TTO Roundtable: Speaker

Leaders Roundtable #2:
Benchmarking Best Practices on Running an Effective Technology Transfer Office
14 April 2024
UPIN, Porto
Home | Speaker | | Resources | Photos

Brett Cornwell is the Director of Commercialization Services for the Office of Technology Commercialization at the Texas A&M University System and is responsible for the New Ventures Division which delivers services offered by the OTC in support of the commercialization of technologies from the Texas A&M University System and in the formation of startup companies based on Texas A&M technology. The services offered include screening stage market assessments, business plan development, marketing plan development, market research studies, strategic business planning, and the development of venture pitches.

Cornwell is a faculty member at the IC² Institute at the University of Texas at Austin and is an instructor in the Master of Science in Technology Commercialization degree program. He also on the adjunct graduate faculty at Texas A&M University teaching courses in technology commercialization in the Mays Business School. His courses focus on technology market screening and evaluation, venture planning and evaluation, and business planning and launch. He has led a number of international technology commercialization benchmarking and training projects including projects with CONACYT in Mexico, South Australian Water Researchers in Australia, the University of Otago in New Zealand, and ProTon in Europe.

Cornwell was a program coordinator for the NASA Mid-Continent Technology Transfer Center (MCTTC) for ten years and served as the deputy director for three. At MCTTC, his experience and knowledge was used to write marketing studies for new technologies, outreach to companies, and define market opportunities and barriers for potential licensees. He has seventeen years experience in technology transfer and two years experience with small companies as sales and marketing manager. He was recognized as the Outstanding Technology Transfer Intermediary in Arkansas in 1997, received the Distinguished Service Award from the Mid-Continent Federal Laboratory Consortium in 2001, designed major portions of the Federal Laboratory Consortium’s Technology Assessment process for the RIB-IT program and has been published in R&D Enterprise, Asia Pacific. He is the co-author of Marketing Scientific Results published in October 2004.

Cornwell holds an MBA from Texas A&M University and a BBA in marketing from Baylor University.