Daniel Dardani Named Director of Physical Sciences and Digital Innovation Licensing and Corporate Alliances at Duke’s Office for Translation and Commercialization
By Aliza Inbari
Durham, NC, May 9, 2022 – Daniel Dardani, CLP, will join the Duke’s Office for Translation and Commercialization (OTC) as Director of Physical Sciences and Digital Innovation Licensing and Corporate Alliances on May 16, 2022.
In this new role, Dardani will coordinate the outreach, marketing, and licensing of physical sciences and digital innovations and the use of translational funds for investments in nascent technologies. He will also work in concert with the Office of External Partnerships (OEP) to provide strategic support to develop multi-year corporate alliances, corporate partners, and negotiation of IP terms for significant sponsored research agreements.
Dardani joins OTC after spending nearly twenty years at MIT’s Technology Licensing Office as a Technology Licensing Officer. Most recently, he managed the software IP and the redesign of the office database. A veteran technology transfer executive, Dardani counseled faculty, inventors, and entrepreneurs to protect and leverage innovations and translate innovative ideas into commercialization opportunities across MIT’s schools and departments. He also led a large and sophisticated portfolio of technologies, including physical sciences, computing, software, patented algorithms, big data, quantum mechanics, AI/machine learning and cyber security technologies. