VICTORIA, British Columbia and TORONTO, Ontario, December 6, 2022 – Source: StarFish Medical
The Tenth Annual StarFish Group honours for outstanding contributions to medical device success were presented to Thor Tronrud, Kate Dobson, Iman Niknia, and Taimoor Khan at Great Gatsby-themed holiday celebrations in Victoria (November 26) and Toronto (December 3). The 2022 nominations are submitted by company employees, cite a variety of achievements and outstanding performance for each award. A committee of senior group members review the nominations and select the recipients.
CEO and Founder, Scott Phillips shares the intent of the annual program, “What we do is not for the faint of heart. It takes a really cohesive team of client and StarFish collaboration to pull off medical device design, development, and commercialization. These awards are a wonderful opportunity to celebrate that effort. I’m delighted by the level of Innovation, Dedication and Strategic Focus of our collective team and this year’s award recipients.”
Chris Denny Memorial Award for Innovation
Chris Denny was a longstanding high innovator in our company who had a huge impact on our success. He passed away a few years back. Each year employees nominate colleagues who have immersed themselves deeply in a technical problem to find a brilliant solution to the design challenge, as-stated, or more deeply.
Scott Phillips and Thor Tronrud
Thor Tronrud received the 2022 Chris Denny Innovation Award for his prototype image analysis algorithm development. “Thor displayed a unique skill set in translating images to analyze eyeballs. He built a tool kit of algorithms for features like eye tracking in videos, region of interest identification based on anatomical features, lipid layer thickness measurement, and other algorithms. His work demonstrated feasibility of automating eye assessment and diagnosis process.
Keep Calm and Carry On Award
The Keep Calm and Carry On award honours an employee who rises to challenging times with compassion and grace, making employees, customers, and leadership feel more confident, positive, and well looked after.
Kate Dobson
Kate Dobson received the Keep Calm and Carry On award for her attitude while turning around a situation where investors did not recognize the importance of human factors work for our client’s device. From “don’t waste our time”, they have come to recognize the value of human factors and Kate’s effort. “They would adopt her if they could.”
Another nominator also referenced this project, “Kate persevered in the face of resistance / reluctance to agree that human factors study from clinician and patient perspectives is required for the successful development of a device. Her perseverance paid off resulting in an insightful and well received study.”
Reach for the Stars Award
The Reach for the Stars award honours an employee whose process, innovation or idea has helped StarFish and/or our clients get better.
Iman Niknia received the Reach for the Stars award for his process “formalizing and championing simulation as an engineering problem solving tool at StarFish and defining a new team to specialize in analysis and simulation. His enthusiasm, honesty, and keen rational approach have already benefited many clients and their programs through the prudent application of simulation, over the past year alone.”
Iman Niknia
Another nominator noted, “Iman has diligently established a Simulations Group within StarFish Medical building a business case to acquire an advanced simulation license, developing sales collateral, engaging and selling these services to multiple clients, and maintaining technical involvement to project completion. This has provided significant benefit to a number of drug delivery, orthopaedics, neurosurgery projects.”
Above and Beyond Award
The Above and Beyond award is presented to a Toronto team member who has gone beyond their roles and responsibilities to make a StarFish project a success.
Taimoor Khan
Taimoor Khan received the 2022 Above & Beyond – Toronto for his work ensuring project needs were met for last minute changes or additional documentation. Always available to answer questions, even late into his day for the west coast, Taimoor went above his QA responsibilities and really took ownership of making sure everyone was following all processes. He would always reach out to let team members know if additional information was required for documents.”
About StarFish Medical
Empowering Medtech Innovation ™
StarFish Medical provides award-winning design, development, commercialization, and flexible manufacturing outsourcing services —100% dedicated to the medical device and life science marketplace. StarFish Medical partners with innovative companies to create and manufacture breakthrough products for a full range of medical specialty areas including Digital Health, Cardiovascular, Neurology, Urology, Gastroenterology, Otology, Ophthalmology, and In-Vitro Diagnostics.
StarFish Medical’s technical expertise includes electronics, mechanical, software/firmware systems engineering, in addition to industrial design and human factors. Regulatory Affairs (RA) and Quality Assurance (QA) consultants at StarFish Medical provide regulatory assistance for FDA, CE Mark and Health Canada submissions. Services include QA support for setting up QMS for start-up companies with implementation at the client’s site and assisting with ISO 13485 certification audits.
For media inquiries:
Patrick Dean, Director of Marketing, StarFish Medical, (416) 653-9031 pdean@starfishmedical.com
Related Link: www.starfishmedical.com