The Contributors

Joni L. Rutter, Ph.D., is the Acting Director at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS). Dr. Rutter is responsible for planning and executing the Center’s complex and multifaceted pre-clinical and clinical programs. Before joining NCATS, she served as the Director of Scientific Programs within the All of Us Research Program of the Precision Medicine Initiative (NIH), and prior to that as Director of the Division of Neuroscience and Behavior at the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Dr. Rutter received her Ph.D. from Dartmouth Medical School and completed a fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. She is recognized for her work in basic and clinical research in human genetics and in the study of genetic and environmental risk factors focusing on the fields of cancer and addiction. Her primary scientific objective is in applying translational science approaches to basic discoveries and getting more treatments to more people more efficiently.

Lili Portilla has worked in the area of strategic alliances and technology transfer at NIH since 1989, joining NCATS in December 2011. She oversees the Center’s partnership, strategic alliance and technology transfer functions. She also is the program director for the NCATS Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) grant and contract programs. In this role, Portilla works closely with interested small businesses by providing advice and educational resources about the program.

Before coming to NCATS, Portilla served as senior advisor to the director of the National Center for Research Resources and as the director of the Office of Technology Transfer and Development at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. She serves as an ex officio board member of the University of Kansas Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation. She also serves as a member of the Federal Laboratory Commercialization Task Force on the governor’s Maryland Life Sciences Advisory Board.

Portilla received a master’s degree in public administration in 1992 from American University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1986 from Stephen F. Austin State University, where she majored in finance and Spanish literature.

Joe Allen served on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee for Senator Birch Bayh (D-IN) securing passage of the Bayh-Dole Act which fostered R&D partnerships between universities and U.S. industry. The Economist Technology Quarterly called this law “possibly the most inspired piece of legislation to be enacted in America over the past half century.” On leaving the Senate staff, Joe was Executive Director of Intellectual Property Owners, Inc. (IPO) where he worked to create the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit before going to the U.S. Department of Commerce where he became the Director of the Office of Technology Commercialization. He was instrumental in the passage of major laws allowing U.S. industry to perform joint R&D with federal laboratories. Allen’s office oversaw Executive branch implementation of the Bayh-Dole and Federal Technology Transfer Acts and related presidential policy directives. He helped negotiate intellectual property rights provisions for major international science and technology agreements.

Joe became President of the National Technology Transfer Center established by Congress to promote industry/federal laboratory R&D partnerships. In 2008 he founded Allen and Associates a consulting firm specializing in technology management/IP issues. Joe was the lead witness before the South African parliament on their Bayh-Dole law and consulted with the Republic of Kazakhstan to develop its technology transfer laws. In 2013 he co-chaired the White House Lab to Market Summit. The Association of University Technology Managers presented Joe with the Driving Innovation Award “For His Tireless Work and Support as a Champion for the Bayh-Dole Act during the Past 30 Years” and the Bayh-Dole Award, its highest honor. He also writes a monthly column for IP Watchdog on technology management issues. Joe currently leads the Bayh-Dole Coalition, a broad-based organization promoting and protecting that landmark law.

Anton Simeonov is the scientific director at NCATS. The author or inventor on more than 140 peer-reviewed scientific publications and patents, Simeonov has a truly diverse background, ranging from bioorganic chemistry and molecular biology to clinical diagnostic research and development. He received a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in chemistry from Concordia College. Simeonov then trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute under Richard Lerner, M.D., and Kim Janda, Ph.D.

Prior to joining NIH in November 2004, Simeonov was a senior scientist at Caliper Life Sciences, a leading developer of microfluidic technologies, where he was responsible for basic research on novel assay methodologies and development of microfluidic products for research and clinical diagnostics. Simeonov is a literature editor of Assay and Drug Development Technologies and a member of the editorial board of Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery and Drug Target Review.

Dr Simeonov’s research interests include novel detection chemistries and techniques, assays and devices for diagnostics, assay miniaturization, and novel approaches to screening and therapeutics development. Presently, Simeonov and his group focus on development of assays to discover and characterize small molecule modulators of previously understudied molecular targets and pathways. The ultimate goal is to de-risk these novel targets through development of assay methodology and high-quality pharmacological tool compounds. To open up the field of epigenetic drug discovery, Simeonov and his group have developed new miniaturized assays for all major categories of proteins involved in signaling events coupled to histone posttranslational modifications (referred to as the histone code), including the histone demethylase and methyltransferase enzymes and the multiple protein-protein interactions involving reader domains. The methods served as starting points for more than a dozen in-house screening campaigns, results from which were published in several journals. These methodologies have been adopted by numerous labs throughout the world as well as by reagent companies to develop reagent kits.

