Minerva Intelligence Inc. is a knowledge engineering company based in Vancouver, Canada, with a subsidiary office in Darmstadt, Germany. Our proprietary evidence-based decision-making software is bringing the benefits of artificial intelligence technology to industries dependent on reasoning with complex technical and scientific data.


Minerva is home to an elite team of professionals in diverse fields like geophysics, natural resources, climate risk, computer programming and many more. We are always on the lookout for new talent who want to shake up the way business is done. If this sounds like you, please get in touch!
Board of Directors

CEO | Mr. Tillman is the manager of Pi Consulting, LLC, a private company focused on providing third-party representation and advisory services.

CHAIRMAN | Jason is a graduate of Tulane University and the HKUST Business School; he is a successful technology innovation pioneer, investor, and advisor.

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR | Mr. Chuvpilo is a serial entrepreneur and early-stage venture capital investor.

NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR | Marvin is an experienced board director and executive with over 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and 15 years of experience on private boards including Hamilton Insurance Group and LanghorneRe.

CHIEF SOFTWARE ARCHITECT, Co-Founder | David Poole is a leader in the field of Cognitive AI and is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.
Scott Tillman
CEO | Mr. Tillman is the manager of Pi Consulting, LLC, a private company focused on providing third-party representation and advisory services.Mr. Tillman is the principal of Pi Consulting, LLC, a private investment and consulting company. He started his career on Wall Street in 2001. In 2003 he joined Harbinger Capital Partners, an NYC based hedge fund where he helped direct the future of many companies, overseeing ownership stakes and bankruptcies involving billions of dollars. He went on to provide myriad consulting services to investment companies and family offices as well as sponsoring or participating in business deals ranging from data centers to being the sole independent board member during Gawker Media’s bankruptcy. Mr. Tillman holds dual BSM’s from Tulane University.
Jason Petralia
CHAIRMAN | Jason is a graduate of Tulane University and the HKUST Business School; he is a successful technology innovation pioneer, investor, and advisor.<div id="ember866" class="pv-oc ember-view"><section id="ember941" class="pv-profile-section pv-about-section artdeco-card p5 mt4 ember-view"> <p id="ember942" class="pv-about__summary-text mt4 t-14 ember-view"><span>Jason is a technology innovation pioneer, investor, and advisor, having led product initiatives in a number of spaces including commerce, healthcare, fitness, games, Esports, education, usability, analytics and data capture, productivity, entertainment and more, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to emerging start-ups. Recently Jason was SVP of Content at Skillz, Inc.</span></p> </section></div> <div id="ember867" class="ember-view"><section id="ember868" class="artdeco-container-card pv-profile-section pab-featured-section pab-featured-section--multi-item pab-featured-section--with-pagination artdeco-card ember-view"></section></div>
Gleb Chuvpilo
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR | Mr. Chuvpilo is a serial entrepreneur and early-stage venture capital investor.Mr. Chuvpilo is a serial entrepreneur and early-stage venture capital investor with a master’s degree from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab and an MBA in Finance and Strategic Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. His prior experiences include Goldman Sachs and Palantir Technologies. Mr. Chuvpilo is currently the founder and Managing Partner at Thundermark Capital, an early-stage deep tech Venture Capital fund backed by Peter Thiel.
Marvin Pestcoe
NON-EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR | Marvin is an experienced board director and executive with over 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and 15 years of experience on private boards including Hamilton Insurance Group and LanghorneRe.Marvin is an experienced board director and executive with more than thirty-five years of insurance industry experience and fifteen years of cumulative service on private boards including Hamilton Insurance Group and LanghorneRe. He retired as CEO of LanghorneRe in June of this year. Prior to that, he held various executive roles at PartnerRe including Chief Risk and Actuarial Officer, CEO Life, Health and Chief Investment Officer.
David Poole
CHIEF SOFTWARE ARCHITECT, Co-Founder | David Poole is a leader in the field of Cognitive AI and is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.Dr. Poole is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia and the director of the Laboratory for Computational Intelligence. He was the winner of the Canadian AI Association (CAIAC), 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and a fellow of CAIAC. During the 2014-2015 academic year, he was a Leverhulme Trust visiting professor at the University of Oxford. He was the former chair of the Association for Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence and a former associate editor of the Artificial Intelligence Journal. Professor Poole has published extensively in the fields of artificial intelligence, logic programming and reasoning with uncertainty. He has co-authored two books with Alan Mackworth: Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach (1998); and Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents (2010; 2nd Ed. 2017).
Company Management

CEO | Mr. Tillman is the manager of Pi Consulting, LLC, a private company focused on providing third-party representation and advisory services.

