DOROTHY H. AIR, PhD is Associate Vice President for Entrepreneurial Affairs and Technology Commercialization at the University of Cincinnati. Her primary responsibilities include over-site of all operations relating to commercialization of University technology, assisting faculty in start-up company activity, facilitating university industry partnerships; developing a network of commercialization/business resources for the university; and developing entrepreneurial training programs to promote entrepreneurship in the university and community. Her accomplishments include: PI on a Pre-seed Fund grant by ODOD Third Frontier Program for $1.1 million; author of $7 million ODOD Research and Development Center Attraction Proposal; PI on a $600,000 NSF Grant, Cincinnati Creates Companies, which includes an educational and mentoring program for entrepreneurs and a business plan competition; and Senior Investigator on a $27 million grant from ODOD Third Frontier to establish the Center for Computational Medicine as well as a $10 million NIBIB grant for a Point of Care Center for Emergent Neuro Technologies. She is currently launching a new initiative, the UC Technology Commercialization Accelerator, which will provide the infrastructure for commercialization of early stage technologies and start-up company spin outs. Dr. Air was a co-founder of SoundingBoard and serves on the Board of Directors of Hamilton County Business Center and Greater Cincinnati Venture Association. Past Board appointments include BioStart and the Edison Materials Technology Center. Dr. Air was the initiator of the Ohio Valley Affiliates for Life Sciences (OVALS), a consortium of 5 universities in Ohio and Kentucky and several economic development entities to create university-industry networking opportunities and visibility for the research and commercialization capabilities in the region. She has served as the chair of the effort for the last ten years. In 2005, she was appointed by the University of Cincinnati as a loaned executive to CincyTechUSA, where she serves as Vice President of Operations for part of her time. Her responsibilities at CincyTech include developing entrepreneurial resources and identifying and developing technology business opportunities. She is a member of the 3-person leadership team that developed CincyTech’s Entrepreneurial Signature Program Proposal, which has now received over $20 million in grant awards from the State of Ohio.  In 2006, she was recognized by Women’s Business Cincinnati as one of the Top 10 Women in Technology in the Cincinnati Region, and she is the recipient of the 2007 Leading Women of Greater Cincinnati for Entrepreneurship. Dr. Air serves on the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Board, an entity of significant regional economic importance.

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Connie Armentrout is the Director of Licensing-University Relationships at Monsanto Company.  She supports the Technology (discovery) segment of Monsanto by gaining access to university technologies through material transfers and option and license agreements.  In addition, she is responsible for any transactions required to fund research at universities, both basic and applied, as well as agreements for university services.  Connie also supports the Technology segment by negotiating consulting agreements with academics that participate in various Monsanto activities.  Federal grants, CRADAs, material transfers, etc. are also part of Connie’s activities. 

Prior to coming to Monsanto in September of 2001, Connie was the Director of Technology Development at the University of Oklahoma where she established a new office along with all of the relative processes and procedures.  Connie was the Director of the University Patents and Licensing Office at the University of Missouri System from 1988-1999.  She was the Industry Contract Liaison for the Office of Sponsored Research at the University of Missouri – Columbia for eight years prior to moving to the Patents and Licensing Office.  Connie is a member of and has served in Regional and National Board positions for the Association of University Technology Managers and the National Council of Research Administrators.  In addition, she is a member of the Licensing Executive Society.

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Elaine L. Brock, has been a research administrator at the University of Michigan for almost 30 years, She was formerly the Senior Associate Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects and was the inaugural Director of the Medical School Office of Technology Transfer and Corporate Research. Within ORSP, Brock was responsible for the University-wide pre-award office including oversight of all aspect of sponsored projects administration.  She has served on statewide, regional, and national committees developing policies and procedures affecting university-industry interactions and is a frequent presenter on conflict of interest and others aspects of industry-university relationships.
Brock was also Director of the caBIG® Data Sharing and Intellectual Capital Knowledge Center supported by the National Cancer Institute to expand discussion about data sharing and develop approaches to reducing identified barriers. Brock has served on the Contracts and Intellectual Property Committee and the Board of Directors of the Council on Governmental Relations. She is an active participant in the University Industry Demonstration Partnership. Brock has a B.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo, an M.H.S.A. from the University of Michigan, and a J.D. from Michigan State University College of Law.  She is licensed to practice law in the State of Michigan.

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Dr. Eli Capilouto became the 12th President of the University of Kentucky on July 1, 2011.

A native of Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. Capilouto previously served as Provost of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and Dean of the UAB School of Public Health -- a period of remarkable growth and transformation at one of the leading academic and health sciences institutions in the South.

During his tenure at UAB, Dr. Capilouto helped lead the adoption of the University's Strategic Plan, an integrated and more transparent budgeting system and continued increases in research funding for an institution that is one of the nation's leading public medical and health sciences' campuses. An accomplished scholar, Dr. Capilouto has published numerous articles, abstracts and book chapters in a long academic career in health and higher education policy.

