Industrial Liaison: Speakers

UTEN Training Week #4:
Best Practices in University-Industry Relations:
Setting up and Managing an Industrial Liaison Office
Instituto Politécnico do Porto - 19-20 July, 2010
Speakers | Program | Photos

Bill Catlett

Associate Director - Industrial Relations, Office of Sponsored Projects

Acting Director – Center for Emerging Technology Commercialization

The University of Texas at Austin

Bill currently serves as Acting Director at the newly formed Center for Emerging Technology Commercialization. In addition, for the last 2 ½ years Bill has served as Associate Director for Industrial Relations at the Office of Sponsored Projects at The University of Texas at Austin.

In this role, he works directly with industry and other universities to foster collaborative research at UT Austin. Bill came to this role after serving 3 years as Associate Director of the Office of Technology Commercialization at UT Austin where his responsibilities included increasing the effectiveness of the technology commercialization process at UT Austin.

Prior to joining UT Austin, Bill spent 12 years as a trial attorney in Dallas practicing as a civil litigator and providing counsel to small business owners and startups. Prior to attending law school, he was a member of an executive management team that developed a petrochemical and marketing company based in Abilene, Texas, into the 16th largest privately held company in Texas (as rated by Forbes); as president of one of the three operating divisions Bill worked successfully on transactions with foreign governments, Fortune 500 companies, and high net-worth individuals. Previously Bill had been president of a professional engineering consulting company.

Bill holds a J.D. degree from Vanderbilt School of Law and an M.S. in Engineering and B.S. in Architectural Engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, and is licensed as both an Attorney and a Professional Engineer in the State of Texas. He is a member of Chi Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi engineering honor societies.

Anthony Boccanfuso

Executive Director- University Industry Demonstration Partnership

US National Academies of Science

Anthony (Tony) Boccanfuso serves as the Executive Director for the National Academies’ University Industry Demonstration Partnership (UIDP). He holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from the University of South Carolina and earned his B.S. in Political Science and Chemistry from Furman University.

Dr. Boccanfuso began his professional career as a Science Policy Fellow at the American Chemical Society where he worked within the society’s government relations and science policy division. Before taking on this position, Dr. Boccanfuso was Director for Research and Economic Development at the University of South Carolina and currently retains the position of Senior Director for Strategic Alliances within the College of Engineering and Computing.

Dr. Boccanfuso has had a distinguished career in the research management and science policy arenas and has held a variety of positions at the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and PricewaterhouseCoopers as well as several universities.

He currently serves on several boards including the National Hydrogen Association, the MedStar Health Research Institute and the Hydrogen Education Foundation for which he is the current chair.