Jennifer Maynard Named Emerging Inventor of the Year
Jennifer Maynard, associate professor and Laurence E. McMakin Jr. Centennial Fellow, has been awarded the prestigious title of Emerging Inventor of the Year by The University of Texas at Austin’s Office of Technology and Commercialization (OTC).
The Emerging Inventor of the Year award is a new award category within OTC’s 2015 Inventor of the Year Award Ceremony & Reception program, which also named Dr. Joseph Beaman as the 2015 Inventor of the Year and recognized UT Austin inventors who were issued patents during the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
Maynard’s research focuses on the treatment of Pertussis (whooping cough) and multiple sclerosis by use of biotechnology, vaccine development, protein therapeutics and applied microbiology. Recently, Maynard received a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to further evaluate monoclonal antibodies for prevention of whooping cough. Her numerous awards include Most Outstanding Professor in Chemical Engineering at UT Austin, the National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health, and the Texas Exes Teaching Award.
Dr. Maynard received her B.A. in human biology from Stanford University and her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at UT Austin. She then continued her post-doctoral studies as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and has been a Texas ChE faculty member since 2007.
Of the 178 patents issued to UT inventors during the 2014-2015 fiscal year, 16 percent were issued to Texas ChE faculty and alumni. Previous recipients of the Inventor of the Year Award include three current Texas Che professors – Drs. Adam Heller (2011), Grant Willson (2012) and George Georgiou (2014).
Learn more about Dr. Maynard’s lab with this video.
Tags: applied microbiology, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, biotechnology, Dr. Jennifer Maynard, Dr. Josephy Beaman, Emerging Inventor of the Year, Inventor of the Year Award, McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering, multiple sclerosis, pertussis, protein therapeutics, Texas ChE, The University of Texas at Austin, UT Austin, UT Office of Technology and Commercialization, UT OTC, vaccine development, whooping cough