Co-founder/President, Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance; Board of Directors/past Chairman, National Organization for Rare Disorders; President & Board of Directors, Alliance for a Stronger FDA, Board of Directors, Alliance for Regenerative Medicine; 4-year member of the NIH/NCATS National Advisory Council and Vice Chair, Cures Acceleration Network Review Board; member, FDA/CTTI Patient Engagement Collaborative; 4-year member, NIH Neurological Institute National Advisory Council; former partner/president, business development/government affairs firm; twenty years in federal executive and legislative branches in defense, foreign policy and intelligence (six years on House Armed Services Committee staff; four years at U.S. State Department, one year on U.S. Delegation to Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces Treaty talks, Geneva; six years as CIA analyst, including a year as Intelligence Community representative to U.S. arms control committees); after graduation from United States Military Academy, West Point, four years as Army officer, as company commander in Korea and Infantry and Military Intelligence officer in Vietnam; Master's Degree, Russian Area Studies - Georgetown University.

Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Stoner is the Senior Clinical Advisor of AlloVir (NASDAQ: ALVR), an ElevateBio company, and was most recently the company’s interim CMO. She also serves as Senior Clinical Advisor to Rhythm Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: RYTM). Liz is a distinguished biopharma executive, who brings decades of international industry experience to her role guiding and growing MPM portfolio companies.

Liz has held several leadership roles at MPM portfolio companies including interim CEO of Semma Therapeutics; founder, CMO and Chief Development Officer (CDO) of Rhythm and the CDO of Vascular Pharmaceuticals. She also served in clinical and advisory roles at Clinical Ink, Potenza Therapeutics, Solasia and TriNetX. Liz is a member of the Cures Acceleration Network Review Board of the National Center for Advisory Translations Sciences of the NIH to represent viewpoints of drug development and venture capital professionals regarding the discovery and development of therapeutics, diagnostics and devices.

Prior to joining MPM, Liz was Senior Vice President of Global Clinical Development Operations at Merck Research Laboratories where she was responsible for its clinical development activities in more than 40 countries. While at Merck, she also oversaw the clinical development activities of its Japanese subsidiary and played a leading role in Merck/Schering Plough Joint Venture’s development of Vytorin and Zetia, blockbuster cholesterol lowering drugs. Previously, she led the 5-alpha reductase clinical development program, establishing Merck as a leader in the field of prostate disease. As Endocrine Therapeutic Head at Merck, her responsibilities included all steroid and lipid metabolism, as well as the bisphosphonate and growth hormone secretagogue clinical research programs. Prior to joining the biopharma industry, she was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Cornell University Medical College. Liz currently serves on the boards of Vascular Pharmaceuticals and Momenta Pharmaceuticals. She is also a member of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Board of Governors, and the Weill Cornell Medical College Clinical and Translational Science Center External Advisory Board.

Liz received her M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, her M.S. in Chemistry from SUNY at Stony Brook and her B.S. in Chemistry from Ottawa University, KS.

Katharine (Kathy) Ku is the chief licensing advisor in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. She is also a member of the technology transactions and the patents and innovations practice groups.

Kathy is an internationally recognized leader in the field of technology transfer. She served as the Executive Director of Stanford University's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) for 27 years. During that period, OTL licensed hundreds of new technologies, bringing in $1.8 billion, most of which went back to support research and education at Stanford.

Kathy also spearheaded the development and implementation of nine principles related to university technology licensing. The principles are set forth in document entitled "In the Public Interest: Nine Points to Consider in Licensing University Technology." More than 120 institutions have adopted the principles since they were published in 2007.

