Trana travels into IU’s tech transfer office

Simran Trana became the first associate vice-president of Indiana University’s Innovation and Commercialization Office (ICO) on Monday.
Trana was appointed following a nationwide recruitment process. The post is intended to reflect a recent overhaul at ICO designed to boost its tech transfer capacity for IU inventors and external partners.
Trana will be expected to leverage the momentum for ICO’s strategy, positioning the office as a service-driven commercialisation gateway and expanding its strategic alliances across the public and private sectors.
She joins Indiana University after more than a decade at the agriculture arm of speciality chemicals and materials supplier  Corteva Agriscience, latterly heading up its digital crop protection program from January 2019 until her departure.
Trana was a licensing manager with Corteva – then called DowDuPont – between September 2017 and June 2019, after nine years in a variety of product development, intellectual property and licensing-oriented roles across its operations in the US and east Asia.
Her resume also includes tech transfer expertise, as director of Purdue University’s Office of Technology Commercialization from 2001 until 2008, and as associate director for the equivalent body at University of Georgia between 1999 and 2000.
Fred Cate, vice president for research at Indiana University, said: “Having success in both industry and higher education, Simran brings the right mix of skills and experience to work with IU inventors and industry partners to shorten the time between discovery and the marketplace.”
“I am delighted that we will have the benefit of Simran’s leadership to enhance delivery of the positive outcomes of IU research to Hoosiers [persons from the state of Indiana] and beyond.”