He was Executive Director of the UK Office of Technology Commercialization where he oversaw a team of staff managing the University’s innovation, intellectual property and startup portfolios. Ian is an advisory board member for the Oak Ridge Institute, chair of IPwe’s Advisory Committee for University Technology Transfer, a PI on two NIH grants, and is a co-founder of Kentucky Commercialization Ventures, a state-funded program to provide IP and tech transfer services to all other universities in the state that do not currently have dedicated IP and tech transfer resources. Ian began his career as a Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) and Intellectual Property (IP) transactions attorney. Following private practice, he helped build a start-up company in Chicago, IPXI, that was the world’s first financial exchange for IP and technology rights, which he led through product development, capital raise, proof of concept and growth to 30+ full-time employees and two offices. 

Laura’s early career in medical research focused on vaccine trials, molecular virology, stem cell biology, transplant/oncology, and cellular assays. Her past roles include Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for Prodesse, a company she co-founded, which make molecular infectious disease diagnostic products and is now part of Hologic. Laura currently serves as the AUTM Board representative for the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals (ATTP).

For more than 10 years, Almesha served as the Director for Tech Transfer at JSU. She provides strategic direction and vision for defining partnerships in commercialization and innovation initiatives between JSU and other institutions, funding agencies, and industry stakeholders. She is the PI for the NSF-funded JSU I-Corps Site and an NSF EAGER grant designed to help change the perception of underrepresented minorities in innovation and entrepreneurship. She was instrumental in the development of the newly established Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at JSU.

Doug has 30 years of global forensic accounting and higher education expertise. He performs internal investigations at Stanford University, conducts royalty audits, and testifies as an expert in accounting matters. Doug has 18 years of experience with the “Big 4” accounting firms, and has run a successful forensic accounting practice since 2008. 

Doug joined AUTM in the mid-1990s while performing royalty audits for Stanford, MIT, FSU, and other research institutions. Doug has served on the Finance, Membership, and Audit Committees, and presented royalty audit topics at the Annual Meeting.

Doug has knowledge and skills related to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (“GAAP”) and Generally Accepted Auditing Standards.

Hannah has spoken on, and moderated, panels at numerous regional and annual AUTM meetings, as well as other US and international IP-focused events; co-chaired the 2017 and 2018 AUTM Western Region Meeting committees; and served on AUTM’s Model IIA and Job Task Analysis committees. She is also a registered US patent agent.

Joy brings important skills and experience to the position with a background in technology transfer for the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. He has managed public-private partnership efforts in technological areas that include several disciplines in engineering, computer sciences, medical devices, data-management, and research tools at several corporate and academic organizations.

Joy is a Registered Patent Agent for the US Patent & Trademark Office. He is also a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR/STTR) reviewer for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a Howard Bremer Scholar, conferred by AUTM. Joy earned his Registration as a Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) from the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals. 

Alice has over 20 years of experience in university tech transfer and business development. She started as a licensing officer with hands-on management of invention portfolios, negotiations of complex deals, and engagement with startup companies. She rose through the ranks of CTL and became the Executive Director in 2014. Prior to joining Cornell, Alice was an R&D manager at BioArray Solutions, a startup biotech company in diagnostics that was later acquired by Immucor. During her five-year tenure there, the company grew from a two-person startup to an enterprise of fifty people. Alice is also an inventor, patent holder, and author of research papers in scientific journals.

Andy’s activities have taken him from an engineering start-up (where he built a company from two to 14 employees) to academic roles in both university and research foundation settings. Andy manages an office of 25 full time and 4-5 part-time employees that are responsible for all technology commercialization, small business support, incubation, acceleration, and SBIR/STTR activities of the LSU Flagship campus in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
 
Andy has been involved in the AUTM Valuation Committee as a Member since 2015 and the Chair from 2016 to 2020. He is also involved in the Essentials Committee as a Member since 2016, as well as the Job Task Analysis Committee Chair since mid-2019. Andy lectures on the topics of intellectual property valuation, economic impact, technology licensing, and technology commercialization all over the world.

Prior to joining LifeArc, she worked for several leading establishments, including The Wellcome Trust and St George’s University of London, working at the forefront of academic translational research and knowledge transfer policy. A proponent for professional advancement in technology transfer, Anji directs the LifeArc AUTM Tech Transfer Fellowship, a programme designed to train and assist scientists to become TT professionals, and she is the skills lead for the UK’s recently launched Innovation Hubs for Gene Therapy. An advocate of equality diversity and Inclusion, Anji cofounded Global Equality, Diversity and Equality in Technology Transfer (GEDITT), an initiative missioned to raise awareness and promote EDI in the TT sector. Anji serves as VP of Communities on the ASTP Board, a member of the BioIndustry Association (BIA) Cell & Gene Therapy Advisory Committee, and the AUTM Equity, Diversity & Inclusivity Committee.
 

She has been involved with AUTM for over 25 years, having served on the Central Region Planning committee (10 years), the Crop Productivity Partnering forum planning committee, in helping to coordinate the Plant Special Interest group at the AUTM Annual Meeting, and in supporting diversity initiatives for women inventors and entrepreneurs. She has presented on current issues more than 25 times for AUTM, and represents more than 40 technology transfer institutions both in the US and abroad.  

In 2018, Heidi was appointed by the US Secretary of Agriculture to serve on the USDA PVP Advisory Board. She was also part of the litigation team that handled the United States Supreme Court case JEM v Pioneer which confirmed utility patent eligibility for plant varieties.  

In addition to being an active participant and partner in economic development activities that support innovation in the City of Greater Sudbury, Gisele led the creation of a post-secondary entrepreneurship support program which provided resources to students in the City’s colleges and university. She is also a member of, and volunteer with, the Canadian Tech Transfer Professionals and the Ontario Research and Commercialization Alliance, serving as a steering committee member, panelist at meetings, and organizer of professional development sessions and meetings.  A Member of AUTM since 2008, she began serving on its Board of Directors in 2020.
 

His focus is on the development of the innovation ecosystem at and around IST Austria and across Austria. He started his career in venture investing with Safeguard Scientifics’ International Fund and the European Investment Fund, where he helped build EIF’s LP investment franchise. Markus graduated from MIT’s Sloan School of Management and WU Wien (MBA), TU Wien (MSc) and HEC Paris (CEMS). He is a proud father of two and an avid choir singer.