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STC.UNM 2020 Innovation Fellow Award

March 4, 2020

dave-whitten

STC.UNM has announced that the 2020 Innovation Fellow Award will be presented to:
David G. Whitten, PhD, Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, Associate Director, Center for Biomedical Engineering. Whitten has had a long career in academia at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), the University of Rochester and the University of New Mexico. He also spent more than 2 years at Los Alamos before starting a company (QTL Biosystems) with a colleague from Los Alamos. His research is currently focused on conjugated polyelectrolytes and their counterpart small oligomers as antimicrobials and a basis for fluorescent sensors. He continues to study photochemical and photophysical properties of these compounds and materials, a career long aspect of his work.

The STC.UNM Board of Directors created this new award in 2010 to annually honor a University of New Mexico inventor whose body of technologies has generated significant commercialization activities. Based on achievements in new technologies disclosed, patents received, license and option agreements entered into, new companies started and income generated from these technologies, the STC.UNM Innovation Fellow Board Committee evaluates and selects an Innovation Fellow.

The social and economic impact of the awardee’s technologies in the marketplace is important. New technologies resulting in substantial benefit to the public may have the most valuable impact on society. The STC.UNM Innovation Fellow award is recognition of that impact. STC makes an annual Innovation Fellow award. The award includes an honorarium of $2,500, a booklet outlining a summary of the metrics and impact of the awardee’s technologies and a commemorative gift.