Passionate about public health and community engagement, Dr. Capilouto contributes his time to national boards and local philanthropy agencies. He recently served on the National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council of the National Institutes of Health and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Council on Academic Affairs of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities. He was a member of the Pew Health Professions Advisory Panel for Dentistry and has served as a consultant to the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine and the American Association of Academic Health Centers.

In Birmingham, Dr. Capilouto served in leadership roles on the boards of the YMCA, Red Cross, Ronald McDonald House, and his temple. Additionally, he served eight years on the Mountain Brook City Schools Board of Education and is the current past-president of the Kiwanis Club of Birmingham, the largest Kiwanis Club in the world. He also is a member of the A+ College Ready Managing Board that oversees a state-wide initiative to increase Advanced Placement success among high school students. In 2008, he received the National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ) Brotherhood-Sisterhood Award for Outstanding Community Service.

Dr. Capilouto received his bachelor’s, Master’s in Epidemiology, and Doctor of Dental Medicine degree from schools within the University of Alabama system. In 1991, he earned his Doctorate in Health Policy and Management from the Harvard University School of Public Health.

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Kristina A. Chinn is a Senior Procurement Agent for The Boeing Company in Engineering, Operations and Technology (EO&T).  Ms. Chinn has over 4 years of experience at Boeing in Supplier Management negotiating university agreements, collaboration agreements, joint development agreements and license agreements in support of research and development.  In her current role, Ms. Chinn supports university strategy and agreement negotiations for the Boeing enterprise.  In addition, Ms. Chin is an Intellectual Property Subject Matter Expert for Boeing Research & Technology Supplier Management.  Before joining Boeing, Ms. Chinn was a senior procurement manager at Cadence Design Systems with responsibility for the management and negotiation of software license agreements for the company.

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Heidi Ciha is a Program Manager, Global University Relations (GUR),  and has the responsibility for establishing and managing a university relations network and function at John Deere across multiple internal stakeholder groups.  Heidi’s regions of focus include North and South America.

Heidi joined John Deere Horicon Works in June 1998 in the Human Resource Department as a Sr. Human Resource Representative.  Heidi has held a variety of Unit HR generalist roles as well as specialist roles within Human Resources including US Recruiting and Staffing, Career Development and Global Performance Management.  Prior to coming to Deere, Heidi worked in Human Resources for four years in the service and consulting industries. 

Heidi received a Bachelor of Business Administration in 1994 from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, with a double major in Human Resource Management and Management Information Systems.  In 2009, Heidi completed an Executive MBA at the University of Iowa.

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Brian Cummings, Vice President of Technology Commercialization and Knowledge Transfer at The Ohio State University, joined us on June 1, 2011. Brian is responsible for coordinating all aspects of knowledge transfer and technology development with a special focus on building a pro-active and responsive culture. In addition, he will assist in the initial stages of idea formation, technology assessment, start-up creation, licensing, funding and ultimately a positive outcome for the university and the state of Ohio.

Previously, Brian was Executive Director of the Technology Commercialization Office at the University of Utah and Associate Vice President for Technology Ventures. While there, his office successfully started over 115 new technology-based companies, 78% of which have received initial seed, venture, or corporate funding. Brian was also President of a university-based personalized medicine company and has assisted in the set up and establishment of three new venture capital funds. Previously, Brian led the life science commercialization efforts at the University of Texas. Brian serves on the Board for the Utah Life Science Association, Catheter Connections, Alta Innovation Network, the Rocky Mountain Research Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases, the Governor’s Board for Business Resource Centers, the Kickstart Seed Fund, the Renaissance Foundation, and the Licensing Executives Society (LES) Board for Technology Commercialization Structure and Development.

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Dr. Johannes Dapprich is founder and president of Generation Biotech, a New Jersey company focused on selective DNA capture and complex genome analysis.  Funded by >$3M in private funding, fee-for-service, NIH SBIR grants and strategic collaborations and out-licensing, GB has commercialized technology for the reduction of genomic complexity and tissue typing through collaborative work with Princeton, Rider and Rutgers Universities, GenoVision / Qiagen and the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. 

Johannes has extensive experience with university / industry relations and tech transfer issues also through his engagement with the University Industry Development Partnership (UIDP), where he serves as the co-chair of the CDA Contract Accord Working Group and program manager for a collaboration reference tool, previously called TurboNegotiator.  See collabref.org

The program is an interactive reference tool that helps educate parties new to tech transfer, such as small businesses, and streamlines  consensus building in industry / academic negotiations by addressing issues - such as sponsored project agreements, IP protection, ownership, patenting and licensing, commercial terms, government rights and export control. 

