We are pleased to announce that Kathie Jordan, PhD has been promoted to Director of the UW Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership Program. Kathie was appointed as the Interim Director of the UW Coulter TRP Program in December 2013.

Kathie is highly qualified for this position, with expertise in scientific research, market analysis, technology commercialization and program leadership and development. Kathie received her PhD from the UW Molecular and Cellular Biology program in 2000 and worked as a Senior Fellow and Research Scientist from 2000-2009. Starting in 2011 Kathie gained expertise in marketing and market analysis at the UW Center for Commercialization (C4C) and with the UW Coulter TRP. In July of 2012 Kathie was promoted to the Associate Director position of the Coulter TRP where she worked closely with then Program Director Rachael Tanner and Principle Investigator Dr. Paul Yager (former Chair of UW Bioengineering). During the past 9 months Kathie has led efforts to expand and develop the TRP Program within the UW, develop new educational programs in technology commercialization and manage projects currently funded by the Coulter TRP.

We are also pleased to welcome Kassandra Thomson, PhD as the new Assistant Director of the UW Coulter TRP Program, appointed in June of 2014. Kassandra completed her PhD in Bioengineering at UW with Drs. Michael Regnier (WRF Endowed Professor of Bioengineering) and Marta Scatena in June 2013. Kassandra was awarded fellowships from both the NSF and the American Heart Association (AHA) 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. Kassandra was an ITHS/WRF fellow with the UW C4C in 2012, where she gained experience in business strategy development and analysis. In January of 2014 Kassandra joined the UW Coulter TRP Program as a market analyst, where she gained expertise in market and competitive analyses and evaluation of translational research products. In addition, Kassandra is a consultant for BEAT BioTherapeutics and brings valuable first-hand start-up experience to our teams. We are thrilled to have her join our team as the new Assistant Director.

Please join us in congratulating Kathie and Kassandra on their appointments.

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.