Successful deal structures for industry and university collaborations

Tuesday: October 17
3:00-4:30pm, ESB 1001

Steve DenBaars, Professor of Materials and Electrical Engineering, and Co-Director of the Solid-State Lighting and Display Center, University of California, Santa Barbara

Steven DenBaars, Professor of Materials and Electrical & Computer Engineering, and Executive-Director of the Solid-State Lighting and Display Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara started his professional career as a member of the technical staff at Hewlett-Packard's Optoelectronics Division involved in the growth and fabrication of high brightness (HB) visible LEDs. Dr. DenBaars joined the faculty of UCSB in 1991. His specific research interests include growth of wide-bandgap semiconductors (GaN based), and their application to Blue LEDs and laser and high power electronic devices. This research has led to the first U.S. university demonstration of a Blue GaN laser diode in 1997. In 1997 he co-founded with Prof. Umesh Mishra Nitres Inc. a GaN start-up company which was acquired by Cree Inc in 2000. In 2005, he was named the Mitsubishi Chemical Professor in Solid State Lighting & Displays. He is author or co-author on over 430 journal publications and has filed over 18 patents on GaN technology.

Glenn Fredrickson, UCSB Chemical Engineering and Materials

Glenn Fredrickson obtained his Ph.D. at Stanford University in 1984 and subsequently joined AT&T Bell Laboratories, where he was named Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in 1989. In 1990 he moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB), joining the faculties of the Chemical Engineering and Materials Departments. He served as Chair of Chemical Engineering from 1998 to 2001 and in 2001 founded the Mitsubishi Chemical Center for Advanced Materials (MC-CAM) at UCSB. Professor Fredrickson currently holds the Mitsubishi Chemical Endowed Chair in Functional Materials and serves as MC-CAM Director, Director of UCSB's Complex Fluids Design Consortium (CFDC), and Associate Director of the Materials Research Laboratory (MRL). He has approximately 200 publications, 8 patents, and has a long-standing interest in the statistical mechanics of complex fluids, including polymers, colloids, and glasses. His research is primarily theoretical and computational and has been most recently focused on developing novel field-based computer simulation strategies to assist the design of multi-component plastics and polymer solution formulations. Honors include an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, a Sloan Fellowship, the Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, the Dillon Medal of the American Physical Society (APS), Fellowship in the APS, the Alpha Chi Sigma Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, and election to the National Academy of Engineering.

David Gay, Institute of Collaborative Biotechnologies

David Gay received his B.S., Chemical Engineering, from Rice University and later obtained his Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, from the University of Wisconsin in 1989.

Prior to acquiring his current position as the Director of Technology within the Institute for Collaborative Biotechnologies, David Gay established an extensive research career. From his industrial experiences, Gay has held various managerial R&D positions at companies such as DuPont and INVISTA Incorporated from 2000 to 2004. During his time at DuPont and INVISTA, Gay managed several multimillion dollar projects involving resources across the United States, China, Northern Ireland, Netherlands, Brazil, Mexico, Singapore and Shanghai.

Carrington Smith, Air Products

Dr. Carrington Smith joined the licensing team at Air Products and Chemicals in the fall of 2005. Previously Smith worked in Electronics at Air Products as New Business Development Manager identifying and evaluating potential venture companies for inclusion in the business venture portfolio. Currently he's Venture Development Manager at Air Products working in the Corporate Technology Partnerships Group. He has also filled a position with NGEN Partners since 2003 as an Associate seconded from Air Products and Chemicals. In this role, Carrington assists the fund in its investment decisions via technical due diligence and identifies potential new venture opportunities for the fund. Carrington worked at Air Products for a decade within R&D and business development including activities in polymer gas separation membranes, polymeric materials for electronics applications, polymer emulsions for adhesives and coatings, supercritical CO2 processing of materials, surfactant design and activity, and polymer physical testing methods. Carrington received his B.S. in Chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University, Ph.D. in Chemistry at Virginia Tech and conducted post-doctoral work with L'Institut Francaise du Petrole in Lyon, France. He's author of several patents and publications around his technical work.