In his prior position at Orchid BioSciences, Dapprich’s R&D group was instrumental in converting a manual genotyping assay into the automated SNPstream platform running on standard lab robotics.  He joined Orchid from SEQ Ltd., a pioneer company attempting to build a single molecule DNA sequencer.  Prior to SEQ, he worked at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and received his Ph.D. from the University of Göttingen / Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry where he worked on in-vitro molecular evolution in the group of Nobel Laureate Manfred Eigen.  His Diplom in physics is from the University of Darmstadt and University of Florida, Gainesville.

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Dr. Karl Dawson is the new Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Research for Alltech Inc. and directs activities at the company’s Biosciences centers around the world.  He oversees the administration and scientific programs in a research department that has more than 60 employees.  He also oversees the company’s external contract research and stipend programs for 55 graduate students around the world.

His research has focused on strategies for improving animal performance and health by altering microbial activities in the gastrointestinal tract.  Studies in his laboratory have examined microbial population changes and activities in ruminants, horses, pigs, and poultry. Dr. Dawson is a co-director of Alltech Center for Nutrigenomics and Applied Animal Nutrition.

Karl Dawson is an Adjunct Professor of Nutritional Microbiology and served as director of the Nutritional Microbiology laboratory in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Kentucky for 20 years.   He has also served as the Research Coordinator for the Department of Animal Sciences and Chair of Agricultural Biotechnology Coordinating Committee at the University of Kentucky.  He has a B.S. degree in Bacteriology from Utah State University, an M.S. degree in Microbiology from the University of Wyoming, and a Ph. D. in Bacteriology from Iowa State University.   He worked for two years as a microbiologist at the National Animal Disease Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and was employed by the University of Kentucky for 21 years.

In recent years, Dr. Dawson has developed a research program looking at strategies for improving ethanol production and the use of distillery products in sustainable agricultural systems.  He has been one of the key architects of Alltech’s Biorefinery initiative and helped coordinate the recently successful Department of Energy proposal for demonstrating the productions of ethanol from lignocellulosic substrates. 

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David Erem is currently an Associate Director and Manager of Industry Contracts in the Office of Sponsored Programs at the University of Kentucky.  In addition to overseeing all industry related research contracts and grants ranging from engineering and materials science to clinical trials, he advises the campus on questions of Industry Collaboration, Intellectual Property, Export Compliance and Security.   He holds numerous degrees, including an MBA and a Masters in Contracts & Acquisitions management from the Florida Institute of Technology.  He has been involved in  both industry and university contracts management, including many years in government/defense contracting at Harris Corporation, Boeing, and Johnson Controls World Services in addition to positions in contracts and grants administration at Northwestern University, Oregon Health Sciences University, University of Central Florida and Georgia Tech.   Erem provides staff training on negotiation techniques, Intellectual Property, Export Compliance, contract analysis and drafting, FAR & DFAR.  He has presented on various topics at NCURA National and Regional meetings.

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Jilda Garton joined Georgia Tech as the Associate Vice Provost for Research and General Manager of Georgia Tech Research Corporation on February 1, 1998.  As General Manager, Ms. Garton is responsible for the financial and business affairs of GTRC, including licensing of the intellectual property created at Georgia Tech.  The Office of Technology Licensing manages patenting and licensing activities for over 400 invention disclosures per year.  As the Associate Vice Provost for Research, Ms. Garton directs activities of the Office of Sponsored Program and the Office of Research Compliance.  Those responsibilities include identifying sponsored research opportunities, proposal processing, negotiation, award and post-award administration of contracts and subcontracts.  The Office of Research Compliance supports the Institutional Review Board, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, the Institutional Biosafety and Committee, and export compliance for research.

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Jim Gray's vision as mayor of Lexington is to build a Great American City.

 The former CEO of Gray Construction, one of the nation’s leading designers and builders of large-scale manufacturing facilities, Gray has brought a businessman’s approach to city government by creating strong financial and operational management systems and making strategic investments in planning and development initiatives across the City.

 Since taking office in January 2011, Gray has addressed an immediate short-term budget deficit of $9 million; as well as the next year’s $27 million deficit, an amount equal to 10% of the City's General Fund Budget. Savings came through tough cuts and innovative solutions … eliminating non-essential positions; achieving contractual concessions from union groups; asking employees to shoulder more of the cost of their health insurance while investing in a cost-cutting health clinic and pharmacy dedicated to employees and their dependents; smart city investments leveraging private, state and federal grants; and several other efficiency improvements. As a result, Lexington has a leaner and smarter government while continuing to protect the public and provide quality city services.
 
 The Mayor is making progress despite the tough times, bringing new opportunities, new vision and new leadership to Lexington by:

• Leading the charge to invest in the Lexington brand by redefining downtown, centered around an arts and cultural district starring a reinvented Rupp Arena.
• Trading old rivalries for a new cooperative spirit through an economic development partnership with Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer to create a world-class advanced manufacturing and technology super-region.
• Creating a fertile environment to grow the city’s quality of life and with it to grow jobs and bring in new companies. 

