College of Engineering announces first class of Entrepreneurial Ambassadors
Purdue Engineering has named 12 faculty members as Entrepreneurial Ambassadors, a new offshoot program of the University’s Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellowship initiative.
Purdue's Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship created the ambassador program to provide more advocates for innovation and entrepreneurship. Faculty members will have renewable three-year terms. Each college at Purdue is expected to name a fellow and a team of ambassadors.
“The Ambassador program is an essential part of Purdue’s ecosystem for innovation,” said Matthew Lynall, the Avrum and Joyce Gray Director of the Burton D. Morgan Center for Entrepreneurship. Lynall also manages Purdue’s co-leadership of the recently announced $15M Great Lakes Innovation Corps (I-Corps) Hub. One of five across the country, the hub is part of a continuing effort by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to evolve the I-Corps program, which trains scientists and engineers to carry their promising ideas and technologies beyond the university and into the marketplace to benefit society.
The main purpose of the ambassador program is to encourage students, staff, faculty, and alumni to think about moving their innovations from research laboratories to markets and make real-world impacts.
“The ambassadors can do many things, such as identifying people who could benefit from Purdue’s entrepreneurial resources, mentoring potential entrepreneurs, connecting entrepreneurs with students, faculty, staff and alumni,” said Arnold Chen, managing director of the Burton D. Morgan Center.
Wayne Chen, associate dean of Engineering for Research and Innovation, added, “These ambassadors will be the seeds in the College to create a new generation of students and faculty with entrepreneurial minds.”
In June, the College appointed Yung-Hsiang Lu, professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, as its first Innovation and Entrepreneurship Fellow. Lu also serves as director of the John Martinson Entrepreneurial Center, which supports faculty and students by providing resources to move their technologies and research forward to the patent and startup stages. Lu will coordinate the ambassadors’ activities in the College.
Construction Engineering and Management Ambassadors:
Sogand Hasanzadeh
Assistant Professor
Lyles School of Civil Engineering and Construction Engineering and Management
Hasanzadeh’s research focuses on advancing smart construction safety through the application of cyber-physical-humansystems, wearable sensors,VR/AR/MR/XR, and data analytics. Her transformative interdisciplinary research addresses real-world challenges in current and future construction and manufacturing environments, and how new technological advances will revolutionize the AEC industry. She has supervised undergraduate and graduate students to develop ideas regarding wearable technologies, robotics, Internet of Things (IoT) and future automated construction environments for future startups.
David T. (Tom) Iseley
Beavers Heavy Construction Distinguished Fellow and Professor and Professor of Engineering Practice
Construction and Engineering Management
Iseley was instrumental in 2018 with the start up of International Infrastructure Solutions, LLC, which is one-third owned by the World Trade Center-Indianapolis. The firm transfers technical and management solutions to the global underground infrastructure industry through 320+ WTC franchises.