Julie Nagel to lead KU Innovation and Collaboration

LAWRENCE – Julie Nagel, executive director of corporate partnerships with KU Innovation and Collaboration — or KUIC — has been named interim associate vice chancellor for innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Kansas. She will also serve as interim president of KUIC, the university’s technology commercialization office. 

Nagel succeeds Julie Goonewardene, who will join the University of Texas System on Sept. 15 as associate vice chancellor for innovation and strategic investment. Goonewardene will be responsible for the UT Horizon fund, which makes strategic investments in university start-up companies. She also will expand entrepreneurship programs and foster relationships among University of Texas System institutions and other stakeholders to promote the commercialization of UT research.

“Technology commercialization at KU made great strides under Goonewardene’s leadership,” said Richard Barohn, vice chancellor for research at KU Medical Center and president of the KU Medical Center Research Institute. “Since joining KU in 2011, she managed a dramatic increase in licensing revenues, company start-ups, and support for KU inventors. We wish her all the best in her new position.”

Nagel came to KU in 2011 from Discovery Park at Purdue University, where she was managing director of the Oncological Sciences Center. As interim associate vice chancellor and president of KUIC, she will be responsible for all universitywide commercialization efforts, including intellectual property, company formation, corporate outreach and foundation research relationships. KUIC has a staff of 15 people at the KU campuses in Lawrence and Kansas City and recently moved into new offices at the Bioscience & Technology Business Center Phase II in Lawrence.  KUIC is also housed at the BTBC at the KU Medical Center in Kansas City.

“KUIC is a very important part of KU’s overall economic development strategy,” said Mary Lee Hummert, interim vice chancellor for research at the Lawrence campus.  “She knows the KUIC organization and has both academic and company experience that will serve us well moving forward.”  Hummert said there will be a national search for Goonewardene’s permanent successor.

Nagel’s background includes a doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee in environmental toxicology, followed by postdoctoral training in the Institute of Toxicology at Wayne State University. She was technical coordinator for a University of Michigan start-up company, Rubicon Genomics Inc., where she was responsible for developing federal funding sources for the company. She later joined Biotechnology Business Consultants LLC in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as program director, where she successfully directed both statewide and regional programs providing assistance to life science entrepreneurs.

More information about KU Innovation and Collaboration is available online.