Director, Innovation Investments
Ryan Buckmaster manages funding and mentor programs to aid inventors of new technologies move toward commercialization. Activities include running a the CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund, a biannual competition for commercialization funding that awards over $1 million annually and aiding teams applying for grants such as SBIR/STTRs. In his previous role as an innovation manager at CoMotion, he helped more than a dozen new companies spin out from the university, including C-SATS, KitoTech, Olis Robotics, and Zap Energy, and worked on numerous agreements with existing organizations. Before coming to CoMotion Ryan conducted research into cell-based biosensors and GaN quantum dots and worked in the semiconductor industry. He has a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Washington and an MS in materials science from Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan.