RealLIST Engineers 2024: Meet 12 key people building Delaware’s tech ecosystem

Technical.ly’s RealLIST Engineers 2024 is underwritten by Comcast. The list was independently reported and not reviewed by Comcast before publication.

In 2024, virtually all industries are tech industries, but not all members of the workforce are technologists. 

Technologists are the ones who invent, improve, protect and keep businesses running. The most influential technologists and the problem solvers, community leaders and often underappreciated folks behind the scenes.

Technical.ly started the RealLIST Engineers in Delaware in 2020 as a way to recognize and highlight some of them. Check out the 2023, 2022, 2021 and 2020 editions to see who else we’ve featured.

As always, the search for our 2023 RealLIST Engineers began with a public call for nominations We reached out to past RealLIST Engineers and local institutions and looked back through our own coverage. We considered how the person in mind was influential within their organization and community, the impact they made and their work.

Now, in alphabetical order, here are Technical.ly’s 2024 RealLIST Engineers for Delaware.

P.S. We’re always looking for people to spotlight on our ReaLISTs. If you or someone you know deserves to be here, you can submit a nomination all year round.

Chris Beronio

W² Climatech

A former W.L. Gore data leader and US Navy veteran, Chris Beronio of Middletown came to our attention last fall. He, along with husband-and-wife Don and Kristina Samonte, competed in the NASA Climate Tech Startup Studio at the Delaware Innovation Space. 

Beronio, whose resume includes mechanical and electrical engineering, brought tech skills to the table, and the startup they developed using NASA tech IPs, W² Climatech, won the event. The team used a NASA chemistry IP to develop a technology that keeps wind turbines free of ice, a product they are moving forward on. 

Jordan Chambers

Delaware Department of Technology and Information

Jordan Chambers, security operations center manager with the Delaware Department of Technology and Information, is a cybersecurity professional who helps protect the state’s 2,000 servers. 

Chambers recently spoke during the “Black Men Talk Tech” panel at the Tech Council of Delaware’s Tech Ecosystem Conference in June. He said that his efforts on Delaware elections security, including dealing with potential disinformation campaigns, are the most impactful part of his work.

“Knowing that I’m playing a key part in that overall objective to me is an extremely big deal and a large accomplishment,” Chambers said.

Emily Day

University of Delaware Institute for Engineering Driven Health

Technical.ly profiled Emily Day, University of Delaware professor and associate director of its Institute for Engineering Driven Health, last October, and learned about nanotechnology’s impact on precision medicine. Day’s lab is developing nanoparticles that will potentially be used in the treatment of blood disorders, cancers and reproductive health conditions.

“The goal is basically to have your medicines hit the right cells in the right place at the right time,” Day said. “They’re more potent, but also less toxic on the healthy cells in your body.”

Emmanuel Francis

JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Emmanuel Francis, a graduate of the Code Differently workforce development program, is a software developer and certified scrum master living in Newark. For two years, he has worked as a software engineer for JPMorgan Chase. 

Francis’s work represents the push for a workforce pipeline that starts with the community and leads to more inclusive tech environments in Delaware.

Panas Kollas

UNISCRAP PBC

Pana Kollas developed UNISCRAP, an environmental public benefit corporation (PBC) based in Wilmington, in 2015. 

Using an automated drying technology, UNISCRAP turns food waste into soil, compost or animal feed. This year, UNISCRAP was selected as one of the startups in the gBETA Bronze Valley VentureLab.

Kollas has been a NASA technology transfer specialist, a National Science Foundation cleantech innovation engine developer, and he’s an impact ambassador for the YMCA of Delaware.

Keith Roper

Tri-State 3D Tech and Design Firm

Technical.ly first learned about Tri-State 3D Tech & Design (TS3) at the 2024 Startup302 pitch competition in May. Founded by husband-and-wife team Sherise and Keith Roper, the Newark-based company creates 3D digitizations of spaces used for increasing efficiency in construction and design projects. 

Keith, with his degree in architectural engineering, is the technologist of the couple. He’s also a licensed commercial drone pilot — another skill that is incorporated into TS3’s services.

Basudeb Saha

RiKarbon

As the associate director of research for the University of Delaware’s Catalysis Center for Energy Innovation since 2015, Basudeb Saha also founded RiKarbon Inc. 

It’s a greentech startup that develops technologies for carbon capture and utilization, which Saha started in 2018. The technology takes carbon waste from decarbonization processes and turns it into products including lubricants and feedstock. 

Last fall, the growing company moved from the Delaware Technology Park incubator space to the Delaware Industrial Park in Newark.

Brian Setzler

Versogen

Brian Setzler is a senior chemical engineer and cofounder of Versogen, a greentech startup based in Newark that develops products that help produce low-cost green hydrogen at scale. 

With green hydrogen technology, such as zero-emissions hydrogen engines for vehicles, producing large quantities of green hydrogen is a vital part of the industry. Setzler also invented a technology that removes carbon dioxide from the air for use in fuel cell systems.

Dave Singh

Best Egg

Dave Singh, a remote service desk manager for Wilmington-based fintech company Best Egg, was featured in Technical.ly’s “How I Got Here” series in March. 

Singh started working as a technologist remotely a decade ago before it was common. He started with Best Egg, which allows employees to choose to work remotely, hybrid or in-office, in 2022, choosing to work remotely from Orlando, Florida.

Though he works out of state, Singh still leaves an impact on the Delaware community. He participates in Best Egg teambuilding community events in Delaware, including a recent Habitat for Humanity event where he and his teammates did cleanup and landscaping for a community in New Castle County.

Rebecca Stern

Dunya Analytics

Rebecca Stern is the new chief science officer at Dunya Analytics, a climate data and analytics startup. It recently came in first place in the Environmental Impact category at the 2024 Startup302 pitch competition. 

“Equally at home coring trees as a forest ecologist and in the board room as a nature risk strategist for major organizations, she is a pioneer in the field, in every way,” Dunya Analytics posted on its LinkedIn when welcoming Stern to its team.

Jada White

Sika Box

Jada White, a recent graduate from Lincoln University and a Code Differently apprentice, is a product and DevOps engineer for Sika Box. It’s a fintech platform that gives users access to the many emerging payment methods around the globe through a single API. 

Sika Box participated in the first cohort of the gBETA Bronze Valley VentureLab.

White was also selected to participate in “The Pitch” entrepreneurial competition, part of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) programming. 

Cathy Wu

University of Delaware

As the University of Delaware’s Unidel Edward G. Jefferson Chair in Engineering and Computer Science and Director of its Data Science Institute, Cathy Wu is a leader in her field. She researches computational biology, biological text mining and machine learning. 

Wu spoke about the use of AI in academia at the Tech Forum’s “AI in DE” event in May.

Wu was also one of the organizers of the recent UD-ATOM hackathon, an interdisciplinary hackathon that combined healthcare, computer science and artificial intelligence.