Louisiana BIO Board of Directors

Quentin L. Messer Jr. (BOARD CHAIR)

At New Orleans Business Alliance, Quentin leads economic development strategy for Orleans Parish, along with overseeing initiatives and programs related to business attraction and retention, economic competitiveness, and small business ecosystem development. These include and are guided by executing the city’s five-year-plan for economic growth, Prosperity NOLA. Prior to joining NOLABA, Quentin was the Assistant Secretary for Louisiana Economic Development (LED.) At LED, he was a member of the department’s executive management team, serving as President of the Louisiana Economic Development Corporation (LEDC), Secretaries Moret and Grissom’s designee to the Research Park Corporation board, where he was the Board Treasurer and Chairperson, Audit Committee, staff lead for the Louisiana Innovation Council (LIC), and the department’s representative on ratings agency calls related to the State’s General Obligation and other indebtedness.

Quentin was selected as a 2015 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Distinguished Leadership Award recipient of the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Service and Leadership Award by Grambling State University. He is member of the Council for a Better Louisiana’s (CABL) Leadership Louisiana 2014. Quentin has been honored as (i) Opening Speaker for New Orleans BioInnovation Center’s Innovation Louisiana in 2013 and (ii) Panelist for the 2014 UNO and Latter & Blum Economic Outlook and Real Estate Forecast Seminar.

The father of two daughters – one a Corporal in the U.S. Marines – and a son, Quentin is married to Kenya LeNoir Messer, Ed.D, Associate Vice Provost, Office of Diversity, Office of Academic Affairs at LSU. He holds an AB, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs from Princeton University, and a JD/MBA from Columbia University’s Law and Business Schools, respectively.

Joseph F. Lovett

Mr. Lovett is a Managing Director of Louisiana Funds (LF I & II), two early stage venture capital funds with $40 million under management based in Louisiana with offices in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. LF’s focus is on forming early stage companies primarily based on research at the major Louisiana research universities (LSU, Tulane and Louisiana Tech University) in the areas of biotechnology, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, agri-technology, engineering, software, security and internet technologies.

To date LF I has started or invested in 13 companies primarily based upon research licensed from the major research universities in Louisiana with 11 licenses (8 from LSU, 1 from Tulane and 2 from Louisiana Tech). In addition to the investment from Louisiana Fund I, an additional $150,000,000 has been raised from 16 venture capital and mezzanine investors for the 13 companies in the LF I portfolio.  Louisiana Fund II has invested in 7 early stage companies in Florida, Louisiana, Texas and Colorado.

Mr. Lovett has spent his entire 47 year career in the life sciences industry starting with CR Bard, Mallinckrodt and Damon Biotech in increasingly responsible positions in sales, marketing and general management.

samantha Salkeld, MSE

Samantha holds a BSE and MSE in biomedical engineering from Tulane University and serves as the Director of Biomechanics and Laboratory Operations at FOR. In this role she is able to utilize her twenty-plus years of experience in the execution and management of translational orthopaedic research and development projects. Samantha has been responsible for laboratory operations at FOR since it’s founding in 2000. During her tenure at FOR, Samantha has overseen the expansion of both the research capabilities and size and scope of the laboratory facilities.

As part of her research activities, Samantha manages projects as diverse as the development of motion-based disc replacement devices and the design of tests for a novel knee device in cadaveric limbs subjected to high-speed impact. Samantha also participates in the development and implementation of the FDA regulatory pathway for devices and instruments developed at FOR. Prior to her position at FOR, Samantha worked as a research scientist at Osteotech, Inc. (now part of Medtronic) and at Tulane University School of Medicine in the biomaterials laboratory at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery.

She has diverse expertise stemming from that time in which she studied bone morphogenetic protein implants and carriers, hydroxyapatite coatings, dental implant design, spine device design and biomechanics, bone graft and bone graft substitutes, bone blood flow, modulation of bone and cartilage healing with ultrasound, and pyrocarbon materials and implants. Samantha acted as the clinical trial coordinator for the study of recombinant BMP-7 in the first human clinical trial of its kind. She has actively published and presented her studies in the scientific literature and meetings.