(November 30, 2015, San Diego Union Tribune) – Rory McIlroy has come to UC San Diego in the body of Paul Roben – both are true Irish superstars.
Roben is the new associate vice chancellor for innovation and commercialization – which in startup/entrepreneurship speak means he is going to bring the university’s involvement in the community, its commitment to expanding and enhancing the tech transfer office, its support of campuswide integration of students, faculty and innovation – kicking and screaming into the 21st century. And I say bravo!
Roben came to California 25 years ago, worked at Scripps as a graduate student and got a post doc at UCSD. He also started a company – eight years of effort and great science – but it ran out of money.
He went back to Ireland, worked for the government in their tech transfer efforts to create an interface between the academic and the private sector (albeit with modesty, he says it was quite successful) and then he came back to Salk and finally back to UCSD.
So Roben certainly has the scars and experience to run this program.