Dr. Mark Rohrbaugh is the Special Advisor for Technology Transfer to the NIH Deputy Director for Intramural Research. In this role, he analyzes the interrelationships of research programs with technology transfer, intellectual property, innovation policy, and partnerships and proposes new strategies and programs, especially as it relates to technology transfer programs and policy support for the Immediate Office of the Director NIH. He serves on the National Science and Technology Council Technology Committee, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Innovation Council, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Lab-to-Market Committee, and the Interagency Working Group on Technology Transfer. Mark has represented the HHS at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Health Organization (WHO). His analyses of NIH funded inventions brought to market as drug and biologics by the private sector have been published in Stevens et al., NEJM 364: 535-541 (2011) and Chatterjee and Rohrbaugh, Nature Biotech. 32: 52-58 (2014).

Mark served as Director of the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) from 2001 to 2013. OTT managed the patenting and commercial licensing of inventions made by NIH, FDA, and CDC intramural scientists and served as the lead office within the HHS for technology transfer policy. Licensee companies have brought 27 FDA approved products and more than 100 in vitro diagnostics to market. In 2013, OTT licensees reported a combined total of $7B in sales of licensed products. With respect to policy, Mark led intellectual property implementation for embryonic stem cells, pandemic flu, low-income country access, and use of the government’s march-in authority.

From 1994 to 2001, Mark also served as Director, Office of Technology Development, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), NIH. Prior to joining the NIH, he conducted molecular and cell biology research at the University of Minnesota and two start-up biotechnology companies.

Albert N. Link is the Virginia Batte Phillips Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). He received the B.S. degree in mathematics from the University of Richmond (Phi Beta Kappa) and the Ph.D. degree in economics from Tulane University.

Professor Link’s research focuses on technology and innovation policy, the economics of R&D, and policy/program evaluation. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Technology Transfer. He is also and co-editor of Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, and founder/editor of Annals of Science and Technology Policy. Link is author/co-author or editor/co-editor of more than 65 academic books; among the more recent ones are Technology and Innovation Policy: An International Perspective (Edward Elgar, 2021), Technology Transfer and U.S. Public Sector Innovation (Edward Elgar, 2020), and The Chicago Handbook of University Technology Transfer (University of Chicago Press, 2015). He is also author/co-author of more than 200 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters.

Professor Link has been an advisor to numerous governmental agencies both in the United States and in Europe. He also served from 2007-2012 as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations (Geneva) in the capacity of co-vice chairperson of the Team of Specialists on Innovation and Competitiveness Policies Initiative for the Economic Commission for Europe. And, in 2018, he delivered the European Commission Distinguished Scholar Lecture at the Joint Research Centre (Seville, Spain).

Lori Pressman is an engineer, inventor, independent technology transfer practitioner and IP licensing and strategy consultant. Recent assignments have been in biotech and health IT. She was Assistant Director of the MIT TLO from 1989-2000, and a Director of Harris & Harris (NASDAQ:TINY) from 2002-2012. She received the Bayh-Dole award in 2017. She has a S.B. in physics from MIT and an MSEE from Columbia University.

Dr. Michael Wallner oversees the Economic Research Team at TechLink, a U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Partnership Intermediary. Michael and his team are currently preparing an economic impact analysis of all U.S. Air Force Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs) issued between 2000 and 2020. Recently, Dr. Wallner and his team completed an economic impact study for the National Nuclear Security Administration and Sandia National Laboratories. Dr. Wallner also oversaw the first comprehensive economic and technological analysis of the National Institutes of Health and National Cancer Institute’s SBIR/STTR Program. Michael has overseen the completion of multiple economic and advanced research and development reviews for TechLink and the DoD, including the impacts of DoD inventions and TechLink’s licensing agreements, DoD’s Rapid Innovation Fund (RIF), DoD’s SBIR/STTR technology transitions and impacts on Warfighters, and DoD’s CRADAs, and he has assisted with a review of DoD’s SBIR/STTR Program. Each analysis focused on the U.S. economy, DoD’s Defense mission, and advanced research and development of technologies for the U.S. Warfighter. He is one of five Bozeman City Commissioners, has a PhD in Public Policy and Administration from Boise State University, and is completing his Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at the University of Montana. Michael enjoys hunting, hiking, and the hot springs in Montana.

