“The big challenges we face as a nation require interdisciplinary approaches and engineering R&D to develop effective solutions. ERVA will serve as an intellectual lodestar to identify opportunities for maximum impact and to catalyze the use-inspired research we need for new products and services that improve the human condition.”
Since 2007, Tony Boccanfuso has led UIDP, a solutions-oriented membership organization comprised of top-tier innovation firms and world-class research universities. He derives tremendous satisfaction in leading UIDP as it pursues its goal of strengthening partnerships between the academic and corporate sectors while helping its members achieve meaningful impact on a broad array of university-industry collaboration matters, ranging from contracting to commercialization and workforce development. Members use UIDP learnings to improve and advance their external engagement strategy. He believes that academic-corporate engagement improves the lives of ordinary people and the human condition through the development of transformational products, new medicines and creation of new information and approaches that lead to better decision-making.
Boccanfuso has significant research and commercialization experience managing a variety of administrative, programmatic, and strategy initiatives for academic, government, and private sector firms including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds a doctorate in inorganic chemistry.
His wife, Laura Boccanfuso, is a computer scientist and the founder/chief executive officer of Van Robotics, an educational technology start-up. They have three children: Carolina, a registered nurse; and Michael and Ana, both college students.