President | With his background in business and geographic sciences, Jake plays a significant role in Minerva's strategic decision-making as well as the development of its technology.

COO | Sharon is using her insight into change management to enhance operations, ensure program success and increase employee satisfaction as Minerva's Chief Operating Officer.

CTO | Chris is a software engineer with over 25 years of experience, ranging from the administration of back-end Unix and Windows to solution architecture.

CFO | Mr. Jenkins, BA, CPA, CGA, has broad experience in accounting, banking, securities regulation and corporate finance.

VP Growth & Partnerships | Mr. Jay has a long history of helping startups accelerate revenue, and establish sales channels and will help lead the Company’s sales initiatives in both Economic Geology and Climate risk.

CHIEF SOFTWARE ARCHITECT, Co-Founder | David Poole is a leader in the field of Cognitive AI and is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.

SECTION HEAD, ECONOMIC GEOLOGY | Sam has over ten years of varied experience in mineral exploration, laboratory work, and environmental remediation. He now focuses primarily on the use of cognitive AI in mineral deposit research and mineral exploration.

SECTION HEAD, CLIMATE RISK | Gio is at the forefront of climate risk and natural hazard research, working on merging human knowledge with machine intelligence.
Scott Tillman
CEO | Mr. Tillman is the manager of Pi Consulting, LLC, a private company focused on providing third-party representation and advisory services.Mr. Tillman is the principal of Pi Consulting, LLC, a private investment and consulting company. He started his career on Wall Street in 2001. In 2003 he joined Harbinger Capital Partners, an NYC based hedge fund where he helped direct the future of many companies, overseeing ownership stakes and bankruptcies involving billions of dollars. He went on to provide myriad consulting services to investment companies and family offices as well as sponsoring or participating in business deals ranging from data centers to being the sole independent board member during Gawker Media’s bankruptcy. Mr. Tillman holds dual BSM’s from Tulane University.
Jake McGregor
President | With his background in business and geographic sciences, Jake plays a significant role in Minerva's strategic decision-making as well as the development of its technology.Jake McGregor has been with Minerva since its inception. Having a background both in business and geographic sciences he plays a significant role in strategic decision-making regarding the administration of Minerva as well as the development of its technology. Jake is Minerva’s member representative to the Open Geospatial Consortium, and represents Minerva’s interests within the Standards Council of Canada and the International Standards Organization. Jake has diverse technical expertise ranging from spatial statistics, 3D data visualization, land cover classification as well as spatial data analysis and scripting.
Sharon Lam
COO | Sharon is using her insight into change management to enhance operations, ensure program success and increase employee satisfaction as Minerva's Chief Operating Officer.Sharon has been involved in a variety of application and process development projects ranging from enterprise mapping solutions for the telecommunications industry to ERP systems for a local manufacturing business. Since joining Minerva, Sharon has developed organizational policies to better manage company assets and improve office productivity, while also leading the development of web mapping applications to effectively communicate the results of Minerva's AI technology. She holds a BSc in Environmental Sciences from McMaster University.
Chris Ahern
CTO | Chris is a software engineer with over 25 years of experience, ranging from the administration of back-end Unix and Windows to solution architecture.Chris Ahern is a software engineer with 25 years of experience, ranging from the administration of back-end Unix and Windows servers and databases, to front-end web development. After graduating from the University of Natal, South Africa, he started his career in the telecommunications industry, first with Telkom South Africa and later at MTN, a large mobile carrier in South Africa. After moving to Vancouver, he worked in a small consulting firm installing and configuring wholesale billing solutions for various telecom companies around the world until he joined Georeference Online Ltd (GOL) in 2007. At GOL he was intimately involved in the development of the company’s AI software, as well as being Product Manager of its cloud-based exploration logistics management system, CampControl.
