Dr Vanessa Z Chan

Vice Dean of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Engineering School and the Jonathan & Linda Brassington Professor of Practice

Vanessa Chan is an accomplished entrepreneur, angel investor, speaker and educator renowned for her expertise in commercializing technologies. She is the inaugural Vice Dean of Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Engineering School and the Jonathan & Linda Brassington Professor of Practice. In 2021, Dr. Chan was appointed by President Biden to serve as the Chief Commercialization Officer at the U.S. Department of Energy and the Director of the Office of Technology Transitions.

In this role, she was instrumental in nationally advancing clean energy technologies, notably through the “Pathways to Commercial Liftoff” reports, which provided roadmaps scaling critical technologies like nuclear and geothermal. She also led the creation of a new framework and language for commercialization, “Adoption Readiness Levels” which is being used throughout federal government, incubators, VCs and the private sector to improve commercialization outcomes. Her impact was recognized through her inclusion as one of the world’s 100 most influential business leaders in climate in Time100’s 2024 list.

Before her tenure at the Department of Energy, Vanessa was a partner at McKinsey & Company where she co-led the innovation practice, helping large publicly traded companies commercialize their technologies. Following her time at McKinsey, she founded re.design, a company dedicated to reinventing consumer products to solve everyday challenges selling her products on QVC. Dr. Chan earned her Ph.D. from MIT and a B.S.E. from the University of Pennsylvania, both in Materials Science and Engineering.

She is a working parent and in her personal time, Dr. Chan is the co-owner of a pottery studio, an avid mountain biker, yoga practitioner, skier, and world traveler.

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