Dr. Donald Siegel is Foundation Professor of Public Policy and Management and Director of the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. He received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Columbia University. Professor Siegel is an editor of the Journal of Technology Transfer and has published 131 articles and 13 books on issues relating to technology transfer and entrepreneurship, innovation, and the measurement and analysis of performance, His most recent books are the Oxford Handbook of Corporate Social Responsibility: Psychological and Organizational Perspectives and the Chicago Handbook of University Technology Transfer and Academic Entrepreneurship (University of Chicago Press) with Al Link and the late Mike Wright. Don’s citation count, according to Google Scholar, is 59,323 (h-index: 98). In 2016, he was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Management and in 2020, was elected Dean of the Fellows of the Academy of Management. Don has received over $3.7 million in grants or fellowships from the Sloan Foundation, NSF, Kauffman Foundation, NBER, American Statistical Association, W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, and the U.S. Department of Labor. He currently serves as Co-Chair (with Ruth Okediji of Harvard University) of a National Academies Committee on “Advancing Commercialization from the Federal Laboratories,” which recently released its report. He previously chaired a National Academies Committee on “Best Practice in National Innovation Programs for Flexible Electronics” and was a member of National Academies committee evaluating the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program.

Krishna “Balki” Balakrishnan joined NCATS in 2011. As a senior technology transfer manager, he works with scientific staff members to facilitate their collaborative efforts. Balakrishnan assists in all aspects of developing these strategic alliances, including helping to define the contours of the collaboration, delineating roles and responsibilities for the various parties and troubleshooting any challenges that may occur during the collaborations.

Before joining NCATS, Balakrishnan served as executive director at the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences, a nonprofit foundation affiliated with NIH. His earlier positions at NIH include marketing group leader in the NIH Office of Technology Transfer and senior technology development manager at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

Before joining NIH, Balakrishnan was vice president of technology and business development and vice president of research and development at a division of Covance, formerly Berkeley Antibody Company. He earned a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Stanford University and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the co-inventor on two U.S. patents and has published and presented extensively on scientific subjects as well as technology transfer matters.

Sury Vepa embarked on his technology transfer career, serving in various capacities in the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), beginning in 2005. Vepa was a technology transfer specialist in the NIH OTT until 2006, serving the tech transfer requirements of the National Institute of Mental Health. During a brief hiatus from NIH, Vepa worked as a clinical law instructor at the University of Maryland School of Law, and he co-supervised and trained student attorneys enrolled in the Maryland Intellectual Property Legal Resource Center. Prior to 2005, Vepa also served as a licensing associate in the Office of Industrial Liaison at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and practiced patent law as a registered patent attorney, practicing before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and in the state of Maryland. In 2008, Vepa returned to the NIH OTT. Most recently, he joined the NCATS Office of Strategic Alliances in October 2015 as the Center’s senior licensing and patenting manager.

Vepa received his J.D. with honors from the University of Maryland and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He completed his postdoctoral research training at the Indiana University School of Medicine and worked as an instructor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at Johns Hopkins University.

Sue has been an active member of the NIH technology transfer community since 2002, where she has facilitated the advancement of scientific endeavors through collaborations, patenting, licensing, and other means. The biomedical technology transfer program at NIH is one of the world’s largest with a portfolio that includes about 1300 active licenses, 400 of which report product sales in aggregate greater than $6B per year.

She is proud to lead a team of professionals dedicated to the advancement of science using tech transfer mechanisms, focusing on best-fit solutions to achieve positive outcomes. Prior to her current position, Sue was a technology licensing specialist and branch chief, giving her an extensive range of tech transfer experiences from multiple vantage points within the NIH infrastructure and resulting in two “Deal of Distinction” awards from the Licensing Executive Society, several NIH merit awards, and a NIH Director’s award based on her achievements.

With a Ph.D. from the Department of Chemistry at Emory University and B.S. in chemistry from the University of Delaware, Sue has a firm foundation established on which to broaden her scientific knowledge in addition to a sound framework for application of other relevant aspects, including legal, business, and policy.

Paul Zielinski, Executive Director of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC), where he leads high quality support to over 300 federal agencies, laboratories and research centers to accomplish their joint mission to foster commercialization best practices and accelerate federal technologies out of the labs and into the marketplace.

Prior to this role, Paul has served for over 30 years as a federal manager, engineer, and scientist. Most recently, Paul served as the Director of the Technology Partnerships Office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), leading NIST’s technology transfer activities including patents, licenses, cooperative research, and the NIST Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. He also led interagency technology transfer policy issues including serving as the Co-Chair of the National Science and Technology Council Lab to Market Subcommittee, Chair of the Interagency Workgroup for Technology Transfer and Interagency Workgroup for Bayh-Dole, and two terms as the Chair of the FLC.

