Join us for the inaugural From Lab to Launch, where UCF postdoctoral researchers will present breakthrough technologies with the potential to become tomorrow's startup companies.
As the culminating event of UCF's NSF Accelerating Research Translation (ART) Program, this showcase highlights innovative research moving beyond the laboratory and toward real-world impact. Fellowship applicants will pitch their technologies, commercialization strategies, and vision for bringing their innovations to market.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, investor, industry partner, faculty member, researcher, student, or member of Florida's innovation community, this event offers an opportunity to:
· Discover emerging technologies developed at UCF
· Meet researchers building the next generation of startups
· Explore opportunities for collaboration, licensing, investment, and industry partnerships
· Learn how university research is translated into commercial impact
Following the event, up to three Postdoctoral Innovation Fellows will be selected to receive a year of commercialization support, mentorship, and funding through UCF's National Science Foundation Accelerating Research Translation (NSF ART) Program.
For questions, please contact Cecily McCoy-Fisher at Cecily.mccoyfisher@ucf.edu.
Featured Judges
The competition will be evaluated by a distinguished panel of leaders from venture capital, healthcare innovation, and technology transition.
Kathy Chiu is a founding partner of DeepWork Capital, a Florida-based firm that invests in early-stage technology and life science companies. She began her venture capital career at iSherpa Capital, where she focused on wireless technology. Earlier in her career, she was a quantitative analyst at the economic consulting firm Cornerstone Research and held strategy and product management roles at technology organizations including Level 3 Communications, Compaq, the MIT Media Lab, the Superconducting Super Collider, and Tektronix. As an independent consultant, she has advised client companies on strategic alliances and new market entry. She earned a BS and MS in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Rebecca Shanahan is a founding partner of Shanahan Capital Venture Partners. She brings more than three decades of enterprise executive leadership and governance experience across specialty, infusion and compounding pharmacy, digital health, payer and pharmaceutical strategy, patient access, provider networks and integrated delivery systems. She has built and/or led high-growth healthcare companies, with an emphasis on early-stage and growth-stage companies in start-up and scale-up mode, confronting the need for strategic changes, transaction readiness, and infrastructure expansion. Rebecca has successfully completed more than 50 acquisitions; integrations, divestitures, and restructuring in tax-exempt, PE, public, and founder-led environments.
Cassie Muffley is the director of the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) program and built the infrastructure that gives non-traditional and commercial technology companies a real, navigable path into the defense market. She’s scaled the Defense Innovation OnRamp Hub program from a single location to eight nationwide in under three years — and it's still expanding. Before that, she spent 20 years across Air Force, Navy, and defense innovation roles learning what makes the Pentagon say yes — and, more often, why it says no. She's seen hundreds of companies try to break into the defense sector and knows what separates the ones that land contracts from the ones that stall out.
