Katharine Ku (pictured), executive director of Stanford University’s tech transfer division Office of Technology Licensing (OTL), is retiring today after nearly four decades with the office.
Ku took over leadership of OTL in 1991 from the office’s first executive director, Niels Reimers, though she had been with the office since 1981. Her first job with Stanford University was as a patent engineer in the Office of Sponsored Research in 1979.
During her time with OTL, she oversaw a significant expansion of the unit – the headcount increased from 20 to 48 and annual income generated grew from approximately $25m to between $50m and $100m.
The office licensed hundreds of technologies and secured $1.8bn in income, the majority of which was reinvested into research, during her time. Ku was also one of the first to establish an Industrial Contracts Office at a time when such a division was still a rarity…
