Episode 7_Dr. Mark Staudt

Peering into the World of Technology Transfer – Where Business, Law, and Science Meet. Our guest this week, Mark Staudt, is a Licensing Associate at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) located on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Often termed Technology Transfer, this field involves working with professors and other campus inventors to determine the best commercial path forward for their technology. Frequently this involves some type of intellectual property protection, which we help to secure most often in the form of a patent. Like many in the field of technology transfer, Mark followed a tortuous path to arrive at his current position. It began at the University of Texas with degrees in Chemical Engineering and the Plan II humanities program. After a short stint as an engineer in industry with BASF, it wound back to academia at the University of Wisconsin for a PhD in Biomolecular chemistry. Looking for opportunities away from the bench, he next took an internship at WARF that initially introduced him to this field where he has finally found a home – first working at Rice University’s Office of Technology Transfer, then rejoining the WARF licensing team back in Madison. As you can imagine, such a varied background leads to an interesting story. In this episode, Mark shares some of his thoughts on his current job, and how despite the many seemingly convoluted turns, he’s managed to find a great fit for himself in technology transfer. This conversation was conducted and recorded in June 2013 by Dr. Brian Postdoc @ThePostdocWay.