The University of Maryland named Dr. Dean Chang as its new interim chief innovation officer and associate vice president for innovation and economic development of the research division, according to an email Monday from the interim and incoming vice presidents for research.
Chang served as founding associate vice president for innovation and entrepreneurship for this university’s Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship over the last nine years. In the position, he worked with more than 41,000 students in all 12 of the university’s colleges and schools in innovation, the email said.
He is taking over as chief innovation officer from Julie Lenzer, who held the position for the past five years. Lenzer will become the chief innovation officer of the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute, the email added.
[UMD names new research vice president]
Chang is the lead principal investigator and instructor for the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps Hub program, a network of universities that helps researchers communicate their work in marketplaces and instructed at the Stanford Teaching and Learning Studio.
Before joining this university, Chang also worked in Silicon Valley for 15 years at Immersion Corp as chief technology officer and gaming business vice president. There, he licensed Immersion Corp’s patent portfolio to the video game industry in addition to being a part of the team that raised the company’s initial public stock offering, the email said.
In the past, Chang also oversaw the engineering school’s technology startup venture programs and served as a lead instructor in the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s IDEA Lab Ignite program.
