The appointments of Lori Pressman and Jack Turner as assistant directors
in the Technology Licensing Office (TLO) have been announced by Lita
Nelsen, director of the office.
Ms. Pressman, who joined the TLO in 1989, licenses technology in the
fields of medical devices, optics and semiconductor devices. She works
extensively with technologies from Lincoln Laboratory and has aided in
the formation of startup companies such as Cambridge Heart, Inc., and
Lightpath Semiconductor Corp.
A physics graduate of MIT, Ms. Pressman also has an electrical
engineering degree from Columbia University. Before joining the TLO, she
worked at Bell Labs and at Lasertron, a company that spun off from
Lincoln Laboratory and has licensed patents from MIT.
Mr. Turner, who joined the TLO in 1993, is an electrical engineering
graduate of MIT. He was previously executive vice president and chief
operating officer of Metritape, Inc., and vice president of Whistler
Corp., a Dynatech company. Mr. Turner licenses technology in the fields
of communications, solid free-form fabrication, energy production and
related technologies.
He also works with the Media Laboratory and Lincoln Laboratory. He has
aided in the formation of companies such as Virtual Machine Works,
Sensable Devices, Applied Language Technologies and Facio Reco.
The Technology Licensing Office manages and licenses the patents,
software and other intellectual property that arises from research at
MIT, Lincoln Laboratory and the Whitehead Institute, working with
companies and investors to move the technology from the laboratory into
commercialization. It normally grants some 75 technology licenses and is
involved with the start-up of six to 10 companies per year.
The office was reorganized from the Patents, Copyrights and Licensing
Office with John Preston as director of technology development and Ms
Nelsen as director of the technology licensing. Mr. Preston left the
office at the end of 1995 to become chairman and CEO of Quantum Energy
Technologies of Cambridge, but he remains a lecturer at the Sloan
Schoolof Management.