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Dr. Eric A. Grulke is the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Engineering, University of Kentucky and a Professor of Chemical and Materials Engineering.  Dr. Grulke received the BS, MS and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from The Ohio State University.

His thirty year professional career spans the field of chemical engineering both in industry and in academia.  In industry, he researched an environmentally-friendly route for a specialty polymer, and installed the technology into an existing manufacturing plant.

Dr. Grulke also served as a Congressional Engineering Fellow in the office of Senator Carl Levin, Michigan.  He has authored more than one hundred forty articles in leading scientific journals and has mentored students to forty graduate degrees.
 
Dr. Grulke’s 15-year tenure at Michigan State University included three years as the College of Engineering’s Associate Dean for Research as well as joint appointments in Food Science and Agricultural Engineering.  He joined the University of Kentucky as chair of the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering in 1993. At UK, he has served as the Director of the University’s Electron Microscope Center and as Associate Director of the Center for Applied Energy Research.

He is the senior U.S. editor of Polymer Handbook, now in its fourth edition, has been awarded three U.S. patents, and is a registered professional engineer in the states of Ohio and Michigan.  He is an evaluator of chemical engineering programs for ABET and has served on review panels for agencies such as DOE, NSF, NASA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He holds professional memberships in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Chemical Society, American Society of Engineering Education, and MRS (Materials Research Society).  He is the director of the Department of Energy (DOE)-EPSCoR program for Kentucky. He is a member of the ANSI-Accredited U.S. Technical Advisory Group (TAG) to the ISO Technical Committee (TC) 229 which sets global standards for nanotechnology measurement and instrumentation. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Engineering Research Council.

Dr. Grulke’s research laboratory is focused on complex nanoparticles for nanofluid, nanocomposite, and environmental health and safety applications.  Currently, he is developing an innovation ecosystem for medical devices at the University of Kentucky in connection with its Center for Clinical Translational Science. 

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Dean Harvey is Executive Director of the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Kentucky.  The Von Allmen Center is the nexus for startup companies at UK and in the Bluegrass Region. Under Mr. Harvey’s leadership, the Von Allmen Center was the catalyst behind the formation of the Lexington Venture Club, the Bluegrass Angels and the Bluegrass Angel Venture Funds.  Mr. Harvey has over 30 years of technical and business experience in both large and small companies. He was Vice President of Business Development and Advanced Technologies for Octave Communications, a New Hampshire startup company.  He was General Manager of Collaborative Conferencing Solutions for Lucent Technologies, where he was a charter member of Lucent’s visual communications team.  Mr. Harvey started his career with Bell Laboratories after earning a B.S. from Iowa State University and a M.S. from Stanford University. 

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Shawn Hawkins is the Associate Director of the Office of Technology Licensing at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. She has 16 years of experience in the technology licensing field and became Associate Director in 2000. Her duties include triage of invention disclosures, overseeing patent prosecution, marketing and licensing St. Jude intellectual property and representing St. Jude in national, state and local technology transfer issues. Before joining the Office of Technology Licensing, Shawn worked in research at St. Jude and with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
She received a BS in biology from Arkansas State University, obtained a MBA from the University of Memphis and became a registered patent agent in 2002.
Shawn is the immediate past AUTM Vice President for Metrics and Surveys and previously served on the audit committee and chaired the 2008 Salary Survey committee. She is currently a member of the AUTM licensing and salary survey committees. She is also a member of the Licensing Executives Society.

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Thomas Hedman, Ph.D., is an Associate Research Professor in the Center for Biomedical Engineering and in the Neurosurgery Department at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Hedman is active in translational research and technology commercialization.  He is the founder and current CEO of Orthopeutics, L.P. and founder of several other small medical technology companies.

The treatment strategy pioneered by Dr. Hedman involves direct chemical modification of the extracellular matrix of collagenous connective tissues to achieve improvements in mechanical properties. His research team has shown that this approach has the potential to revolutionize the care, and the cost for care, for a wide variety of diseases. Current application areas for this novel technique include: spinal disc degeneration, spinal deformity, knee meniscus tears, flaccid soft palate in snoring and obstructive sleep apnea, and equine ligament and tendon tears.

Dr. Hedman has more than 65 peer-reviewed publications. He holds more than 30 issued or pending US and international patents and has received research funding from the NIH, the Arthritis Society of Canada, the Kentucky SBIR-STTR Matching Funds Program, angel investors, and numerous orthopaedic medical device companies.

