The University has hired Katherine Gordon to oversee the development and marketing of products based on faculty research.
Gordon, a former director of business development at Harvard, is the managing director of the Technology Ventures Office, a subsection of the Office of the Vice President for Research that facilitates contact between Brown faculty and industry partners.
At Harvard, Gordon worked in a similar position, supervising the development and commercialization of new technologies, attaining product licenses and establishing start-up companies. Before her five years at Harvard, Gordon was a consultant for early-stage biomedical companies and launched her own company, Apollo BioPharmaceutics.
"Dr. Gordon brings experience both from having started her own company, from her experience in the technology transfer office at Harvard, and her own background in the life sciences," Vice President for Research Clyde Briant wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Bringing Gordon to Brown represents a continuation of recent attempts by the University to increase the resources available to faculty researchers as they enter the market.
To improve the prospects for new products, Gordon and her office will work with the Rhode Island Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which opened this past spring and works with the faculty of state colleges and universities, researchers and entrepreneurs who seek to start businesses in Rhode Island.
"On a micro scale, what we're trying to do is reinvigorate things, get to know the faculty, the research directions, make sure that people know we're here," Gordon said.
As the year progresses, Gordon said she hopes to obtain patents, strike deals and start businesses.
"We hope to see Brown commercialize the appropriate intellectual property that is created at Brown, to license that technology and to have that intellectual property lead to start-up companies where appropriate," Briant wrote.
Gordon described her first month as "great."
"I found everybody to be really receptive," she said. People have been "interested in gathering information on our new directions" and "meeting and talking about our new ideas," she added.