Charles Jenkins
CFO | Mr. Jenkins, BA, CPA, CGA, has broad experience in accounting, banking, securities regulation and corporate finance.Mr. Jenkins has extensive experience in accounting, banking, securities regulation and corporate finance. Most recently, he has served as the Chief Financial Officer for a number of mining exploration and development companies, as well as with technology companies. Prior to his involvement with public companies he previously worked in corporate finance with brokerage houses in Vancouver and Calgary.
Grant Jay
VP Growth & Partnerships | Mr. Jay has a long history of helping startups accelerate revenue, and establish sales channels and will help lead the Company’s sales initiatives in both Economic Geology and Climate risk.Mr. Jay has a long history of helping startups accelerate revenue, and establish sales channels and will help lead the Company’s sales initiatives in both Economic Geology and Climate risk. Prior to joining Minerva, Mr. Jay was a Senior Director at CGG Canada, focusing on technical business development and partnerships in Canada and the US for CGG Minerals and Mining Group. His previous experiences also include Director roles at <span>Shiftboard Inc. (formerly EDP Software -ShedulePro)</span>, UrtheCast Corporation and DigitalGlobe – Maxar Technologies, where he led sales initiatives for risk management solutions and GeoAnalytics & Imaging commercial sales & partnerships respectively.
David Poole
CHIEF SOFTWARE ARCHITECT, Co-Founder | David Poole is a leader in the field of Cognitive AI and is a professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.Dr. Poole is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science, University of British Columbia and the director of the Laboratory for Computational Intelligence. He was the winner of the Canadian AI Association (CAIAC), 2013 Lifetime Achievement Award, is a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, and a fellow of CAIAC. During the 2014-2015 academic year, he was a Leverhulme Trust visiting professor at the University of Oxford. He was the former chair of the Association for Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence and a former associate editor of the Artificial Intelligence Journal. Professor Poole has published extensively in the fields of artificial intelligence, logic programming and reasoning with uncertainty. He has co-authored two books with Alan Mackworth: Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach (1998); and Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents (2010; 2nd Ed. 2017).
Samuel Cantor
SECTION HEAD, ECONOMIC GEOLOGY | Sam has over ten years of varied experience in mineral exploration, laboratory work, and environmental remediation. He now focuses primarily on the use of cognitive AI in mineral deposit research and mineral exploration.Sam has over ten years of varied experience in mineral exploration, laboratories, and environmental remediation. He now focuses primarily on the use of cognitive AI in mineral deposit research and mineral exploration. Sam completed his Bachelor’s in Geology at the University of Colorado in Boulder in 2009, after which he worked on mineral exploration projects in Idaho and Nicaragua before moving to Chicago to work in environmental remediation. He moved to Vancouver to pursue his MSc with the Mineral Deposit Research Unit at the University of British Columbia to investigate the exploration potential of stable isotopes and luminescence in carbonate-hosted deposits.
Gio Roberti, PhD
SECTION HEAD, CLIMATE RISK | Gio is at the forefront of climate risk and natural hazard research, working on merging human knowledge with machine intelligence.Dr. Gio Roberti is Minerva Intelligence’s Climate Risk section head and is at the forefront of climate risk and natural hazard research, working on merging human knowledge with machine intelligence. Dr. Roberti has extensive experience in climate risk and natural hazards and has led multiple international projects between Canada, Peru, France, and Italy. His expertise spans field, remote and numerical techniques, and is focused on the effects of climate change on the stability of glaciated volcanoes. The results of his research have been published in scientific journals, presented at major geological conferences, and reach the broader public through various media reports.
Our Technical Advisors

