# Chuck Donnelly

> Chuck Donnelly is a Portland, Maine software engineer, entrepreneur, and traditional musician who co-founded RockStep Solutions after a career spanning UC Berkeley's Space Astrophysics Group and computational science at The Jackson Laboratory. RockStep's cloud platform, Climb, organized data and workflows for non-GLP in vivo research before Instem acquired the company in July 2025.

- **Role:** Co-Founder and CEO at RockStep Solutions
- **Organizations:** RockStep Solutions, The Jackson Laboratory, UC Berkeley Space Astrophysics Group, The Acadia School of Traditional Music and Arts
- **Education:** Computer Science, University of San Francisco, Top Gun Accelerator, Larta Institute, Nex Cubed
- **Known for:** Co-founded RockStep Solutions and guided the development of Climb, launched in 2017 for non-GLP preclinical study management., RockStep received more than $1.8 million in SBIR/STTR funding, according to Maine Technology Institute materials., Shared in the UC Berkeley Space Astrophysics Group's 1995 Instrument of the Year team award for the EURD space telescope instrument.

## Career timeline

- **1990s** — Worked in UC Berkeley's Space Astrophysics Group on software for NASA orbiting platforms, Space Shuttle ground control, embedded systems, and radio astronomy algorithms.
- **1997-2014** — Served at The Jackson Laboratory, ultimately as Director of Computational Sciences, leading computational work across multiple research areas.
- **2012-2017** — Co-founded and served as executive director of The Acadia School of Traditional Music and Arts.
- **2013** — Co-founded RockStep Solutions with microbiologist Julie Morrison.
- **2014** — RockStep was selected for an NIH Small Business Innovation Research award.
- **2017** — RockStep launched Climb, its cloud software for non-GLP preclinical study management.
- **2021** — RockStep announced a partnership with Dotmatics to integrate Climb with a broader drug-discovery informatics platform.
- **2025** — Instem acquired RockStep Solutions on July 28, integrating Climb with the Provantis preclinical suite.

## Achievements

- Co-founded RockStep Solutions and guided the development of Climb, launched in 2017 for non-GLP preclinical study management.
- RockStep received more than $1.8 million in SBIR/STTR funding, according to Maine Technology Institute materials.
- Shared in the UC Berkeley Space Astrophysics Group's 1995 Instrument of the Year team award for the EURD space telescope instrument.
- Graduated summa cum laude from the University of San Francisco in 1999.
- Authored or co-authored peer-reviewed work on colony data management, laboratory software, genetics, and radio astronomy.
- Co-founded The Acadia School of Traditional Music and Arts and directed programming that brought noted traditional musicians to Maine.
- RockStep Solutions was acquired by Instem in July 2025.

## Latest updates

- **2025-07** — Instem acquired RockStep Solutions and announced plans to integrate Climb with its Provantis preclinical study-management platform.
- **2024-01** — RockStep published an executive summary featuring Donnelly on strategies for using clean, standardized preclinical data across R&D.

## Links

- Website: https://chuckdonnelly.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuck-donnelly-ba530243

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/chuck-donnelly
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-08-26