Werner G. Kuhr serves as Associate Vice President of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Werner will oversee and enhance TTU’s robust innovation ecosystem, which includes the Office of Research Commercialization (ORC), The Innovation Hub, the Northwest Texas Small Business Development Center (NWTSBDC). and serve on the Board of the Texas Tech Research Park, Inc. (TTRP) (a separate 501(c)(3) entity). The TTU innovation ecosystem supports TTU and Texas Tech Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) faculty, staff, and student entrepreneurs, as well as the entire West Texas region. Reporting to the Vice President for Research and Innovation (VP), the AVP will work closely with the VP, strategizing, energizing, and leading a focused Research and Innovation Office, and driving economic engagement with TTU’s innovation ecosystem. The AVP will serve as TTU’s primary point of contact for the university’s innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development initiatives.

Previously, as Director of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO. Werner worked with internal and external stakeholders to integrate entrepreneurship into the University’s educational programs, sponsored research and technology commercialization activities. Previously, he served as the Technology Commercialization Director and the founding Director of the Stevens Venture Center at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Prior to this, he was Vice President of Research at ZettaCore, Inc., a company he founded and sold into the semiconductor and printed circuit board industry. ZettaCore was based on research performed while he was Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Riverside. At UC Riverside, he ran a research program that graduated 25 Ph.D. and MS students in fifteen years, published roughly 100 papers (H-index =60) and received extramural funding in excess of $8 million. He has participated in the formation of five start-up technology companies, several of which were based on translation research in protein diagnostics and genomics.