Technical Advisor, Co-Founder | Clinton Smyth, PGeo, is a geologist and software developer with 40 years of experience in minerals exploration, resource evaluation and mining.

MINERAL RESOURCES AND SPATIAL STATISTICS | Mike O’Brien, P.Geo, is a well-known geoscientist with 40 years of international experience in mining and exploration.

Technical Advisor, Computer Software | Dr. Mackworth is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.

CTO, SEMANTICS | Dr. Richard graduated in electrical engineering from MIT and holds an MSc in Geosciences from The University of Arizona.

MINERAL DEPOSITS AND DEPOSIT MODELS | Dave Lefebure, PGeo, is a well-known geoscientist who has worked for geological surveys and mineral exploration companies in Canada and around the world.

STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY | Lori Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Structural Geology at the University of British Columbia, where she has been a faculty member since 1996.

GEOPHYSICS | Mr. Ballantyne is a geophysicist with over 32 years of global experience in minerals exploration and founder of in3D Geoscience Inc.

NATURAL HAZARD RISK ASSESSMENT | Sebnem is a Professor and the Fred Banfield Distinguished Endowed Chair in Mining Engineering at Colorado School of Mines.
Clinton Smyth, PGeo
Technical Advisor, Co-Founder | Clinton Smyth, PGeo, is a geologist and software developer with 40 years of experience in minerals exploration, resource evaluation and mining.Mr. Smyth, PGeo, has an MSc Geochemistry, MSc Computer Science (AI). He is a geologist and software developer with 40 years of experience and worked for 25 years with Anglo American, including as VP Exploration. He was sent by Anglo to Imperial College, London to study AI applications in geology. He and his team discovered the Buzwagi Gold deposit in Tanzania in 1996; the Boyongan Cu-Au porphyry deposit in the Philippines in 1999, and GT Gold Corp’s Saddle Gold Project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle in 2014.
Mike O’Brien, PGeo
MINERAL RESOURCES AND SPATIAL STATISTICS | Mike O’Brien, P.Geo, is a well-known geoscientist with 40 years of international experience in mining and exploration.B.Sc. (Hons), Dip Data Statistics, M.Sc. Eng., FAusIMM, FSAIMM, P.Geo. APEGBC, Pr.Sci.Nat. (RSA) Mike is a mining industry professional experienced across the spectrum of exploration and mine geology, geostatistics, resource estimation, and management. Mike has a reputation for innovative problem solving and strategic thinking, focusing, and integrating short-term actions with long-term goals. Mike has carried out numerous third-party and due diligence reviews and audits. He was the secretary and chairman of the SAMREC Committee from 1996-2011, contributing to the development of reporting codes, and has a deep knowledge of international mineral resource and mineral reserve reporting. Mike has worked on deposits in Canada, South Africa, Brazil, Ghana, Mexico, DRC, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Peru, United States, Ireland, Australia and Argentina.
Alan Mackworth
Technical Advisor, Computer Software | Dr. Mackworth is a Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia.Dr. Alan Mackworth is a Professor of Computer Science at the University of British Columbia. He was educated at Toronto (B.A.Sc.), Harvard (A.M.) and Sussex (D.Phil.). He works on constraint-based artificial intelligence with applications in vision, robotics, situated agents, assistive technology and sustainability. He has authored over 130 papers and co-authored two books: Computational Intelligence: A Logical Approach (1998); and Artificial Intelligence: Foundations of Computational Agents (2010; 2nd Ed. 2017).
Stephen M. Richard
CTO, SEMANTICS | Dr. Richard graduated in electrical engineering from MIT and holds an MSc in Geosciences from The University of Arizona.Stephen Miller Richard obtained undergraduate degrees in Earth and Planetary Science and in Electrical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. After a year working as an electrical engineer at Lawrence Livermore Lab, he returned to graduate school, obtaining a Master's degree in from the University of Arizona, and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), both in Geology. Steve's graduate and post-doctoral work was focused on geologic mapping, structure and tectonics, and thermochronology, in complexly deformed terranes in the Arizona and California Basin and Range and the Fosdick Mountains in West Antarctica. In 1992 Steve was selected to fill a research geologist position at the Arizona Geological Survey (AZGS), and over the next 17 years worked on a series of geologic mapping projects in the Arizona Basin and Range. As chief of the geoinformatics section at the AZGS, Steve was engaged in geologic data management, development of GeoSciML, an XML markup language for geoscience information interchange, development of the US Geoscience Information Network and National Geothermal Data System (NGDS) to deploy web services for geoscience information exchange, the XML implementation of the updated international standard for geospatial metadata (ISO 19115-1), chaired the CGI Geoscience Terminology Working Group, and worked on projects developing a proposed architecture design and resource catalog system for the NSF EarthCube initiative. In 2016 he retired from the AZGS to work as a technical director with the Interdisciplinary Earth Data Alliance at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) until January 2018. Steve continues working on various geoinformatics projects including a resource registry for EarthCube and knowledge representation models for 3-D geology, and is currently the Chief Technical Officer for Semantics at Minerva Intelligence.
Dave Lefebure, PGeo
