Our Board of Directors

Laura Savatski
Chair

Laura Savatski, MBA, CLP, RTTP - Chair

Laura is the Technology Transfer Officer for the non-profit organization Versiti | Blood Research Institute. In this role, she is responsible for technology protection, commercialization, and partnership development. Laura has a diverse background as a research scientist, entrepreneur, and start-up advisor, and broad experience bringing inventions to market.

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).

+1-414-937-3833
LSavatski@Versiti.org

Marc Sedam
Immediate Past Chair

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Marc Sedam, MBA, RTTP - Immediate Past Chair

Marc is the Vice Provost for Innovation and New Ventures of UNHInnovation. He joined UNH in 2010. Marc has an extensive background in intellectual asset management, licensing, and start-up formation. In addition to his position with UNH, he was the founding director of the Peter T. Paul Entrepreneurship Center and serves as the Executive Director of the New Hampshire Innovation Research Center, New Hampshire’s only translational research funding program. Marc is currently the Principal Investigator of UNH’s National Science Foundation I-Corps Site.

Marc served on the Board of Directors of NHICC/AlphaLoft from 2011 to 2016, and as Vice-Chair of the Board of Alpha Loft from 2014 to 2015. He has been a member of the NH Governor’s “Live Free and Start” advisory council, an initiative designed to help high tech companies succeed in New Hampshire, since its inception in 2014, and also serves as an advisor to the boards of two non-profits founded at UNH: Operation Hat Trick and PLAN (Post-Landfill Action Network). Marc previously served on the AUTM Board of Directors from 2015 to 2016 as the Vice President for Professional Development, responsible for AUTM’s education and training activities.

+1-603-862-4130
marc.sedam@unh.edu

Ian McClure
Incoming Chair

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Ian McClure, JD, LLM - Incoming Chair

Ian McClure is the Associate Vice President for Research (AVPR), Innovation and Economic Impact for UK Innovate at the University of Kentucky (UK) where he leads efforts to translate UK discoveries for the public good, seek equitable returns on UK intellectual property, develop innovative approaches to develop, fund and support opportunities for near-stage research, seek grant funding to enhance UK’s investments in innovation, and expand industry and other collaborative research programs with UK Research and in Kentucky more broadly.

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.

+1-859-323-1054
ian.mcclure@uky.edu

Doug Aguilera, CPA, CFF, CFE, CGMA
Treasurer

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Doug Aguilera, CPA, CFF, CFE, CGMA - Treasurer

Doug started his career as an auditor at Arthur Andersen in 1990 and became a licensed CPA. He has earned the Certified in Financial Forensics, the Chartered Global Management Accountant, and the Certified Fraud Examiner designations.

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.

Almesha L. Campbell, PhD
Director

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Almesha L. Campbell, PhD - Director

Almesha L. Campbell, PhD, is the Assistant Vice President for Research and Economic Development at Jackson State University. In this capacity, she supports the Vice President with overall responsibility for the Division of Research and Economic Development, which oversees grants and contracts, sponsored programs, research compliance, tech transfer, federal relations, and the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

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.

Hannah Dvorak Carbone
Director

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Hannah Dvorak Carbone, PhD - Director

Hannah is the Director for Innovation, Patents & Licensing in the Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Partnerships (OTTCP) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She earned her PhD in biology at Caltech and, after several years as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in Toronto, joined OTTCP in 2007. She supports Caltech’s Chief Innovation Officer in strategic planning and oversight of OTTCP’s operations, and has managed intellectual property portfolios for Caltech in a range of technical fields including materials science, imaging, neurobiology, and microfluidics.

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.

+1-626-395-2381
hannah@caltech.edu

Joy Goswami, MS, MBA, RTTP
Director

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Joy Goswami, MS, MBA, RTTP - Director

Joy is the Assistant Director of the Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships, where he oversees and manages technology transfer activities and corporate partnerships for the University of Delaware. Among his other roles, Joy is actively involved in managing intellectual property, assisting in establishing startup and spin-off companies, and bringing forth university-industry collaborations and partnerships.

He has more than 20 years of experience in the field of business development, and a career that has produced highly regarded commercialization strategies and outreach practices of novel technologies in the chemical engineering, biotechnology, agriculture and bio-medical sectors. Joy is a Registered Patent Agent for the US Patent & Trademark Office. He is also a SBIR/STTR reviewer for NIH and a Howard Bremer Scholar, conferred by AUTM. He earned his certification as a Technology Transfer Professional (RTTP) from the Alliance of Technology Transfer Professionals.

Andrew Maas
Director

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Andrew Maas, JD, LLM, RTTP - Director

Andy is the Associate Vice President for Research and Director of the Office of Innovation and Technology Commercialization at Louisiana State University and he has over ten years of experience in technology licensing and commercialization.

Andy’s activities have taken him from 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 6 full time and 4-5 part-time employees that are responsible for all technology commercialization 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 between 2016 and 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.

+1-225-439-3477
andrewm@lsu.edu

Heidi S. Nebel
Director

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Heidi S. Nebel, JD, BS - Director

Heidi is the Managing Member and Chair of the Biotechnology & Chemical practice group at McKee, Voorhees & Sease, PLC., a boutique patent firm located in Des Moines, Iowa.

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.

+1-515-288-3667 ext. 5935
Heidi.Nebel@ipmvs.com

John Ritter, MBA, JD
Director

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John Ritter, MBA, JD - Director

John is the director of the Office of Technology Licensing at Princeton University, and has been working in academic technology licensing for more than 25 years. At Princeton, John manages a group of nine and has overall responsibility for protecting and commercializing all of Princeton’s intellectual property. Prior to his career in technology commercialization, John worked in industry in a variety of sales and marketing positions.

John has lectured and consulted worldwide on technology licensing and intellectual property issues and is a published author in numerous peer review journals. A member since 1992, John previously served on the Board of Directors of AUTM as the Vice President of Metrics and Surveys from 2014-2015.

+1-609-258-1570
jritter@princeton.edu

Gisele Roberts
Director

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Gisele Roberts, MBA - Director

Gisele is the Manager for Innovation and Commercialization at Laurentian University, joining Laurentian in 2007. Since taking on this role, she has acquired extensive experience in the support of university research and commercialization. Responsible for managing the disclosure, protection and commercialization of intellectual property created at the university, she successfully negotiated Laurentian’s first license agreement subsequently leading to the university’s first issued patents and royalties. Gisele was also instrumental in the creation of Laurentian University’s inaugural innovation and entrepreneurship center and currently has oversight for the Jim Fielding Innovation and Commercialization Space, responsible for all programming and operations since opening in the fall of 2018.

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.

+1-705-690-3153
groberts@laurentian.ca

Tari Suprapto, PhD, RTTP
Director

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Tari Suprapto, PhD, RTTP - Director

Tari Suprapto is currently part of a search and evaluation team at Elanco Animal Health, an innovative company that strongly supports academic-industry relationships. Prior to joining Elanco, she spent 17 years in academic technology transfer at research-oriented institutions of high repute, including Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, The Rockefeller University, and The Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Markus J. Wanko
Director

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Markus J. Wanko, MBA, MSc, Mag. - Director

Markus is the Managing Director of IST Austria’s technology transfer company TWIST. Before joining IST Austria in 2014, he pursued a career in principal investment and management consulting. Markus was Investment Director at QIA, where he built the direct investment verticals in energy and industrials and Principal and Recruiting Director at the Boston Consulting Group. In addition to his position with IST Austria, he is Founder and Managing Partner of IST cube, a venture fund initiated by IST Austria and private investors.

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.

+43-2243-9000-0
markus.wanko@ist.ac.at