Previous Entrepreneur Events

2022 Events

Thursday, October 6 | 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM 

MRSEC Entrepreneur Series with Dr. Kevin Marr, Co-Founder of Altect

Kevin Marr graduated from UT Austin with a PhD in Aerospace Engineering in 2020. He has 10 years of battery safety consulting experience and contributing member of industry battery safety panels and standards committees. Dr. Marr will share his experience bringing technology to market and launching the start-up, Altect, Inc.

Missed the event? Check out the recording!

 

2021 Events

Monday, December 13 | 1:00 - 2:00 PM 

MRSEC Entrepreneur Series with Dr. Greg Fleming

Greg Fleming is an Investment Director within Air Liquide Venture Capital – ALIAD. ALIAD is a strategic venture investor supporting collaborations between Air Liquide business units and emerging technology companies. Prior to ALIAD, Greg held a number of positions within Air Liquide including Director of the Air Liquide Corporate R&D Innovation team in Paris and Deputy Director of the Air Liquide Research Center in the US (Delaware Research and Technology Center). Greg has considerable experience in leading technology teams from product development to commercialization.

 

Monday, October 25 | 1:00 - 2:00 PM 

Patent Law Seminar with David Palmer and Robert Villwock, UT Office of Technology Commercialization

David Palmer is the Program Director for Intellectual Property and Technology Transactions at the Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) at the University of Texas at Austin, where he drafts, negotiates and consults on IP licenses and other agreements while managing outside counsel and patent prosecution. Prior to coming to UT-Austin, Mr. Palmer was a partner with the law firm of Perkins Coie LLP specializing in patent litigation, and previously practiced with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and Cooley. Mr. Palmer holds a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

Robert D. Villwock, Ph.D., serves as Senior Technology Licensing Specialist for the Office of Technology Commercialization at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). In this role, Dr. Villwock is responsible for working with faculty members to manage their intellectual property portfolios by evaluating the commercial potential of inventions, marketing technologies to prospective licensees, negotiating IP licenses, and enabling startup formation. Dr. Villwock joined OTC in 2016 as Program Director – Strategic Researcher Liaison, where he focused on the facilitation of transfer of research into intellectual property. Previously, he served as Associate Director of the Center for Electrochemistry at UT Austin where he developed research funding from government, industry, and private sources, and facilitated researchers in the commercialization process. Prior to that, he was principal in his own consultancy specializing in chemical engineering, process development, and intellectual property management. He has held senior-level research positions in startups Golden Bear Ceramics and Mobius Technologies and has conducted product and process development for several different groups within Dow Chemical. Dr. Villwock is an inventor on nine U.S. Patents. He holds a B.S. in polymer science and engineering from Case Western Reserve University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley.

Missed the event? Check out the recording!

 

Monday, September 27 | 1:00 - 2:00 PM 

MRSEC Entrepreneur Series with DR. Mia Mihailovic

Mia graduated from Oregon State University with a BS in Chemical Engineering and a focus in environmental processes in 2015. She pivoted to biotechnology upon starting her Chemical Engineering PhD at UT Austin, where she developed molecular tools for understanding the activity of regulatory RNA that uphold infection in bacteria. She incorporated ama biotech Inc. in late 2019 with her two best friends, with the goal of empowering traditionally underserved communities with accessible diagnostic health information. Mia graduated from her program in Dec 2020 and is working full-time as a post-doc in the Contreras lab. She works "on the side" for ama biotech Inc. at their lab space in Temple, TX. 

Missed the event? Check out the recording!

 

2020 Events

Friday, October 23 | 1:00 - 1:40pm

MRSEC Entrepreneur Series with Dr. Meghali Chopra of Sandbox Semiconductor

Meghali Chopra is CEO of SandBox Semiconductor based in Austin, Texas. SandBox Semiconductor (“SandBox”) provides software and services to improve recipe development for next-generation chips. Their premier software suite, SandBox Studio™, uses a combination of proprietary physical models and machine learning to dramatically increase the speed of manufacturing recipe development. Named one of Forbes 30 under 30-Science 2019, Dr. Chopra is a graduate of Stanford University (B.S. Science) and the University of Texas at Austin (Ph.D.; M.S.).

Missed the event? Check out the recording!