MINERAL DEPOSITS AND DEPOSIT MODELS | Dave Lefebure, PGeo, is a well-known geoscientist who has worked for geological surveys and mineral exploration companies in Canada and around the world.Dave Lefebure, PGeo, is a well-known Canadian geoscientist who has worked for geological surveys and mineral exploration companies for over 35 years, with considerable expertise in metal, industrial mineral and coal deposits. From 2002 to 2011, he was the Chief Geologist for the province of British Columbia. Dave led the creation of the British Columbia Mineral Deposit Profiles while working with talented economic geologists from the British Columbia Geological Survey (BCGS) and other global experts. The profiles Dave built on the United States Geological Survey's standardized collection of mineral deposit models help provide a complete, industry-oriented classification of Cordilleran ore deposits. During his career with the BCGS Dave was involved in supporting and improving the award winning MapPlace website, the first fully interactive government geoscience database online. He also was a key economic geologist involved in the metal and industrial mineral assessment of British Columbia in the 1990s, a global first for an entire jurisdiction. Dave Lefebure has worked in the field in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec and visited key mining districts across Canada and parts of the United States. He holds two advanced degrees in geology, a M.Sc. from Queen’s University and a Ph.D. from Carleton University. Since 1997, he has been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria.
Lori Kennedy
STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY | Lori Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Structural Geology at the University of British Columbia, where she has been a faculty member since 1996.Lori Kennedy is an Associate Professor of Structural Geology at the University of British Columbia. She arrived at UBC in 1996, after receiving an MSc from the University of New Brunswick, and a PhD from Texas A&M University. Lori’s research is focused on mechanisms of deformation and strain localization in the crust. She has worked on diverse structural topics including structural controls and modification of ore deposits, the role of fluids on fault zone evolution, and the role of shear zones on the emplacement of dacite domes. Her research includes both field-based studies and experimental rock deformation. Lori and her graduate students have most recently completed structural studies of the richly-mineralized porphyry Cu/Au and epithermal Au KSM area in northwest British Columbia, the Gibraltar Cu-Mo deposit, and porphyry deposits in the Southern Coast Belt near Taseko Lakes.
Todd Ballantyne
GEOPHYSICS | Mr. Ballantyne is a geophysicist with over 32 years of global experience in minerals exploration and founder of in3D Geoscience Inc.Mr. Ballantyne is a geophysicist with over 31 years of global experience in multiple commodities. In 2010, he founded in3D Geoscience, a geophysical consulting services for the exploration industry. Mr. Ballantyne’s experience covers gold and base metals and 9 years in diamond exploration with Ashton Mining of Canada. At Ashton he was involved with Quebec’s Renard kimberlite cluster (from discovery to pre-feasibility), the discovery of the Lynx and Hibou dykes, and contributed to kimberlite discoveries in Alberta, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
Sebnem Düzgün
NATURAL HAZARD RISK ASSESSMENT | Sebnem is a Professor and the Fred Banfield Distinguished Endowed Chair in Mining Engineering at Colorado School of Mines.Dr. H. Sebnem Düzgün, was born in Nazilli, Turkey and gradated the second in the class of 1992 from Department of Mining Engineering at Middle East Technical University (METU), Ankara, Turkey. She started her graduate studies in the Department of Mining Engineering and got her M.Sc. and PhD. Degrees in 1994 and 2000, respectively from the same department. She was a visiting scholar in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT from 1998 to 1999 with an award given by the Turkish Scientific and Technical Council (TUBITAK). She was appointed as assistant professor in Geodetic and Geographic Information Technologies Program at METU in 2001. She performed research as a postdoctoral fellow from 2004 to 2005 at Norwegian Geotechnical Institute and International Center for Geohazards with a grant from the Norwegian Research Council. She then returned to Department of Mining Engineering at METU in 2006 as associate professor and became full professor there in 2010. Dr. Düzgün was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s experienced researcher fellowship in 2014 and used it to conduct research at the Geophysical Institute at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany from 2015 to 2016. She has been 18 years of experience in research and teaching in mining engineering on mine closure and reclamation, quantitative sustainability assessment for mining projects, risk and safety analysis for coal mines, mine environmental monitoring using remote sensing, reliability based design and analysis of rock slopes, uncertainty modeling in rock engineering, and interdisciplinary topics including geographic information systems, remote sensing, spatial and spatio-temporal data mining, landslide and earthquake risk assessment, critical infrastructure resilience. Dr. Düzgün is also on the Editorial Board of various scientific journals, namely Landslides, Journal of Sustainable Mining; Computers and Geosciences; International Journal of Emergency Management; Georisk Journal; Energy Exploration & Exploitation; and The Open Construction and Building Technology Journal. Since 2008, Dr. Düzgün has been serving as an expert evaluator and reviewer for the FP7 and Horizon 2020 European Commission`s Research and Innovation Programs (including the themes ICT, Secure Societies, Critical Infrastructure and the RFCS-Research Fund for Coal and Steel). She is a member of SME, ARMA, ISRM, IEEE and ISPRS, USSD. Dr. Düzgün has authored four books, published 11 book chapters, more than 60 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, over 150 papers in conferences. She is the principal author of the book entitled Remote Sensing of the Mine Environment. Dr. Düzgün’s recent research areas involve quantitative risk and resilience assessment for mining hazards and geohazards, big data analytics, Earth observation in geosciences, virtual/augmented/mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) and serious gaming for technical training and collaborative decision making. Dr. Düzgün has established the collaborative immersive VR laboratory at Mines. She was founder and former CEO of the software company, Kuzgun Informatics, in Turkey, contributor to three ceramic art exhibitions, is the drummer in a local band, and is mother of two sons.