Alice Li, PhD
Executive Director of the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL)
Alice has 14 years of experience in university technology transfer. She was the Director of Licensing of the Ithaca office from 2011 to 2014, providing mentorship for licensing professionals in intellectual property protection, license negotiation, and spearheading new commercialization initiatives. Alice joined CTL in 2002 and started with hands-on management of invention portfolios, negotiations of complex deals and engagement with startup companies.
Alice Li is the Executive Director of the Center for Technology Licensing (CTL) at Cornell University. She oversees all aspects of technology management, marketing, license negotiation, outreach, and CTL activities to facilitate new venture creation in its services to all Cornell campuses and colleges.
Prior to joining CTL, Alice was an R&D manager at BioArray Solutions, a NJ biotech company in diagnostic and drug discovery. During her five-year tenure there, the company grew from a two-person startup to an enterprise of fifty people. BioArray Solutions was acquired by a publicly traded company in 2008.
Alice obtained her Ph.D. from Cornell University and B.S. from Tsinghua University. She is also an inventor and patent holder. Alice has been a Certified Licensing Professional since 2010.
Martin Wiedmann, DVM, PhD
Professor, Food Science, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Martin Wiedmann is a Professor in the Department of Food Science. He received a Veterinary Degree (D.V.M. equivalent) and Dr. med. vet. (Ph.D. equivalent) in Veterinary Medicine both from the University of Munich, Germany and a Ph.D. in Food Science from Cornell University.
He joined the Cornell faculty in 1999 and is a member of the Graduate Fields of Food Science, Microbiology, and Comparative Biomedical Sciences. He serves as co-coordinator of the Cornell Food and Water Safety Program, and he participates in the Infection and Pathobiology Program, the Cornell Center for Comparative and Population Genomics (3CPG), and in the Cornell Genomics Initiative. He teaches Food Science 607 “Advanced Food Microbiology”, Food Science 351 “Milk Quality”, Food Science 406 “Dairy and Food Fermentations” and VTMED 741 Microbial Safety of Animal-Based Foods . In addition, he serves as the director of the Cornell Institute of Food Science Summer Scholar Program. Martin is also the director of the Cornell Laboratory of Molecular Typing. Martin has served on the Editorial Board of the American Journal of Veterinary research (1999-2001) and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Food Protection and Applied and Environmental Microbiology.
Zachary Shulman, JD
Director of Entrepreneurship at Cornell; Managing Partner, Cayuga Venture Fund
Zach Shulman teaches courses on venture capital and law for high-growth businesses. Shulman is also currently a managing partner at Cayuga Venture Fund, a venture capital firm located in Ithaca, New York.
Before coming to Johnson in 2002, Shulman served as general counsel and chief investor relations officer of Spike Broadband Systems, where he was responsible for general oversight of Spike’s legal function, including negotiating and closing strategic and business relationships; strategizing, negotiating and closing fund-raising efforts; investor relations; and various human resource matters. While at Spike, Shulman negotiated and closed more than $80 million in venture capital financing.
Shulman participates in the university-wide Entrepreneurship@Cornell (E@C) initiative and serves on numerous advisory boards for groups affiliated with Cornell and the local community. He earned a bachelor of science from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations and graduated from Cornell University Law School, magna cum laude.
David Putnam, PhD
Professor, Biomedical Engineering/ Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
David Putnam joined the College of Engineering at Cornell University in 2002. Prior to joining the engineering faculty, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer. From 2000 until 2002, he held a joint appointment with MIT and as a Scientific co-Founder of a start-up company, TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in March, 2005. In 2008-2009 he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at PureTech Ventrures in Boston, MA where he focused on emerging technologies in the field of drug delivery. He is currently a member of seven Editorial Advisory Boards including Pharmaceutical Research, Journal of Controlled Release, Analytical Biochemistry and Experimental Biology and Medicine. His funding sources include NIH, NSF, the Coulter Foundation and the Department of Defense. He is a Fellow of AIMBE (reserved for the top 2% of Biomedical Engineers in the United States) and the Coulter Foundation. He received his B.S. in Pharmacy from Union University and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Utah.