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John Hillenbrand is the vice president and chief innovation officer of Owens Corning, a world leader in building materials and composite systems and solutions.  For the past 4 years, Mr. Hillenbrand has led the global Science and Technology organization in developing new innovations that deliver differential value to Owens Corning’s customers.   Prior to joining Owens Corning, Mr. Hillenbrand spent 23 years with DuPont, working in a variety of global business, technology, and operations roles in Delaware, Texas and Virginia.  His most recent role was vice president, innovation and technology for DuPont Packaging & Industrial Polymers, based in Wilmington, Del., United States.  Mr. Hillenbrand also led DuPont Ventures, a business unit that sought out and partnered with entrepreneurial companies to create growth opportunities for them and DuPont.  Mr. Hillenbrand earned a BS degree from Virginia Tech, and MS and PhD degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Penn., United States, all in chemical engineering.  

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Catherine Innes has over 20 years of experience in university technology transfer.  Most recently Cathy directed the 13-member Office of Technology Development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  In this role Cathy oversaw a portfolio of 2000 issued and pending patents, 400 license agreements, 60 startup companies and 1000 active biotechnology and physical science innovations.  Prior to this role, Cathy spent 14 years in the technology transfer offices at the University of Washington and the University of California where she managed a software and engineering portfolio and served as the university copyright officer.  She has a BS in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research from the University of California at Berkeley and spent ten years in business development and engineering roles in aerospace and computer industries before joining the field of academic technology transfer. 

Cathy served on the Contracts and Intellectual Property Committee for the Council on Government Relations (COGR) from 2005-2012 and has previously served on the board of trustees for the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) as Vice President for Communications.  She is also active in the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and is the incoming president of the RTP Chapter of the Licensing Executive Society (LES).  She is a frequent speaker on intellectual property management and licensing issues at conferences and events throughout the country and internationally. 

Her publications include:  AUTM Educational Series No. 4: Copyright Protection of Software, Multimedia and Other Works: and Author’s Guide, with Charles C. Valauskas; AUTM Educational Series No. 5: Development and Deployment of Digital Works in Universities: A Guide for Authors and Licensing Officers, with Charles C. Valauskas; and AUTM Educational Series No. 6: Academic Technology Transfer: Driving Public Use of University Research Results, with Howard Bremer and Christopher McKinney.

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Dr. Mark Johnson is manger in the Open Innovation group at MeadWestvaco’s Center for Packaging Innovation. He is responsible for technical analysis of intellectual property as part of MWV acquisition and licensing activities. With 23 years research experience at MWV, he has expertise in knowledge management, industrial enzymes, structured pigments, microencapsulation, color development, coating technology, drug delivery systems, nanomaterials and polymer synthesis. He has patents in the use of industrial enzymes, microencapsulation systems and cellulose nanofiber. Prior to joining MWV, he worked in pharmacology at St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Mark holds a B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Washington State University. 

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Jennifer Kovalcik is a member of the Intellectual Property and Technology Service Group in the firm's Nashville office. Her practice concentrates on designing and implementing intellectual property protection plans, enforcing intellectual property assets and software licensing.  Jennifer is involved in a variety of litigation in both federal and state courts.
Jennifer also prosecutes trademark and copyright registration applications, litigates trademark opposition and cancellation proceedings, handles domain name and internet content disputes, as well as negotiates and drafts licenses and other contracts that implicate intellectual property or technology rights.  She also interacts with U.S. Customs & Border Protection to enforce trademarks through seizure orders.

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Brent Lambert is Lexmark’s Chief Intellectual Property Counsel.  He and his team are responsible for managing all intellectual property matters for the company, including patents, trademarks, copyrights, licensing and other IP transactions, as well as IP litigation.  Brent joined Lexmark in 1998.  He previously worked in private practice at the law firm of Moore & Van Allen in Durham, North Carolina and as an engineer at Lockheed Martin in Orlando, Florida.  Brent received his J.D. from Duke University School of Law and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida.

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Linda Learned

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Paul R. Lowe is the Assistant Vice President for Research and Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs PreAward Services at Kansas State University.  Mr. Lowe has served K-State for over 25 years, assuming overall management responsibility and staff oversight for proposal development, contract development/negotiation, subcontracting and export control compliance operations during a period of growth in external funding exceeding 280%.   He assumes day to day management and oversight of all aspects of proposal development and submission and contract development and negotiation, assuming delegated university signature authority for these assignment areas.  Mr. Lowe has responsibility for developing and nurturing K-State's industry partnerships and for developing best practices for expediting the negotiation process through contract execution to secure a sustained and diverse portfolio of partnerships.

