The University of California San Diego has emerged as a leader in how engineering and management schools within one university can collaborate in order to strengthen entrepreneurship education, startup creation, and the commercialization of innovation. The latest move: a pair of unique endowed chair professorships. The Jacobs Family Chairs in Engineering Management Leadership have been awarded to the two professors leading the UC San Diego Institute for the Global Entrepreneur, which is the centerpiece of the collaboration between the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School of Management.

The awardees are electrical and computer engineering professor Sujit Dey and Rady School of Management professor Vish Krishnan. Their endowed chair professorships are reserved for faculty with joint appointments between the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School of Management.

“Many engineering schools claim they are collaborating with their business or management school on campus. Here at UC San Diego, we are actually doing it,” said Albert P. Pisano, Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering at UC San Diego.

Support from the endowed chairs will allow professors Vish Krishnan and Sujit Dey to do even more to bring the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School School of Management together.

“Through the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur, we have built innovative programs in education and in technology commercialization that connect the Rady School and the Jacobs School in very real ways,” said Robert Sullivan, Dean of the Rady School of Management. “Vish Krishnan and Sujit Dey have been, and will continue to be, instrumental in this process.”

Institute for the Global Entrepreneur

In 2016, UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering and Rady School of Management joined forces to launch the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur – which runs entrepreneurship education programs where engineering graduate students and MBA students work shoulder to shoulder on real-world projects. The Institute also runs acceleratorsthat support the transfer of innovations to society while providing immersive entrepreneurship training to faculty, students and alumni.

As the faculty leaders of the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur, Sujit Dey and Vish Krishan, together with Institute Executive Director Dennis Abremski, are critical members of the team working to expand and strengthen the Institute’s programs for maximum impact.

“I’d like to thank Irwin and Joan Jacobs for their incredible vision, leadership and generosity toward UC San Diego and the entire region,” said Dey. “These endowed chairs provide critical support – both material and symbolic – for our efforts to ensure that critical breakthroughs are translated to society for the public good.”

“The fact that Irwin and Joan Jacobs designed these endowed chairs to be specifically reserved for faculty who are working across both the Rady School and the Jacobs School is one of many testaments to their wisdom and foresight – not to mention their generosity,” said Krishnan.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Professor Sujit Dey

Sujit Dey serves as the faculty director of the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur. He is a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering and serves as Director of the UC San Diego Center for Wireless Communications. He also leads the UC San Diego Smart Transportation Innovation Program. In his many roles on campus, Dey facilitates interactions between research teams and industry partners in order to address the toughest and most relevant research challenges.

“I think it’s very important for the success of universities, and for the success of the larger economy, for universities to encourage faculty to go beyond research and teaching. In engineering, that means building relationships with industry. This is my own calling; to understand what the real problems are out there and to find ways to address these problems here at UC San Diego,” said Dey.

This is one of the big projects Dey is taking on through his work with the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur and across campus.

“I take immense pleasure in getting my team’s research published in top journals. But my pleasure and satisfaction cannot stop there,” said Dey. “I have this constant urge to do more, to see the results of the research being used by someone.”

Dey co-founded Ortiva Wireless in 2004. Through this company, he and his team transferred his lab’s advances in mobile video optimization into the real world. Ortiva Wireless was acquired by Allot Communications in 2012.

“I am extremely motivated to help our faculty build mechanisms into their research programs to ensure that applied research projects actually make it out of the labs in order to solve industry problems,” said Dey.

He sees new generations of university researchers that are increasingly motivated by this kind of thinking.

“We have a real opportunity to help professors translate their research for the good of society. There is so much important work being done on this campus, and we are building systems and tools to help faculty make sure as much of their hard work as possible gets put into practice,” said Dey.

Tied to this effort is Dey’s focus on ensuring that the most diverse group of innovators possible is working to commercialize their breakthroughs at UC San Diego.

“If we create the environment in which everyone understands that translating technologies is ok, if we demystify what translating technologies is, and if we demystify how it has to be done, then I think more people will naturally do it,” said Dey.

Rady School of Management Professor Vish Krishnan

Vish Krishnan is a teacher, researcher, entrepreneur and mentor. A common thread that connects his work: helping people bridge the divide between engineering and business and helping people take their ideas to market for social and economic benefit.

“I get enormous satisfaction from advising student-formed startups that contribute to job creation and social welfare. We are singularly focused on serving the community by translating university, student and alumni inventions and innovations into socially beneficial products, services and ventures,” said Vish Krishnan, associate director of the Institute for the Global Entrepreneur. He is faculty director of the CIID Entrepreneurship Initiative at the Rady School, where he is a Professor of Innovation, Technology and Operations.

“It has been a source of great joy and privilege for me to work with students and faculty from across the UC San Diego campus. I find it extremely gratifying to help students evolve their product ideas and business plans and to help faculty and students to obtain funding for their translational projects. For example, we are working with researchers to commercialize stroke detection and prevention products as well as various energy efficiency solutions,” said Krishnan. “We look forward to working with many people and organizations across the region as we scale up our educational and entrepreneurial activities. We have so much to contribute to the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem in San Diego.”