Jim Deane is the director of the Office of Innovation & Commercialization, where he leads teams focusing on intellectual property and licensing, and on innovation and entrepreneurial programs. He is also the Principle Investigator of the RISE-UP and EDA ICC awards, as well as the UH project director for the Desert & Pacific NSF i-Corps Hub.

Deane’s reports include the Pacific Business Center Program and the Minority Business Development Agency, as well as an embedded representative from the National Security Innovation Network.

A UH Alumnus, Deane obtained his master’s and doctoral degrees from the Institute for Astronomy and completed a postdoc at Queen Mary University of London. He then pivoted to get his MBA at Cornell University and began a 20+ year career in academic partnership and tech transfer at AAU/Carnegie R1 institutions (UNC Chapel Hill, U Michigan, Purdue and U Oregon).

Deane is also a former Chair of the Board of Governors of the Certified Licensing Professional organization (CLP) and has done panel review work for the NSF, Congressionally-Directed Medical Research Program and Science Foundation Ireland. He is active in AUTM (Association of University Technology Managers) and the Licensing Executive Society and holds the CLP certification.