Fariborz Maseeh to keynote 2016 commencement
March 14, 2016

Fariborz Maseeh will be the keynote speaker at the USC Chan Division’s 74th commencement ceremony on Friday, May 13.

Maseeh is founder and managing principal of Picoco LLC, an investment management firm that manages various assets and funds, and the sole founder and president of The Massiah Foundation, a charitable organization investing in transformational situations for broad public benefit.

A renowned expert in the field of micro-electro-mechanical systems, Maseeh founded IntelliSense in 1991 with the goal of reducing time and expense when creating next-generation micro-scale devices. Under his leadership, IntelliSense created the first custom design, development and manufacturing operation and became one of the world’s fastest-growing companies.

Maseeh holds more than 60 scientific publications in business strategy, fabrication technologies and design of software for micro-scale devices, and he has authored many patents and trademarks. He has given numerous invited talks at various organizations on science, entrepreneurship and philanthropy. In 2008, Maseeh founded Kids Institute for Development and Advancement, an integrated center of excellence for the treatment of children with autism serving families in Orange County. KIDA offers education, therapy and social skills under one roof at its state-of-the-art facility.

After earning his bachelor of science degree in engineering with honors and master’s degree in applied mathematics from Portland State University, Maseeh earned a master of science degree in engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a doctorate of science in engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Today he serves as a board member of the MIT Corporation, is the chair of MIT’s Sponsored Research visiting committee, and is a member of MIT’s Sloan School of Management and Brain and Cognitive Sciences visiting committees. He is a member of the Board of Fellows at Harvard Medical School, and a council member of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering.

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