James O'Keeffe, Ph.D., P.E.

Dr. O'Keefe addresses issues relating to sensors, printed circuit boards, computer, and medical devices. With this expertise Dr. O’Keeffe advises clients on matters relating to failure analysis, product development and medical device adverse events.

He has extensive experience developing and testing embedded electronics for applications such as sensors, space science experiments, and RFID readers. He has investigated many failures of industrial control systems and programmable logic controllers. These investigations have involved understanding, failsafe design, control software, and electromagnetic interference.

His medical device experience includes analysis of, orthopedic implants, sleep apnea devices, implantable sensors, and software-related adverse events. Dr. O’Keeffe has also performed electromagnetic interference analysis for robotic surgical equipment. He is experienced in applying FDA standards for quality assurance, including ISO 14971 and ISO 13485. He provides technical analysis in cases involving medical device adverse events.

Dr. O’Keeffe has extensive experience with commercial wireless standards including Bluetooth, RFID, 802.11, GPS, and TDMA. He has performed compliance testing of cellular telephones in civil cases as well as retrieval and preservation of computer forensic evidence. With this expertise he also assists clients with intellectual property issues.

Prior to joining Exponent, Dr. O’Keeffe was a Systems Engineer for NASA Ames, where he worked for 7 years in the Exploration Technology Division. He led projects to develop sensor systems for reusable launch vehicles. This work involves developing and debugging microcontroller-based data acquisition modules and miniature wireless sensors. Dr. O’Keeffe was in charge of developing payload software and sensor electronics for the Ames MISSE7 payload, scheduled to launch in 2009.

From 2004 to 2006, Dr. O’Keeffe co-founded Thermo-Sentry Electronics, where he developed mobile phone software applications.

O’Keeffe JT, Cozmuta I, Bose D, Stolc V. A predictive MD-Nernst–Planck model for transport in Alpha-Hemolysin: Modeling anisotropic ion currents. Chemical Physics 2007; 342(6): 25–32, December.

Cozmuta I, O’Keeffe JT, Bose D, Stolc V. Hybrid MD-Nernst Planck Model of Alpha-hemolysin conductance properties. Journal of Molecular Simulation, January 2005.

O’Keeffe JT. Transport in nanotube electronics and organic nanopores. Ph.D. Thesis, Stanford University, 2004.

O’Keeffe JT, Cozmuta I, and Stolc V. Polymer translocation through a nanopore: A geometry dependence study. IEEE-NANO, 2003.

O’Keeffe JT, Wei C, Cho K. Bandstructure modulation for carbon nanotubes in a uniform electric field. Applied Physics Letters 2002; 80:676.

Mingo N, Han J, Anantram MP, O'Keeffe J. Local conductance and saturation lengths of atomic wires dipped in a conducting medium. 200th Meeting of the Electrochemical Society, San Francisco, CA, 2001.

O’Keeffe J, Mingo N, Anantram MP, Cho K. Band structure simulation of a metal-nanotube junction. Proceedings, SRC Techcon Conference, 2000.

Peng S, O'Keeffe J, Wei C, Cho K, Kong J, Chen R, Franklin N, Dai H. Carbon nanotube chemical and mechanical sensors. Proceeding, 3rd International Workshop on Structural Health Monitoring, 2001.

Barlage DW, O'Keeffe JT, Kavalieros JT, Nguyen MM, Chau RS. Inversion MOS capacitance extraction for high-leakage dielectrics using a transmission line equivalent circuit. IEEE Electron Device Letters 2000; 21(9): 454 –456, September.

Presentations

O'Keeffe J. Computational materials and nano-electronic simulations. CIS Adcom, Stanford University, November 2001.

O'Keeffe J. PolyA single stranded DNA translocation through an alpha-hemolysin pore stem. Darpa Bioflips, February 2003.

O'Keeffe J. Nanopore sensors for the detection and analysis of biological polymers. Darpa Bioflips, September 2003.

• IEEE (member)