Dr. Thomas L. Vogelsong, PhD '76

After working for companies ranging from large (GE) to startups (PVS), and retiring in 2016 from the Stanford Research Institute (SRI International), Tom has become an active angel investor in and advisor to early-stage companies in the medtech, biotech, and tech fields. In his role as Director of Deal Flow at Kyto Technology and Life Science (www.kytotech.com), Tom seeks out and screens over 1000 innovative startups a year to identify those that have the best potential to make an impact on improving healthcare and well-being while offering a sizable financial return to Kyto’s investors/shareholders.

Tom graduated from Lehigh in 1976 with a BS in electrical engineering, following in the footsteps of his father who graduated from Lehigh in 1949 with a BSEE and spent his career at Bell Labs. Tom’s first job was developing semiconductor image sensors and microprocessor-based image processing systems to replace film-based imaging, while obtaining his MEE and PhD at RPI. Tom moved to a management role at GE Corporate R&D and then transferred to GE’s Medical Business where he worked on MRI, CT, Ultrasound, and Digital X-ray. It was there that Tom first developed his desire to “bring good things to life.” Tom left GE after a few years and worked as an executive at smaller medical device and imaging companies. Tom was the President and CEO of Photon Vision Systems (PVS), a startup in CMOS imagers and imaging systems. Tom raised several rounds of angel and VC funding prior to a PVS acquisition by Panavision. Tom finished his corporate executive career at SRI where he led a team developing photonic systems for applications ranging from sensing neural activities in mice to developing endoscopy systems for robotic surgery.

After leaving SRI, Tom moved to the Bay Area in California, where he grew his passion for advancing medtech by investing in and advising healthcare startups. He completed an on-line class in biochemistry. He connected with the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Bay Area including incubators/accelerators at Stanford, Berkeley, and UCSF. This was at about the same time that Lehigh’s former President, John Simon, was connecting Lehigh to the west coast with the Lehigh @ Nasdaq Center partnership and the Baker Institute’s Lehigh in Silicon Valley Program. In alignment with those initiatives, Tom hosted two Lehigh interns in the fall of 2020, and during the fall 2021 semester he is advising a team of five Lehigh undergraduates from across Lehigh’s various colleges in an assessment of the commercialization potential of a Lehigh professor’s innovative biomaterial.