Mr. Zielinski has also worked at other federal agencies in the development and deployment of technology, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of Energy (DOE). He has served on active duty as a commissioned officer in the United States Army including duty in Korea, Panama, Germany, and the US.

Mr. Zielinski has an MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Maryland, an MBA with a specialization in Entrepreneurship from Northcentral University, a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Toledo, and earned a Certificate of Mastery in Leadership from the Federal Executive Institute.

Dr. Tom Stackhouse is the Director for the Technology Transfer Center (TTC) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), NIH. In this position, Tom oversees the technology transfer efforts, and the management of the patent portfolio and marketing activities for the NCI and nine other Institutes at the NIH. In addition, Tom provides oversight to the tech transfer activities of the NCI’s National Laboratory, The Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research (FNLCR) a Government-owned, contract-operated (GOCO) National Lab, currently operated by Leidos Biomedical, Inc.

Tom assists the NCI on coordinating intellectual property parameters and guidelines for several key NCI initiatives. Tom works with state and local economic development groups to foster new partnerships which facilitate the use of NCI technologies and expertise to advance the pubic health and stimulate the nation’s economies. Tom was one of the founders of the NIH Startup Challenge model whose pilot was the HHS award winning Breast Cancer Startup Challenge. Tom has served as 1) a member at large for the FLC Executive Board from 2009-2013 and was reelected in 2020, 2) was Vice Chair of the Education and Training Committee, FLC, and 3) was a past member of the FLC’s State & Local Government Committee.

Orin Herskowitz is the Senior VP of Intellectual Property and Tech Transfer for Columbia University, as well as Executive Director of Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV). He also is an Adjunct Professor, teaching an Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs course. He has served on boards or served as the Principle Investigator for a number of innovation and entrepreneurship-focused initiatives, including the CyberNYC Inventors-to-Founders program; the NYC Media Lab, the PowerBridgeNY clean energy proof-of-concept center, the Columbia BioMedX accelerator, the NYC ACRE technology incubator, and Harlem Biospace; has been a peer reviewer for innovation and entrepreneurship awards for the National Science Foundation and the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities; and is a frequent speaker at IP- and technology-focused events in NYC and across the country. He is a board member for the Center for American Entrepreneurship, a nonpartisan, not-for-profit research, policy, and advocacy organization engaging policymakers in Washington and across the nation regarding the critical importance of entrepreneurs and start-ups to innovation, economic growth, and job creation. Orin was also an appointee to a two-year term on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE), a Federal committee that advises the U.S. Secretary of Commerce on issues related to accelerating innovation, enhancing entrepreneurship, and expanding workforce skill development.

Columbia Technology Ventures is the tech transfer office of Columbia University, with the core objective to facilitate the transfer of inventions from academic research to outside organizations for the benefit of society on a local, national and global basis. Each year, CTV manages more than 400 invention disclosures emerging from Columbia’s research labs, leading to over 100 license deals and over 20 new start-ups. Columbia Technology Ventures has a particular focus on patent-backed start-up companies. Over the years, CTV has been involved with launching well over 250 companies based on Columbia's technologies. CTV also supports Columbia’s 10 lab-to-market technology accelerators in clean energy, media, medical devices, therapeutics, oncology, and other fields

Orin received his BA from Yale and his MBA from the Wharton School of Business. Prior to joining Columbia, Orin spent 7 years at the Boston Consulting Group's New York office as a strategy consultant, and was previously an entrepreneur and a consultant to start-ups.

Vanessa Peña is a Research Staff Member at the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute (STPI). She has extensive experience conducting high-quality research and rigorous policy analysis for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and other Federal agencies, including DoD, DOE, NASA, NSF, NIH, and NIST. She has published on R&D and technology transfer at Federal laboratories, public-private partnerships, STEM workforce, international competitiveness, and analyses of Federal policies and authorities that govern these topics. In her role, she advises Federal Government policy-makers to guide strategic planning, policy, and investment priorities across a multitude of S&T domains and brings a deep understanding of government structures, organizations, and complex issues in S&T, innovation, economic competitiveness, and national security issues.

