Transcript: The UT Dallas Spirit of Innovation
[Dr. Ray Baughman, Professor of Chemistry] We like to make fundamental scientific discoveries, but we’re most excited when these fundamental discoveries lead to inventions that can be used by humankind.
[Dr. Joseph J. Pancrazio, VP for Research and Innovation] We make a tremendous effort to move innovations from the bench towards the marketplace. The world is at a point where it absolutely requires the public institutions do more than educate the next generation. They have to be part of the economic development that goes on both regionally and internationally for that matter.
[Dr. Richard C. Benson, President of UT Dallas] I am sure that we will continue to be an economic engine for the region. I fully expect UT Dallas to always be on that path of innovation. Together with our partners we will create a future that benefits us all.
[Baughman] What we do is we take these fibers and insert so much twist in them that they coil, and these coiled muscle fibers are actually used for these comfort-adjusting jackets which increase their insulating ability as it gets colder.
[Dr. Walter Voit, Founder of Adaptive3D] What we’re doing is we’re printing structures layer by layer but in the same material we can basically control how stiff that material is just by controlling the geometry, the chemistry, the interfaces, and so this is spawned a whole industry of building parts for cars, for planes, for medical devices.
[Pancrazio] People come here with the idea of creating their own future, but doing so now. We have students that put their ideas forward to compete for startup resources, and with it, we do something that’s different from most ivory tower institutions. We actually want to support and nurture these kinds of opportunities for our faculty and students.
[Brian Hoang, Co-Founder of SURVIVR] During my time here I started a company called SURVIVR which specialized in immersive training solutions for law enforcement officers, and I was very fortunate because the mentors here were very gracious and patiently explained the building blocks of a company. From formation to sales marketing, product engineering, finance, legal, everything that we needed to get set up and on the ground running.
[Dr. Shalini Prasad, Professor of Bioengineering] I work on translating research technologies towards commercial outcomes. So in that context, I do it where I’m helping other companies bring technologies into the marketplace, and one such example is the COVID breath analyzer where we can screen for metabolites for the disease from human breath.
[Dr. Nikki Delk, Assoc. Professor of Biological Sciences] I recently started an initiative called Arts for Science that allows me to merge my passions for art and for science in order to raise awareness of the work that my lab is doing here at UT Dallas.
[Voit] The university has been paramount in our commercial success. All of the core materials, innovations and chemistries that were discovered were done here at the university. We were acquired last year by Desktop Metal, we’re publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, we’ll do about a quarter billion dollars in top line revenue this year, we have assets in 60 countries all over the world.
[Hoang] Within three years we expanded to 10 states with customers from law enforcement agencies, to universities, private security firms, the U.S. Air Force, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and it was profoundly life-changing. I mean it was quite literally the American dream.
[Prasad ]So the environment at UTD is highly entrepreneurial. It gives you the flexibility and the agility that helps us reduce the cycle times for us to get technologies out.
[Baughman] About half of my 106 issued U.S. patents were because of work and inventions that we made at UTD. We have a team of patent lawyers who help with this process, help ensure that these patents are issued in a timely way.
[Delk] When I do the STEM outreach I’m able to bring high school students into my lab here at UT Dallas to get research experience and so the university has been supportive in that regard.
[Prasad] All of this can happen here at UT Dallas. At the same time companies that want to bring to life these innovations can partner with us so we can truly impact our region.
[Voit] We’ve centralized a lot of the polymer processing manufacturing and development in the Richardson IQ, so we can take advantage of the incredible business environment here in Texas and also the intellectual capital that comes out of UTD.
[Pancrazio] The Innovation Quarter is the phoenix that is rising from the ashes of the Telecom industry, and with it, we have the opportunity to be part of a tremendous experiment.
[Hoang] Since the acquisition I’ve returned to UT Dallas to mentor the up-and-coming startups here, and to me, personally that’s one of the most meaningful ways that I can give back after all that they have given me when I first started my company.
[Pancrazio] We don’t know where the next great idea is going to come and we have to have full engagement of everybody in representation such that we can have a chance to lead the way towards the next innovation.
[Prasad] Diversifying workforce and diversifying faculty in a higher education institution is critical because diverse people and diverse ideas bring up great quality within an institution. Aspire2 is our first step towards building and diversifying pipelines of faculty and training the next generation of faculty.
[Delk] Aspire2 is a National Science Foundation program and one of the main goals of the Aspire2 program is to attract women faculty to the university.
[Prasad] Towards this end we are doing three things. We are working on the climate of UTD to make it supporting for people from all walks of life. Second thing is of course recruitment of this new generation of faculty with a focus on underrepresented minorities.
[Delk] So one of the activities that the Aspire2 program here at UT Dallas will be doing is having a workshop called the Future Faculty Identification Program Workshop.
[Prasad] And the last, of course, is essentially ensuring the retention is wonderful so that the people whom we bring want to stay here and help us build the next generation of a university.
Thank you for your time, and I wish you all the best.