What is your current state of mind?
Optimistic honestly; although there are a number of challenges we as a society are dealing with (pandemic, inequality, climate change, etc.), my view is this is also a time of immense opportunity. We have the chance to be thoughtful in addressing these challenges, try new approaches without being afraid to fail, and adjust our trajectory moving forward. Change is often a bit messy, but I firmly believe we will better for having been through these challenges and changes than had we simply stayed on our current path. Of course, that doesn’t mean any of it is easy. Somedays there are bigger hills to climb than others. But each day I find myself thinking that we are here to help one another, and in that thought I find the motivation to get up that hill, however high it might be.

Which living person do you most admire?
Tough question, there are so many. Honestly, I find something I admire in almost everyone I meet, so boiling it down a single individual is hard. How about an answer everyone can get behind? America’s sweetheart Betty White – talented, funny, smart, giving, kind, and still honing her craft in her 90’s – lots of admirable qualities to aspire to!
 
What is your greatest extravagance?
Easy – travel! To me travel is so enriching that it is worth whatever it costs. The opportunity to meet others, learn, see, and experience is unparalleled. 

What is one item that you have recently crossed off your bucket list?
Staying with the travel theme – visiting all 50 states. I completed my 50th in October 2019 with a visit to Denver, Colorado to see the Chiefs play the Broncos (go Chiefs!). Seeing the splendor and diversity of the United States, its people, its geography, is quite humbling. It reminded me that as exciting as travel across the globe might be, seeing your own country from end-to-end is well worth the effort and shouldn’t be discounted. I can honestly say that I enjoyed every state visited and came away with a much better appreciation and understanding of this country and its people.

What is your ultimate comfort food?
Nothing fancy - ice cream (always has been as far back as I can remember); a good burger would be a close second.

What is your favorite movie and why?
The Godfather (or Godfather II), it is simply a great story told and acted by a group of supremely talented individuals. So many quotable lines too!

If you could be one celebrity for a whole day, who would you be?
As long as we are counting athletes as celebrities, I’d say some time spent in Roger Federer’s tennis shoes wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a day. 

What is your greatest regret? 
This one really made me think – I tend not to focus on regrets for long and instead try and get myself back moving forward (even easier these days when there are so many things vying for our attention). Not sure if it is the greatest, but a big regret of mine is not staying proficient in a foreign language. It seems like such a waste in hindsight to put time and effort into building such a valuable skill and then let it whither on the vine. Maybe that aligns with my love of travel as well?

What (or who) lured you into tech transfer and what makes you stay?
What lured me in were certainly very practical considerations – I was finishing my PhD and was not interested in taking a post doc. I knew to be competitive outside of a traditional academic role I needed to add skills to my repertoire and after hearing a panel discussion about intellectual property thought the “IP” office would be a place to look (ok, to beg) for an internship opportunity. With the office on campus, it would be easier to coordinate with finishing up work in the lab. Little did I know that it would lead me into a career I love. What has kept me in tech transfer all these years are two equally important things: First are people – that means my colleagues, my employees, the faculty and business – people I work with – all of them. Every day I get to work with talented and bright individuals and every day they teach me something new. Second is the “mission,” and by mission I mean in the broadest sense that we are here to facilitate research discoveries that have real world impact and to be the “grease” between the gears that gets an opportunity of potential value moving forward. Each day we tech transfer professionals can go to bed thinking that whatever we touched that day (a patent, a contract, a conversation) might eventually lead to a life changed for the better. For me that is very powerful.