Prior to joining STPI, Vanessa was the head of engineering for a small business supplier in the aerospace industry. She also has a strong familiarity of global issues through her international work, studying the biofuels value-chain in Honduras for WWF and the Netherlands Development Organization, promoting alternative transport fuels with the London Mayor’s Office, advising on international climate and energy policies for Notre Europe, and conducting research at France’s and Italy’s National Centers for Scientific Research.

Vanessa Peña holds dual master’s degrees from Columbia University and the London School of Economics and Political Science and a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Since 2001 Dr. Mowatt has directed the technology transfer program at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His team of fifty talented professionals includes scientists, attorneys, and former business persons who facilitate cutting edge biomedical research and advance the development and commercialization of NIAID’s innovations for the betterment of public health. NIAID’s commercial successes include vaccines for viral hepatitis and rotavirus, monoclonal antibodies against respiratory syncytial virus, veterinary vaccines that employ recombinant poxviruses, and diagnostic tests for gastrointestinal parasites and viruses.

In addition to managing NIAID’s intellectual property portfolio of 400 patent families, over 30% of which is licensed, Dr. Mowatt’s team negotiates transactional agreements, including Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADAs), that underpin the success of NIAID’s research and R&D programs. His team has negotiated a wide variety of agreements with partners that include universities, nongovernmental organizations, other US government agencies, and philanthropic organizations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as commercial concerns ranging from large pharmaceutical companies with bureaucracies that rival that of the US government to small biotechnology companies and everything in between. Since 2015 the office has also managed patenting and licensing for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

In addition to promoting and negotiating partnerships with the private sector, Dr. Mowatt has led the growth of his office to support the expanding needs of NIAID’s biodefense and emerging infectious disease research initiatives, including the Ebola and Zika viruses and most recently SARS-CoV-2.

Laura Schoppe founded Fuentek in 2001, which serves university, government, corporate, and nonprofit research organizations throughout the United States as well as in the European Union, the Middle East, and Asia. Recognized as a leading expert in technology commercialization, Laura has helped clients move their technologies into new markets as well as find sources for technology solutions to address their own R&D needs and product development. Her expertise includes restructuring and establishing technology management organizations; IP portfolio management; open innovation; technology marketing and strategic communications, including the use of social media tools; negotiating licenses, collaborative R&D partnerships, sponsored research agreements (SRAs), and other deals; and entrepreneurship training for innovators/researchers.

Laura has served on key advisory panels at the state and national level, including multiple White House panels. She previously served as AUTM’s vice president of strategic alliances, spearheading the design, development, and deployment of what is now known as the AUTM Innovation Marketplace (https://aim.autm.net) and is the current chair for the AUTM Foundation board. In addition, Laura has 12 years of experience leading research. She worked for several defense contractors as an engineer and program manager for technologies spanning missile plume intelligence to submarine combat systems.

Dr. Courtney Silverthorn is the Acting Director of the Technology Partnerships Office at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). With over a decade of experience in Federal technology transfer, she is currently responsible for providing leadership for TPO’s responsibilities in advancing NIST technology transfer and commercialization and the NIST SBIR program, and leading implementation of interagency technology transfer policy efforts via NIST's Return on Investment Initiative. She also oversees NIST-centric and agency-wide economic analysis on the impact of federal technology transfer.

Courtney is a Co-Chair of the National Science and Technology Council’s Lab-to-Market subcommittee and coordinates several Interagency working groups for tech transfer and intellectual property issues. She served as a Senior Policy Advisor to the Office of Science and Technology Policy through a detail assignment in 2018, supporting both Lab-to-Market and Citizen Science.

Courtney is a member of the Board of Directors of the Innovation Research Interchange, a world-wide network of thought leaders from large corporations, small businesses, and federal labs focusing on researching, developing and sharing best practices in innovation management, and serves as the Finance Officer on the Executive Board of the Federal Laboratory Consortium, a nationwide network of over 300 Federal laboratories focused on enabling commercialization of federally-funded technological developments.

Dr. Silverthorn earned a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a M.S. in Leadership and Public Policy from Washington University in St. Louis, and a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Sweet Briar College. She has also earned certificates in Biotechnology Enterprise from Johns Hopkins and in Policy Strategy from the Brookings Institution.

