Translation Program Director
UNC Charlotte
Full-Time
Closes on Sunday, September 13, 2026
Job Description
- Conducts proactive, campus-wide engagement with UNC Charlotte researchers — in research centers, institutes, and directly with individual researchers not affiliated with any center — to identify research with commercial translation potential at TRL 2–3, before it self-selects through formal disclosure or exits through publication unrealized.
- Facilitates structured problem-framing sessions between researchers and Charlotte industry counterparts, translating scientific findings into operational problem statements that corporate partners in energy, advanced manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, defense and intelligence, and optics recognize as real and worth solving.
- Evaluates the translation readiness of technologies in the assigned portfolio by conducting Technical Readiness Level (TRL), Adoption Readiness Level (ARL), and Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) assessments, and prepares the Translation Validation Clearance documentation required for handoff to New Ventures & Industry Alliances.
- Cultivates and sustains direct, working-level relationships with VP and Director-level counterparts in corporate R&D and engineering at Charlotte's corporate partners and with C-level leadership at SMBs in assigned domains, drawing on personal industry expertise and networks to make peer-level introductions between faculty inventors and potential corporate partners and investors.
- Coordinates across all three ORTIA units — Translation Intelligence, New Ventures & Industry Alliances, and IP & Technology Transfer — exercising cross-unit convening authority as designated by the AVC to move technologies through the translation pipeline from initial identification through Translation Validation Clearance and handoff.
- Proposes Mentor-in-Residence matches for technologies at TRL 3–5 in the assigned portfolio, identifying experienced entrepreneurs and former corporate executives from Charlotte's business community whose domain background and operational experience align with the technology and the faculty inventor.
- Supports federal and state commercialization programs — including NSF I-Corps, NSF Tech Scout, and internal grant programs, preparing them for application, and ensuring program outputs are integrated into ORTIA's translation pipeline.
- Maintains accurate and current documentation of all researchers and technology engagements in ORTIA's pipeline tracker, and participates in weekly pipeline coordination meetings to report portfolio status, identify technologies at handoff points, and surface resource needs across units for resolution by the AVC.