Mojdeh Bahar J.D. M.S. CLP, RTTP
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.
