Craig Arnold and Justin Silpe pose for a photo after Arnold presented Silpe the Tiger Entrepreneur Award.
Celebrate Princeton Innovation spotlights researchers who are patenting discoveries, creating start-ups and exploring other ventures
More than 400 Princeton faculty and staff, industry representatives, venture capitalists and guests attended this year's Celebrate Princeton Innovation event, the University’s annual salute to its researchers who are patenting discoveries, creating start-up companies and exploring other ventures.
“It is wonderful to be able to see all of you coming together, different partners from around the region along with our researchers from across the University,” Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgruber said. “We believe this is important to our future, to the future of our society, the future of our state, and the future of our university.”
Craig Arnold, vice dean for innovation and newly appointed University innovation officer, served as master of ceremonies. He explained how the new Office of Innovation he heads brought together many of the innovation activities in the Office of the Dean for Research, including Technology Licensing and Strategic Partnerships and Engagement.
“We brought those together and expanded it to provide new support for engaging regional and global partners for helping to run and oversee innovation infrastructure, creating new programs, new opportunities for our researchers, our faculty, our students, our staff,” Arnold said. “It might sound like a modest change creating an office, but make no mistake about it, this new organizational structure is going to enable us to not only serve the needs of our community, it will enable us to be more responsive to their needs and it will allow us to supercharge innovation here at Princeton.”
Eisgruber noted, “Part of what we've learned as we work with our scientists, our engineers, our social scientists, and even some of our humanists right now, is that the leading scholars and researchers want to be in contact with partners who can help make sure that their innovations are making a difference in the world and help to inspire the work that they're doing.”
Arnold introduced Meredith Prysak, director of product development and project management at the event’s featured company, Orthobond Corp. The company has been developing a nanoscale surface treatment to stop contamination in medical devices.
“The science that enables this tremendously important application was born right here in this building, in the lab of Professor Jeff Schwartz,” Arnold said, pointing to the professor in the audience. Schwartz, professor of chemistry, emeritus, co-founded Orthobond with the late Gregory Lutz.
Prysak said the company, based in nearby Monmouth Junction, has been working with Princeton for a long time and described the collaboration as enormously successful.
Arnold presented the Tiger Entrepreneur Award, which recognizes student, early-career alumni or postdoctoral researcher for entrepreneurial achievement. The 2024 award was given to Justin Silpe. While a postdoctoral researcher in Princeton’s Department of Molecular Biology, Silpe co-founded the company PumpKin. Using technology developed on campus, PumpKin provides ways to extend the shelf life of human breast milk.
Silpe noted that he benefited from the help of the Princeton-administered National Science Foundation I-Corps Northeast Hub, part of a national program to accelerate the economic impact of federally funded research.
During the three-hour event, attendees wound their way through the atrium, talking with featured faculty members who discussed and demonstrated the commercial possibilities of their work. For example:
- Ralph Kleiner, associate professor of chemistry, discussed the RNA research in his laboratory that has the potential to target disease.
- Jyotirmoy Mandal, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, showed the technology he and his laboratory team have developed for passive heating and cooling of buildings.
- Laura Murray, assistant director of learning programs at the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, explained to visitors the GradTLC program she and a colleague have developed to help graduate students thrive not only in their studies but in their personal lives as well.
- Brandon Stewart, associate professor of sociology, talked about he’s using large language models to optimize messages in political communications and other types of marketing.
Celebrate Princeton Innovation began in 2009 as Celebrate Princeton Invention, held in Chancellor Green Hall. The event outgrew that location and moved to the more spacious Frick atrium. Attendance for this year’s event was the largest ever.