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Sharell L. Mikesell, Ph.D. was appointed Associate Vice President – Industry Liaison Office at The Ohio State University in December 2008. The Industry Liaison Office (ILO) was launched to facilitate seamless collaborations between industry and Ohio State researchers and foster economic development opportunities within Ohio and around the world. Dr. Mikesell was named the first Executive Director of the Ohio Polymer Strategy Council (OPSC) by Governor Taft in March 2001. In July 2005, Dr. Mikesell was appointed the Co-Director of the Center for Multifunctional Polymer Nanomaterials & Devices (CMPND), Ohio’s first state funded multi-university Wright Center of Innovation in nanotechnology. Prior to this appointment, he has been a successful senior executive with 30 years corporate leadership experience in global research & development and business operations. His background includes a breadth of polymer and material technologies with major companies:  GE, Owens-Corning and Advanced Elastomer Systems, L.P. (AES), an Exxon-Mobil subsidiary. 

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Warren O. Nash III is currently the Director of the Lexington Innovation and Commercialization Center which is a part of the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship at UK. Prior to that, Mr. Nash was the Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Commercialization and Innovation, where he helped to lead the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development’s efforts to recruit and support high-tech and knowledge-based companies. He previously served as the Cabinet’s Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Financial Incentives where he was involved in making grants to help new economy companies and other businesses locate and expand operations within the Commonwealth.

A graduate of Kentucky’s Georgetown College, Mr. Nash later also worked for that institution where he developed and implemented the college’s $96 million capital campaign as Director of Planned Giving and Senior Assistant to the President. After earning his law degree from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law and being admitted to the Kentucky Bar in 1985, he worked as an attorney for Kentucky’s Finance and Administration Cabinet.

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Dr. Nick Nikolaides received his Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Cornell University in 1989.  After a Postdoctoral Fellowship at The Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Nikolaides joined 3M Pharmaceuticals, where he contributed towards the design and synthesis of immune response modifiers as antiviral agents.  He then moved to Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals in 1994, where he spent the better part of 14 years in drug discovery targeting cardiovascular indications, launching an upstream chemical development group, and establishing a Competitive & Technical Intelligence function for P&G Global Health Care.  He currently leads P&G’s open innovation “Connect + Develop” business model across the global university and research institute landscape. 

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Taunya Phillips is the Assistant VP for Commercialization & Economic Development at the University of Kentucky where she has been an employee for 13 years.  She is currently focused on administration and commercialization of intellectual property. Previous positions at UK include CFO for Kentucky Technology, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of the UK Research Foundation; College of Engineering Lecturer; and Minority Engineering Program Director.  Prior to UK, Taunya worked for Milliken & Company, a chemical and textile manufacturer.  Positions there included production manager, process engineer, technical salesperson and marketing analyst & planner.  Taunya has a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and an MBA, both from the University of Kentucky.

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Hajo A. Reijers is the head of BPM research at Perceptive Software and a full professor with the department of Mathematics and Computer Science of Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. He is also a faculty member of the TiasNimbas Business school. Previously, he worked as a management consultant in the BPM field for Deloitte and Accenture. Hajo is also one of the founders of the Business Process Management Forum, a Dutch platform for the exchange of knowledge between industry and academia. The focus of Hajo's research and teaching is on business process redesign, workflow management,business process modeling, and simulation. On these topics, he published over 150 scientific papers, chapters in edited books,and articles in professional journals.

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Walt Robertson is an associate in the firm's Lexington office and a member of the Business & Corporate Services Group.  His practice focuses on equine law, commercial finance, corporate finance and securities, corporate general services and mergers and acquisitions. Walt has a lifetime of experience in the Thoroughbred horse industry, having worked on horse farms throughout school and then going to work for a leading Thoroughbred horse selling company in Eaton Sales and a leading auction company in Fasig Tipton.

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Paul Rooke is chairman and chief executive officer of Lexmark International, Inc. He became chairman of the Lexmark board of directors in April 2011 after being named president and CEO and elected to the board in October 2010.

Previously, Rooke was an executive vice president of Lexmark and served as president of the former Imaging Solutions Division (ISD) from July 2007 to October 2010. In that role, he was responsible for meeting the needs of Lexmark’s worldwide customers for inkjet printers, all-in-one products, and related supplies and support, including development, manufacturing, marketing and sales.
From December 1999 to July 2007, Rooke was president of Lexmark’s former Printing Solutions and Services Division. He was responsible for providing Lexmark’s worldwide business customers with products, supplies, software, solutions and services.
Rooke has been with Lexmark since its inception in 1991, holding various management positions. He began his career with IBM in 1980 as a manufacturing engineer.

Rooke holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Kentucky.

He serves on the boards of several nonprofit organizations including the University of Kentucky College of Business Advisory Board, the Business-Higher Education Forum and Bluegrass Economic Advancement Movement (BEAM).  

