Assistant Vice President for Technology Transfer

Rice University, among the nation’s most ambitious and renowned private research universities and a member of the American Association of Universities (AAU), welcomes applications and nominations for the position of Assistant Vice President for Technology Transfer (AVPTT). Reporting to the Vice President for Research (VPR), the incoming AVPTT will have the opportunity to bolster the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) by motivating and supporting faculty to turn groundbreaking discoveries into transformational technologies. 

Centrally located in America’s most diverse city and proximate to the Texas Medical Center – the world’s largest academic medical complex – Rice University is a tier-one research university dedicated to scholarship addressing the world’s most urgent problems, rigorous undergraduate and graduate education, and professional training in selected disciplines. Rice faculty conduct world-class research across more than 16 different centers and institutes and have grown sponsored research awards by over 50% in the last five years, bringing in $192 million in sponsored research in FY2022. Rice’s strategic goal is to more than double research spending by 2027. The preponderance of Rice’s research funding derives from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, and various foundations. The University has recently committed to transformative capacity-building investments in the Office of Research (OR) to diversify its funding base toward new and impactful research opportunities while maintaining the utmost integrity in its research operations. 

The AVPTT will report to the Vice President for Research, Dr. Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and a world-renowned leader in next-generation energy technologies. They will specifically focus on four primary areas of the technology transfer process: research, disclosure, evaluation, and protection. The AVPTT will build and develop trust with the faculty and encourage established and emerging innovators to move their discoveries along the commercialization pipeline, supporting them throughout with a responsive, efficient, and forward-thinking OTT. The AVPTT will work hand-in-glove with Rice University’s Office of the Vice President for Innovation—specifically with the Assistant Vice President for Commercialization—to drive the work of the OTT in shepherding technologies into the commercialization stage. In all, the AVPTT will combine expertise, thoughtfulness, and energy to transform the work of invention disclosure, dispute resolution, intellectual property viability analyses, and the establishment and protection of IP at one of the nation’s truly nimble, creative, and fast-moving tier one research institutions. This is an exciting opportunity to work with world-class faculty under innovative leadership, and with a mandate for change and growth into the future. 

Vijay Saraswat is leading this search with Jonathan Sanchez. 


Rice University is an Equal Opportunity Employer with commitment to diversity at all levels and considers for employment qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, genetic information, disability or protected veteran status.