Tapping the hearts and minds of faculty entrepreneurs

Dear friends of CoMotion,

Whether you work in the social or physical sciences, engineering or the humanities, medicine or oceanography, or any of the hundreds of fields of research that thrive at the University of Washington, there is a good chance that you will ask yourself the following question at some point in your career: This idea (result, concept, framework, etc.) is game-changing—how do I share it with the world? Tried-and-true ways are to publish in high-impact journals, multiply speeches and seminars, and use social media and UW News to broaden your reach. While this will garner attention beyond your immediate peers, many critical advances aren’t broadly recognized.

The surest way to make a difference at scale? Convert your discovery into a product that improves lives. I use “product” broadly here; it could be a therapeutic based on a fundamental discovery in cancer biology, a process to improve mental health outcomes based on years of psychology research, a curriculum to upskill the workforce rooted in the latest pedagogy, or a robotic device that features cutting-edge, AI-enabled decision-making. The possibilities are boundless.

But the dream of starting a company often feels out of reach to the average faculty member. Can I really get involved in commercialization without “betraying” my academic principles? How will I deal with my teaching? How do I continue my research, and how will this impact my trainees? What conflicts of interest and pitfalls do I have to navigate? How do I even approach my chair or director with the idea?

Rest assured that many entrepreneurial faculty members have wrestled with the same questions. They have forged ahead and blazed new paths, overcoming doubt, frustration, and challenges to become founders, scientific advisors, and even CEOs of UW spinoffs. And they have done so while remaining professors and without sacrificing their scholarship and love of research and teaching.

To help share the invaluable knowledge and wisdom that resides in the hearts and minds of our Faculty Entrepreneurs, I am delighted to announce the launch of CoMotion’s Entrepreneurial Faculty Forum (EFF). The inaugural EFF class is made of eight entrepreneurs whose spinoff sectors and licensing strategies are as diverse as the community of innovators we work with. They are Sam Browd (Neurological Surgery), Luis Ceze (Computer Science & Engineering, Daniel Chiu (Chemistry), Valerie Daggett (Bioengineering), Nora Disis (Cancer Vaccine Institute), Neil King (Biochemistry and Institute for Protein Design), Julian Sachs (Chemical Oceanography), and Ankur Teredesai (Computer Science & Systems, UW Tacoma).

With operational support from CoMotion, EFF members will mentor UW faculty with entrepreneurial aspirations, help demystify and smooth out the startup formation process, and foster connections inside and outside the university.

Welcome aboard, Faculty Entrepreneurs! Together, let’s turn groundbreaking research into world-changing realities.

Be well,

François Baneyx