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Ben Self is a specialist in building successful online engagements between organizations and their customers or constituents.  In 2004, with four other veterans of Howard Dean’s Internet team, he founded Blue State Digital, a consulting firm that specializes in creating new media strategy and technology for political candidates, non-profits, and companies. Blue State Digital’s software and strategy powers the online presence of the largest and most prominent Democratic candidates and progressive organizations, including the presidential campaign of Barack Obama.  Blue State Digital also serves numerous non-profits and corporations, such as AT&T, the Red Cross, Madonna’s Raising Malawi, HBO, the Tony Awards, New York University, the Hearst Corporation, and the Sundance Film Festival.  Ben helped build the company to over 120 employees, hundreds of clients, and over 14 million dollars in revenue, before leaving in January of 2010 in order to spend more time in his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky.

During the 2008 election cycle, Ben Self also served as the DNC Technology Director, where, as a key member of the DNC’s senior staff, he supervised the technology projects of the national party – focusing specifically on the website, computer infrastructure, compliance software, and national voter file database.  In this role, Ben led projects that entirely revamped the technology of the DNC, including a complete replacement of the website and the Democratic Party’s national voter file (VoteBuilder).

During his career, Ben has garnered extensive experience in new media technologies, statistical data analysis, data warehousing, database architecture and administration, system design, and system development.  He has created data warehouses for a variety of industries, including health care, telecommunications, finance, and insurance. In these industries, he has worked at all levels of system development — from designing and writing the software itself to managing large teams responsible for developing systems to be used by tens of thousands of users. In addition to this work, Ben has performed extensive research and written a thesis on object-oriented design.

Ben has both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

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Dr. Rebecca Silveston-Keith

Throughout her career, she has led research in chemical thermodynamics, activated carbon, digital printing materials (toner, ink, photo paper), and imaging science.  She holds sixteen patent application and seven journals articles in these fields. With many new environments and technologies to master, she quickly realized the benefits of leveraging experts from Universities and other external entities.  Rebecca couples a current working knowledge of manufacturing engineering processes, its demands and challenges, with an ability to work across boundaries and cultures to drive  successful collaboration from the industrial perspective in her role as R&D sponsored research coordinator at Lexmark.

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Dr. Lee Todd earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from UK in 1968.  He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as a Hertz Foundation Fellow where he received his master's and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering in 1970 and 1973, respectively. While at MIT, he was awarded six U.S. patents for high-resolution display technology and proposed using telecommunications and high-resolution displays for data conferencing.

Dr. Todd returned to UK in 1974 as an electrical engineering professor where he had an active display devices research program. He won several teaching awards, including the UK Alumni Association Great Teacher Award. He also served on the University Senate for seven years. In 2001, he was awarded the Outstanding Alumnus of Kentucky Award from the Kentucky Advocates for Higher Education. Dr. Todd left UK in 1984 to found two technology-based companies in Lexington, Kentucky.  Projectron, Inc. designed, developed and manufactured projection cathode ray tubes for the flight simulation industry.  Projectron was acquired by Hughes Aircraft in 1990 and Dr. Todd became Vice President of Hughes Display Products.  DataBeam Corporation developed systems and software for the high-resolution data conferencing market.  DataBeam was purchased by I.B.M. Corporation in 1998 and Dr. Todd became Senior Vice President of Lotus Development Company, an I.B.M. company.

Dr. Todd also co-founded the Kentucky Science and Technology Corporation in 1987, a not-for-profit organization focused on increasing university research capacity, developing science and technology education (K-12) programs, and encouraging an entrepreneurial economy in Kentucky. He served as Chairman of KSTC until 2001.  Dr. Todd became the 11th President of the University of Kentucky on July 1, 2011, and served in that capacity for 10 years.  Following a one year leave-of-absence, he recently returned to the UK electrical engineering faculty where he will concentrate in mentoring early-stage UK spin-off companies, perform research in K-12 math and science education and assist in the development of an entrepreneurship curriculum for the University.

During his UK Presidency, one of Todd's passions was to change Kentucky's economy to make it more globally competitive. He established the position of Vice President for Commercialization and Economic Development, reporting directly to the President, in order to substantially increase the use of university intellectual property to establish start-up companies. He was faculty advisor of the E-Club, an organization he founded for students to learn how to become entrepreneurs. Todd was instrumental in creating the Lexington Venture Club, the Bluegrass Angels Network and the Bluegrass Venture Fund. His efforts have resulted in a significant increase in the amount of investment capital available in the region, the number of start-up companies formed by university faculty and staff, as well as the number of patents issued and royalties received by the university.

Dr. Todd served as a member of the National Academies' Committee that prepared the report, Research Universities and the Future of America: Ten Breakthrough Actions Vital to Our Nation’s Prosperity and Security, that was released in June 2012. He presently serves as chair of the Advisory Committee of the National Science Foundation’s Education and Human Resources Directorate and is past chair of the Board of Directors for the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU).  Dr. Todd is an emeriti member of the Business Higher Education Forum and has served on their Executive Committee.

