Erienne Olesh has stepped up to serve as executive director of student and faculty innovation at West Virginia University.
Erienne Olesh has been appointed executive director of student and faculty innovation at West Virginia University (WVU), a position in which she will work alongside the Office of Technology Transfer.
The new position is located within the Research Office and will aim to create small businesses commercialising faculty and graduate student research. Among her responsibilities will be increasing WVU’s share of the National Science Foundation’s various grant funding programmes.
Olesh has been with the institution and its affiliates in various capacities since 2011, first serving as a graduate research assistant during her PhD studies before becoming a technology scout at the Health Sciences Innovation Center in 2014.
She completed a five-month stint as associate technology analyst with WVU-aligned but independent non-profit applied research organisation University Innovation Corporation in 2017, before returning to the Health Sciences Innovation Center later that same year.
There, she then served as assistant director of technology commercialisation before a promotion to associate director in 2018. A year later, she became a director of the newly established venture fund Vantage Ventures, which grew out of the John Chambers School of Business and Economics.
She left that position in 2021 to become a director with StartUp West.
Olesh said: “My goal is to bring together the resources around innovation at the university to create more seamless pathways, whether it be working with students and faculty at the early stages of their ideas or getting them on the right track to grow a sustainable startup company.
“There are also resources at the state level that many people are not aware of. We want faculty and students to know we are a front door for them to come through.
“Over the past 10 years, the university has worked hard to build up faculty and student innovation. We are reaching a critical mass of people who are partaking in those activities, so it is now ever-important to provide clear and consistent resources and opportunities for engagement.”
– Image courtesy of West Virginia University
