Brown Innovation Fellows is a program that trains graduate students, postdocs, and medical students in technology evaluation, market research, patenting, and commercialization. The program recruits fellows from a variety of STEM fields, including biomed, engineering, brain science, digital health, chemistry, physics, and computer science, as well as business-related fields in economics and public health. The program was launched in 2022 by Melissa Simon, a Business Development Director with Brown Technology Innovations (BTI), who participated in a similar program at Columbia as a PhD student.

Working with BTI business development directors, fellows take an active role in assessing the commercial potential of early-stage technologies developed at Brown, evaluating industry interest, and developing marketing strategies. Through participation in the program, they gain an understanding of the basic business elements involved in creating an early-stage startup company, as well as valuable business skills relevant to nonacademic careers in science, technology, business, and law.

Developing Licensing Strategies

Josephine Kalshoven, who completed her biomedical engineering PhD in Spring 2024, worked with BTI senior business development director Brian Demers to explore licensing, research collaboration, and potential startup opportunities for a mass spectrometry technology developed by Physics professor, Derek Stein.  The proposed commercial pathway required buy-in from two existing companies (one of which, Nanosoft, was led by a Brown alum), an industry expert, and Professor Stein. The goal was to broker a deal that would enable all parties to make best use of the exciting technology coming out of Brown. “My job,” says Kalshoven, “was to talk with those involved and understand what they needed to know about the market opportunity, competitors, projections of future technology, and more in order to decide what their role should be in the potential license and collaborative research effort.” Gene Yazbak, Director at Nanosoft, was part of the group working with Josephine. "Josephine jumped right in to assess the market landscape, product offerings and key academic research advances." says Yazbak. “Her contribution was instrumental in getting us to a clear decision quickly. She instantly became part of the team.”

"Josephine did a fantastic job researching the mass spectrometry market,” says Demers. “She collected information related to state-of-the-art research, new product launches, and competitive market landscape. She then produced a high-quality, distilled report that was used to craft a commercial strategy to translate research from Derek's lab. Josephine’s insights were informative and instrumental in strengthening our understanding of the commercial potential of the research." 

Supporting Brown Startups 

MD/PhD student Alexandra (Alex) Wong has been a Brown Innovation Fellow since the program started in 2022. Wong’s experiences as a fellow helped her land a fellowship position this past summer at Civilization Ventures, a San Francisco venture capital (VC) firm. “The skills I had gained as a fellow,” says Wong, “allowed me to dive into due diligence with relative ease and ask my mentors at Civilization deeper questions on how VCs analyze new technology and think about founding teams. I also had the opportunity to introduce companies to them as part of a sourcing assignment.” Wong says she now views herself almost as a "translator" between the deep research and innovation/entrepreneurship worlds.

With her VC experience, Wong created a pitch deck template for BTI to use with new Brown startups.  This template formed the basis of mentoring she provided to Tinos Therapeutics, a Brown startup co-founded by Nikos Tapinos, which is developing RNA technology for cancer therapeutics. Wong worked directly with David Karambizi, who did his PhD work under Tapinos, to refine their pitch deck.

“Alex’s work,” says David Karambizi, “was key in helping us hone our message during the early stages of the company. She even brokered a connection with a potential funding source. The information that she shared will be relevant and useful at all stages of our development as we interact with VCs."

Assisting with Translational Research Funding

Biomedical Engineering PhD student Kiera Dwyer worked with Karen Bulock, the Director of Brown Biomedical Innovation to Impact (BBII), to assist faculty applying for the translational research funding program. 

In support of an application by Dr. Adam Lewkowitz, a Maternal-Fetal Medicine physician at Women and Infants Hospital, Dwyer analyzed the market surrounding postpartum depression treatments. “As we were helping Dr. Lewkowitz develop his full proposal,” adds Bulock, “Kiera did a deep dive into the competitive space in the field of app-based digital therapy for postpartum depression, and then more widely into mental health in general.” 

“I was inspired by Dr. Lewkowitz’s passion to develop a technology to address challenges he saw when working with patients,” says Dwyer

Adam Lewkowitz describes himself as an NIH-funded doctor who is comfortable with grants and clinical research but knows nothing about business. “Kiera,” he says, “took over the section of the application I struggled most with—the competitive landscape—and provided granular, accurate, high-quality data on competitors, including their strengths and weaknesses. She patiently explained her findings to me, which enabled me to incorporate her research into my application, greatly strengthening it. I do not think I would have been awarded this grant without her support.”

In Conclusion

Brown Innovation Fellows, emphasizes Simon, is not just an “intern program,” where fellows provide an extra set of hands. Rather, the program is training the fellows to think about research in a more translational way and to be creative yet critical in their evaluation of potential commercialization pathways. The experience is also intended to enable them to look at their own graduate research from a fresh perspective and to develop skills that are transferable to their future careers, whether inside or outside of academia.  

“The program,” says Simon, “supports fellows, BTI, Brown startups, and faculty members. The work the fellows do extends the capabilities of BTI, directly impacting the faculty who engage with the office, helping them to think in new ways about their own research and potential new pathways for their work.”

Program Graduates

Xiaozhou Fan, PhD, Engineering

Josephine Kalshoven, PhD, Biomedical Engineering

Liam Connolly, Medical Student

Brandon Armstead, PhD, Pathobiology

Current Fellows

Irvin Akinseye, Medical student

Kiera Dwyer, PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering

Lawrence Huang, Medical Student

Joe Inger, Medical Student

Alec McCall, PhD Candidate, Biomedical Engineering

Kushaal Rao, PhD Candidate, Neuroscience

Alex Wong, MD/PhD Candidate, Computational Biology