This Silicon Valley Speaker Series talk looks at how to build an innovative and vibrant academic-industrial community. What does technology transfer and new venture creation at Stanford University look like? What practices make it successful, and what can we learn from its model? Why has it had such an impact on Silicon Valley? Come and learn from the Director of Stanford’s technology transfer office.

About Katherine Ku:

Katharine Ku is Director of the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at Stanford University. OTL is responsible for the licensing of various state-of-the-art university technologies and industry sponsored research agreements, material transfer agreements and collaborations.

In FY2009, Stanford received $65.05M in gross royalty revenue from over 500 technologies, with royalties ranging from $3 to $37.98M. From 1994-98, in addition to her OTL responsibilities, Ku was responsible for Stanford’s pre-award Sponsored Projects Office. Ku was Vice President, Business Development at Protein Design Labs, Inc. in Mountain View, California from 1990-1991. Prior to PDL, Ku spent 12 years at Stanford in various positions, worked at Monsanto and Sigma Chemical as a research scientist, administered a dialysis clinical trial at University of California, and taught chemistry and basic engineering courses.

Ku has been active in the Licensing Executive Society (LES), serving as Vice President, Western Region and Trustee of LES and various committee chairs. She also has served as President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) from 1988- 90. She received the AUTM 2001 Bayh-Dole Award for her efforts in university licensing. In 1999, Stanford OTL received the Licensing Executives Society Achievement Award for licensing, the Society’s most prestigious award.

Ku is currently a committee member of the NAS study entitled Management of University Intellectual Property: Lessons from a Generation of Experience, Research, and Dialogue. She is also a member of the Certified Licensing Professional (CLP) Board of Governors.

Ku has a B.S. Chemical Engineering (Cornell University), an M.S. in Chemical Engineering (Washington University in St. Louis) and is a registered patent agent.