Northwestern University's inventive activity reached its highest peaks yet in 2023, with 255 disclosures among our many successes. As INVO strives to strengthen entrepreneurial activity by both students and faculty and build a self-sustained community that will generate innovations to benefit society, we make our past reports and current metrics available so that others might gain a better sense for the inventive activity taking place at Northwestern University. View full report
Innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) is one of the most visible ways our faculty, students, researchers, and alumni demonstrate Northwestern’s impact on the world. Woven into every part of campus, I&E has become an unmistakable component of our University’s identity. The Innovation and New Ventures Office is proud to play a central role — home to the technology transfer operations for the University and two thriving hubs for entrepreneurship.
Ask Jaehyuk Choi about his research goals and he shares an admittedly audacious two-word reply: “Cure cancer.” But Choi believes cures are within reach, particularly by shifting immunology from a philosophical problem — “Figuring out a code,” Choi calls it — to an engineering problem.
In 2012, Benjamin Hernandez was a JD/MBA student at Northwestern University with grand visions of launching his own company. It was then Hernandez encountered a chemical engineering PhD student named Chris Wilmer. The rest is history.
Frequently an aspiring entrepreneur’s first point of contact with INVO, Arjan Quist provides an earnest, unfettered look at the commercialization journey ahead. He outlines the translational process and provides candid perspective on a long, often strenuous adventure – albeit one in which he and his INVO colleagues assist.
In 2012, a team of six business and engineering graduate students enrolled in NUvention: Energy and began investigating potential clean tech ventures. The group quickly focused its attention on the work of a Northwestern Engineering professor who was developing a battery anode technology to maximize energy density and enable longer device run times.
Possessing an undeniable entrepreneurial spirit, Nichole Pinkard is an education researcher looking to maximize impact. Building learning systems to scale has been a longstanding personal mission for Pinkard, something she traces back to her days as a Northwestern doctoral student.
For many academic researchers, the gulf between a lab discovery and a product hitting the public’s hands appears vast, even insurmountable. After all, the intricacies of the entrepreneur’s journey are often viewed as foreign and daunting. Northwestern innovators, however, have a capable ally in Sonia Kim.
Once a pre-med biomedical engineering undergraduate with clinical ambitions, Evan Scott became intrigued by the potential of basic science to help larger populations lead healthier lives — so much so he shifted his postgraduate plans from medical school to translational research.
In John Kim’s novel innovation, Alexei Mlodinow saw an opportunity to apply his entrepreneurial instincts to a dynamic product category, help breast cancer patients, and create value. He teamed with Kim and Todd Cruikshank to launch SIA and push the technology to market.
Since its 2014 debut, VentureCat has elevated the entrepreneurial energy at Northwestern University and created impact in and far beyond the Northwestern community.
In 2022, Pitchbook found that venture capital funds given to women-founded startups made up just 1.9% of the total; women of color received 0.05% and less. The InQbation Lab’s FoundHer program seeks to change this narrative.