Kassandra Thomson Appointed New Interim Director of the UW Coulter TRP Program

We are pleased to announce that Kassandra Thomson, Ph.D. has been appointed Interim Director of the W. H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership (TRP) Program. The Coulter TRP program was previously led by Kathie Jordan, Ph.D., who left UW to become the Coulter Program Director at Drexel University beginning in April 2015. We sincerely thank Kathie for her expert leadership of the program and her dedication to integrating commercialization into the hearts and minds of our faculty and students.

Kassandra brings to this position her expertise in scientific research, market analysis and technology commercialization. Kassandra received her Ph.D. from UW Bioengineering in June 2013. She was awarded NSF and American Heart Association fellowships for her graduate research, and took a leading role in a multi-investigator NIH sponsored project to develop engineered cardiac tissue constructs to treat heart failure. She earned a Technology Entrepreneurship Certificate from the UW Foster School of Business, and was an ITHS/WRF fellow with the UW C4C (now CoMotion) in 2012. Kassandra joined the UW Coulter TRP Program in January 2014, and was promoted to Assistant Director in June 2014, working closely with Program Director Kathie Jordan, Principal Investigator Cecilia Giachelli (Chair of Bioengineering) and the Bioengineering Vice Chair of Development Michael Regnier. In this role she gained significant experience in all aspects of the Coulter TRP program, working to develop, review and manage projects funded by the Coulter program, and developing a new boot camp for entrepreneurship and non-dilutive funding with Kathie. In addition, Kassandra is a consultant for local medical device and biotech companies and brings valuable first-hand start-up experience to our teams.

Please join us in congratulating Kassandra on this appointment.

The Coulter Translational Research Partnership program is an alliance between the School of Medicine and College of Engineering, with a dedicated focus on developing technologies that will save, extend and improve lives. The program is supported by a multi-year grant from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation.