Robert McMahan, Sr. Advisor to the GovernorDr. McMahan is Senior Advisor to the Governor of North Carolina for Science and Technology and the Executive Director of the North Carolina Board of Science and Technology. In this role he advises the Governor, the Secretary of Commerce, the General Assembly, and the Boards of Science and Technology and Economic Development about science and technology matters and supports and advises the state government on science, technology, entrepreneurship and technology-based economic development. He also serves as the primary liaison to the University of North Carolina System, the SBTDC, the NC Community College System, other private colleges and universities, key agencies such as the Biotechnology Center and MCNC, and associations such as CED, NCTA and NCBIO with regard to these issues.
Prior to this he was a Senior Technology Strategist for In-Q-Tel, a private venture capital organization funded by the CIA and NIMA, where he was part of a team responsible for developing a technology investment strategy for the CIA, and then deriving, molding, and structuring individual investments and technologies within the portfolio. Before joining In-Q-Tel, he was Executive Vice President of Engineering / Research and Development for the Swiss-based, mid-cap GretagMacbeth, LLC, where he was responsible for the company’s worldwide research, engineering, and product development activities and for the creation and operation of the company’s Advanced Technology Laboratories in the Research Triangle Park. He joined GretagMacbeth after its acquisition in 2000 of McMahan Research Laboratories, the advanced technologies company for which he was President & CEO and which he founded in 1987 in Cambridge, MA and expanded to the RTP in 1989. Dr. McMahan has been involved in the creation of a number of technology startups, and has participated in equity and LBO capital raises.
In addition to his duties with the state, Dr. McMahan also currently holds the positions of Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches and conducts research in cosmology, instrumentation, and the large scale structure of the universe, and Adjunct Professor of Technology and Management at the North Carolina State University College of Textiles. Dr. McMahan received Bachelors Degrees in Physics and in the History of Art from Duke University in 1982, a Ph.D. degree in Physics from Dartmouth in 1986, and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Harvard University / Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Center for Astrophysics. He has published over forty papers in scientific and engineering journals, sits on a number of state and corporate boards and commissions, and holds multiple patents in the field. He, his wife Karen, and their two sons live in Chapel Hill.