Daniel Ratner is a veteran of high-tech startups, currently serving as Executive Vice President and CTO of Driveitaway.com, the first automotive industry–specific Web auction. Prior to Driveitaway.com, Mr. Ratner was the co-founder and CTO of Wired Business, one of the first nationwide providers of DSL Internet access. He began his startup career as the founder and CEO of Snapdragon Technologies, an IT consulting firm specializing in information systems and strategies.

Mr. Ratner holds a B.A. degree in engineering and economics-from Brown University and he is a Visiting Scholar at Northwestern University, where he has lectured on nanotechnology at the Kellogg School of Business. He sits on the Board of Directors of Sittercity Inc. and The Chicago Society of Music and on the Board of Advisers of First Colonial National Bank and RMS Investment Corporation. He has also been a mentor for the Brown University Entrepreneurship Program and a speaker on nanotechnology at many business conferences and trade events. In July 2001 Mr. Ratner was selected by PhillyTech magazine as one of the “Thirty Under 30” entrepreneurs to watch in the Philadelphia area. With Mark Ratner he published Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea (Prentice Hall, 2002).

Professor Mark A. Ratner is Morrison Professor of Chemistry and Associate Director of the Institute of Nanotechnology and Nanofabrication at Northwestern University. His lifelong work in molecular electronics, a field he is credited with creating in 1977, led to his receiving the 2001 Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology and becoming a member of both the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published four hundred scientific papers and two advanced textbooks on chemistry, nanotechnology, and related subjects. His first book for the general public was Nanotechnology: A Gentle Introduction to the Next Big Idea (with Dan Ratner).

Professor Ratner has been a named lecturer on molecular electronics and nanotechnology across the world, but he concentrates his efforts at Northwestern University (where he received his Ph.D., served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Chair of the Chemistry Department, and received the Distinguished Teaching Award, appearing on the Faculty Teaching Honor Roll ten times). Professor Ratner holds a B.A. from Harvard University and he has held Fellowships from the A. P. Sloan Foundation, the Advanced Study Institute at Hebrew University, the American Physical Society, and AAAS.