About
Our story
Proxisense is an Oxford University startup business, originating from Professor Kam Chana’s research group at the Oxford Thermofluids Institute into high performance sensors. The company has a strong heritage in aerospace and defence, but its technologies have uses in other markets and applications. Having developed sensors for jet engines and oil monitoring Proxisense is developing opportunities where there is a need for reliable monitoring of manufacturing processes and for capturing unique diagnostic information.
Paul Vickery, who founded the company with Kam Chana, talks about the story so far in this short video.
Paul Vickery, Founder & Chairman
Leadership team
Paul Vickery
Founder and Chairman
Paul is the chair and co-founder of Proxisense. He has a broad experience of technology startups, having been intimately involved in four early-stage businesses, including founding Oxford Photovoltaics. He also has worked successfully for venture capital companies, including being MD of 3i Japan and a Director in 3i Group and NESTA.
Kam Chana
Founder and CTO
Professor Kam Chana is CTO and co-founder of Proxisense as well as being an Associate Professor of Engineering Science, Commercial and Technical Director of the Oxford Turbine Test Facility and Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford.
Prior to joining Oxford in 2010 he had 22 years’ experience at the MoD and QinetiQ where he held the position Head of Instrumentation & Experimental Programmes and was a QinetiQ Fellow. Kam has also held the position Scientific Director of the European Virtual Institute for Gas Turbine Instrumentation (EVI-GTI) for 5 years.
At Oxford he leads the activities of the Oxford Turbine Research Facility. He has over 100 peer-reviewed published articles and several patents.
Darren Andrews
Chief Business Officer
Darren founded the Raman technology company Cobalt Light Systems, a spin-out business that developed products for Pharmaceutical Analysis, Airport Security Screening and First Responder Materials ID. Having exited to Agilent Technologies Darren headed up spectroscopy strategy and investments before leaving to lead start-up companies again.