him to support Material Impact portfolio company entrepreneurs building their businesses.

Randy began his entrepreneurial career as co-founder and CTO of Pascalor, a startup company capitalizing on innovations he developed during his postdoctoral studies at the University of Texas at Dallas. Pascalor’s technology leveraged proprietary, dense pressure and temperature sensor arrays to provide an accurate mapping of applied pressure and temperature across an area. Target applications included biomedical uses like continuous blood pressure measurements and pressure-sensitive touchscreens.

Eventually, Randy left the lab to understand the other aspects of technology commercialization. He was a market research analyst and consultant at Frost & Sullivan, creating market landscapes and market entry strategies within the specialty chemical, advanced materials, and food-science industries. Randy then went to business school to further develop his proficiency in entrepreneurial finance and operations. During those two years, he also worked as an associate in three VC firms: Spike Ventures, Tech Council Ventures, and Pillar VC.

In 2021, Randy brought all these perspectives with him to Activate, where he led the Boston community. All with the aim of helping leading scientists and engineers learn how to be entrepreneurs, his role involved designing educational programming, fostering a community between the fellows, and coaching them one-on-one to manage everything that is needed of a startup leader over the course of their two-year fellowships.

In his free time, Randy likes to snowboard, listen to thought-provoking podcasts, and watch mind-numbing reality shows. He lives in New York City with his wife and infant son.