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Dr. James W. Tracy is the vice president for research at the University of Kentucky. In this role, he leads the university’s $368-million-a-year research enterprise and oversees a number of interdisciplinary research centers and institutes.  Tracy earned a PhD in biochemistry from the College of Agriculture at Purdue University in 1976. From 1978 to 1983, he was a postdoctoral scientist and research assistant professor in pharmacology and geographic (tropical) medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

In 1983 he moved to the University of Wisconsin–Madison as one of the founding faculty of the new School of Veterinary Medicine, where he rose through the academic ranks to full professor. He taught pharmacology in both the professional DVM and MD programs. He directed the graduate program in environmental toxicology for nearly a decade. His research, which was funded primarily by the National Institutes of Health, focused on chemotherapy for human and animal parasitic diseases and mechanisms of toxicant action. Tracy served for more than 10 years on NIH study sections and chaired the Tropical Medicine and Parasitology Study Section for three years.

In 2000 he became associate dean for research for the School of Veterinary Medicine and later led UW-Madison Select Agents Program, which is responsible for the use and storage of biological agents and toxins that have potential to be used in bioterrorism. He directed the Biotron Laboratory, a university research center that provides controlled research environments for plant, animal and materials research. In conjunction with his move to UK in October 2007, Tracy retired from UW–Madison and was named professor emeritus.

He serves on the board of directors of the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR), an association of 183 research universities. COGR develops policies and practices that fairly reflect the mutual interests and separate obligations of federal agencies and universities in research and graduate education.

Tracy currently serves as PI on a $6.4 million stimulus grant from the National Center for Research Resources to build a new laboratory for rodent sperm and embryos for use in genetic research. The 9,026-square-foot laboratory, which will serve scientists from across UK’s campus, will be comprised of three facilities, in which researchers will cryogenically preserve sperm and embryos; provide sterile barriers to maintain research-project integrity; and isolate specimens of specific strains with certain microbial characteristics to meet researchers’ needs.

Tracy has also served as PI on a three-year $1.4 million grant titled “High Bandwidth Network Connection to Support Health Care Delivery and Critical Clinical and Biomedical Research.” This direct appropriation from the Health Resources and Services Administration, secured by U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, allowed UK to install a state-of-the-art network connection to Internet 2—a 10-gigabit network. This connection is 10 times faster than the previous 1 gigabit access available across Kentucky. This upgraded connection allows UK to partner with rural health care providers to share electronic records, enables UK’s medical colleges to deliver online education programs, and equips UK researchers to more quickly move their health-care discoveries from the lab to the doctor’s office.

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Lou Witkin has been with Hewlett Packard (HP) for over 35 years. During the first 20 years of his career, Lou was a project manager in various HP business units responsible for hardware and software development for a variety of products, such as intelligent data terminals and image scanners. During the past 15 years, Lou has worked in HP’s University Relations as a program manager. He has developed several programs that have resulted in successful long-term collaborations between HP’s businesses and universities throughout the world, as well as encouraging curriculum advances in engineering disciplines. Lou is currently a technology program manager in University Relations, and has developed worldwide programs with universities in Digital Publishing. Lou is also focusing on factors that contribute to building long-term strategic partnerships with universities.

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James K. (Jim) Woodell is Director of Innovation and Technology Policy at the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), where he works closely with member institutions to develop tools and resources to enhance their regional engagement and economic development efforts. He serves as the lead staff member for APLU’s Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness and Economic Prosperity (CICEP), and works closely with the organization’s Council on Engagement and Outreach (CEO) to advance APLU’s economic engagement agenda. Jim maintains APLU’s strong presence in the development and implementation of the national innovation and economic recovery agenda, and coordinates the organization’s advocacy efforts on technology and intellectual property issues.

Jim is currently a candidate for a Ph.D. in Higher Education at Penn State University, a top-ranked Higher Education program in U.S. New and World Report's Best Graduate Schools. His scholarly focus is on how public research universities organize for their “fourth mission” of economic engagement. He examines how institutions respond to regional, state, and federal economic and research policy with initiatives in technology transfer, innovation, and community development.

Recently, Jim served as assistant director for Transformative Regional Engagement (TRE) Networks, focused on bringing together participants in the “quadruple helix” of business, government, universities, and non-profits for innovation-driven regional development. TRE Networks is emerging on the national stage as an important voice in leading this kind of economic and community change.
Previously, Jim worked in distance education, instructional media, and e-learning for nearly 20 years. His experience ranges from the design and production of video for training, to coordinating the distribution of satellite-based videoconferences, to the development of online courses for teachers. Jim was a college teacher and administrator for ten years, including managing a large-scale distance learning program for Southern New Hampshire University, recently highlighted in Clayton Christenson’s book The Innovative University. Jim also served as Dean of Academic Technology and Distance Learning at North Shore Community College in Massachusetts.

Jim holds a Master of Education degree from Harvard University and a BS in Public Communications (TV, Radio, and Film) from Syracuse University.

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