David A. Waldman (waldman@asu.edu) is a professor of management in the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. His research interests focus largely on leadership processes, and he is heralded as being one of the top ten leadership researchers in the world. Many of his research efforts have been interdisciplinary in nature. His recent activities in the area of organizational neuroscience have gained notoriety in both academic and practitioner circles, including publications in the Academy of Management Journal and the Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology, as well as write-ups in the Wall Street Journal, Inc. Magazine, and the Financial Times. Further, he is recognized as largely originating the concept of responsible leadership, which involves understanding leadership processes in the domain of corporate social responsibility. In addition, he has helped to pioneer efforts to address management and organizational issues that are relevant to technology transfer efforts, including highly cited work in Research Policy.

Beyond the journals mentioned above, Professor Waldman’s accomplishments include over 130 articles in such journals as the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Perspectives, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organization Science, Journal of Management, Organizational Research Methods, and The Leadership Quarterly. According to Google Scholar, his work has been cited over 32,000 times. He has also published 5 books on 360-degree feedback, leadership and open communication, organizational neuroscience, corporate social responsibility, and leadership for organizations, respectively. He has been a principal investigator on grants approximating $1.6 million from such agencies as NSF, DARPA, and the Kauffman Foundation. Professor Waldman is on the editorial review boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Perspectives, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, and The Leadership Quarterly. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, American Psychological Association, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

Professor Waldman has consulted for, and made presentations at, a number of companies and governmental agencies in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. They include such firms as IBM, Nortel, Goodyear-Mexico, Homestake Mining Organization, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and the Information Technology Alliance. His primary emphasis in these activities include: (1) helping leaders to better understand and navigate the paradoxes that they increasingly face, and (2) realize and act upon the neurological bases of their leadership abilities.

John is President, Burnside Development & Associates, his personal consulting business focused on academic technology transfer commercialization, and start-up formation/financing.

Current clients are in Chile (universities), in India and through WIPO, teaching academic technology transfer in 4 SE Asia countries, through the World Bank an Expert at the Serbian Innovation Fund and as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

In 2006, John served as elected President and Chair of the AUTM Board.

John retired from Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida as Assistant VP for Research & Economic Development in December 2014.

Mojdeh Bahar is the associate director for innovation and industry services at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). In this capacity, she is responsible for the NIST suite of technology partnership, quality and advanced manufacturing programs, including the Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Baldrige Performance Excellence Program, the Office of Advanced Manufacturing, the Technology Partnership Program and other extramural activities.

Ms. Bahar comes to NIST from the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), the chief scientific in-house research agency of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), where she served as the assistant administrator for technology transfer. There, she had broad responsibility for managing the intellectual property that evolves from the research program of the agency and served as a resource for management of intellectual property and technology transfer across the USDA. She led ARS's interactions with government agencies, industries, commodity groups and universities on matters dealing with intellectual property and technology transfer.

Prior to ARS, Ms. Bahar served as the chief of the Cancer Branch at the Office of Technology Transfer at NIH. There, she led a team responsible for marketing, patenting and licensing NIH and FDA inventions in the areas of cancer, gene therapy and biological response modifiers. Prior to that, Ms. Bahar was an examiner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). During her tenure at the NIH, she first served as the regional coordinator for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer (FLC) from 2008 to 2011 and then as the national chair from 2011 to 2013.

Ms. Bahar has spoken nationally and internationally on a wide spectrum of topics ranging from restriction practice, double patenting and claim drafting to technology transfer and commercialization, business development and licensing. She is the recipient of an NIH Director's Award, a Mentorship Award, seven Merit Awards, an FLC S.T.E.M Award, three Excellence in Technology Transfer Awards, a state and local economic development award and a FAES NIH Team Teaching Award. She was the 2014 recipient of Volunteer of the Year Award by the Maryland Economic Development Association. In 2015 and 2019, she was named one of Top 100 Women in Maryland by The Daily Record; she received an Abraham Lincoln Honor Award and a Presidential Volunteer Service Award. In 2018, she received the Harold Metcalf Award for her sustained service to the FLC.

A patent attorney registered to practice before the USPTO, the State of Maryland, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, and the United States Court of Appeals for Federal Circuit, Ms. Bahar is also a Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) and a Registered Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP). She is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Law. She also received a Master of Arts degree from New York University and a Bachelor of Science degree with honors in chemistry and French from Dickinson College.