As chief of NASA Glenn Research Center’s Technology Transfer Office (TTO), Kimberly Dalgleish-Miller’s extraordinary leadership has led to numerous innovative developments in technology transfer that are highly applicable to other FLC member laboratories.
She has proactively shared her successes and best practices with the larger technology transfer community and achieved recognition—both regionally and nationally—for her innovative approach to technology transfer.
Under her leadership, NASA Glenn has seen a dramatic rise in licensing agreements. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2015, Dalgleish-Miller helped NASA Glenn secure eight licensing agreements covering 18 technologies—more licenses than the Center had secured in the previous ten years combined. In FY 2016, her team has already surpassed its record-breaking year, securing 16 licenses covering 35 technologies.
Dalgleish-Miller consistently experiments with creative approaches to improve NASA Glenn’s commercialization opportunities. In 2015, she encouraged a team of NASA Glenn innovators to enter the LaunchHouse business accelerator program to gain entrepreneurial skills and share their expertise with early-stage companies. The team entered a 16-week boot camp with a water purification system originally developed for the space program. They wanted to explore the technology's benefits here on Earth. Through their participation in the LaunchHouse Expo, NASA Glenn's innovators made numerous connections with water treatment companies in the region. As a result, the TTO has multiple evaluation licenses signed and is now in discussions with additional organizations interested in commercial licensing options for this technology.
She has proactively shared her successes and best practices with the larger technology transfer community and achieved recognition—both regionally and nationally—for her innovative approach to technology transfer.
Dalgleish-Miller has made it part of her mission to share best practices (and the recipe for her extraordinary licensing success over the last two years) through internal and external channels. NASA Glenn has fielded multiple requests from technology transfer experts across the U.S. asking for advice on how they can replicate her licensing success. She has shared her tips, tools, and techniques with federal labs nationwide. She continuously emphasizes the need to involve multiple stakeholders and build a sustainable model.
A participant in the White House Forum on Connecting Regional Innovation Ecosystems, Dalgleish-Miller raised the profile of technology transfer on a national scale and increased the dialogue around tech transfer. The White House hosted senior leadership from some of the nation’s most innovative labs—including NASA, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Departments of Energy, Defense, Agriculture, and Commerce. Dalgleish-Miller and her fellow technology transfer leaders, along with universities and state and local economic development officials, discussed strategies for connecting the expertise and advanced tools found at federal labs with businesses in order to promote innovation, R&D commercialization, and regional economic growth.