WARF announces new hires and promotions
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) has announced promotions for Michael E. Falk and Emily Bauer, and the hires of a communications director, Janet L. Kelly, and two licensing professionals, Craig Heim for start-up companies, and Mark Stoveken for pharmaceutical licensing.
Michael E. Falk, formerly chief of staff and director of intellectual property, has been named general counsel. In this expanded role, Falk is responsible for a staff of legal, research and intellectual property professionals who oversee WARF’s patent program and manage its legal affairs.
Falk has led WARF’s intellectual property team for the last four years and will continue directing this group, which is responsible for identifying and patenting promising new technologies developed from research conducted on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. Prior to this position, Falk served the foundation as a licensing manager in biotechnology. Before joining WARF, Falk practiced as a patent litigator with Foley & Lardner’s Madison office.
Falk holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University; as well as a law degree, a master’s degree in business administration, and a master’s degree in bacteriology, all from UW–Madison.
Emily Bauer has been promoted to the position of licensing manager for agricultural biotechnology. In this new position, she will work closely with UW–Madison’s College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) and industry partners to promote the commercialization of new technologies.
Bauer joined WARF in 2002 as a licensing assistant for pharmaceuticals, and most recently served as the technology transfer nonprofit’s inside licensing manager. She succeeds Brad Ricker, who recently left WARF to join UW–Madison’s Office of Corporate Relations.
Prior to joining WARF, Bauer was a senior staff analyst and technical writer with Compuware Corporation in Madison. She holds a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism from UW–Madison, as well as master’s degrees in technical communication from the University of Washington and biotechnology from UW–Madison.
Janet L. Kelly has been hired as communications director for WARF and the technology transfer organization’s affiliates, WiCell, WiSys and the Morgridge Institute for Research. In this newly created position, Kelly will develop strategic communications plans for each entity. In addition, she will direct media relations, external communications and event planning. Kelly will work closely with Andrew Cohn, who directs WARF’s government and associations relations and has worked at the foundation for the past seven years.
Kelly most recently served as communications director for Madison Area Technical College and previously worked at Citibank/Citicorp, where she served in various communications and business management positions in Chicago and southern California. Kelly holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has completed the executive education program for manger development at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.
Craig Heim has been hired as the WARF licensing manager for start-up companies. In this newly created position, Heim will help launch nascent Madison-area businesses that have licensed UW–Madison technologies through WARF. This new position reflects WARF’s renewed commitment to encouraging economic development in Madison and Dane County.
Heim comes to WARF from the Milwaukee investment banking firm, Grace Matthews, where he worked for seven years in mergers and acquisitions, leveraged finance, and capital fundraising.
Heim holds a UW–Madison bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, as well as a master’s in business administration from the Weinert Applied Ventures in Entrepreneurship program.
Mark Stoveken has been hired by WARF as a pharmaceutical licensing associate focusing on bone health and the development and commercialization of pharmaceutical uses of Vitamin D. The discovery of Vitamin D led to WARF’s founding in 1925 and continues to play a significant role in the organization’s patenting and licensing activities.
Stoveken, who holds a bachelor’s degree in international business and economics from UW–Madison, brings more than 20 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience to WARF. Recently, he managed The Synephros Group, a sales and marketing consulting company focused on the kidney disease market. While at Madison-based Bone Care International, he built the company’s marketing department and developed the commercialization plan for the drug Hectorol, a Vitamin D analog for chronic kidney disease. In his new position, Stoveken will collaborate with the namesake of Hectorol, Hector DeLuca, one of WARF’s most prolific inventors.
WARF supports world-class research at UW–Madison by protecting the intellectual property of university faculty, staff and students, and licensing inventions resulting from their work. Established in 1925, WARF was the first university technology transfer office in the United States. WARF affiliates includeWiSys, the nonprofit patenting and licensing organization of the UW System; the nonprofit WiCell Research Institute, established in 1999 to advance stem cell research; and the Morgridge Institute for Research, part of a unique public/private UW interdisciplinary research hub scheduled to begin construction in 2008.
