Industrial Outreach
Industrial scientists (Yaqian Liu, BASF) are often the featured speaker at the Wednesday evening Squishy Science seminar.
The Harvard MRSEC has built very extensive ties in the industry with both large companies and small startups, and in local, national, and international companies. Industrial partnerships provide important stimulus for problems that are addressed within the MRSEC, and allow the researchers to gain direct experience with this important sector of the economy and the research enterprise. Industry values the research performed within the MRSEC, and even more importantly, the atmosphere of collaborative investigation. These collaborations provide direct support for research that leverages our NSF-supported MRSEC effort. They also provide essential intellectual stimulus in relevant problems, and an important educational component that introduces our students and postdoctoral fellows to career opportunities in industrial research. We have transferred our research results to a number of recent start-up companies in both commercial and non-profit realms. We are always open to forging new connections, and participate in the SEAS-supported Industrial Partnership Workshop each Spring.
Another critical component of the MRSEC's industrial interactions is developing startup companies. More than 42 startup companies were directly formed either from MRSEC seed projects, or from Center research. These startups have created more than 1140 high-tech jobs for MRSEC researchers, and other well-trained scientists and engineers working in these thriving companies.
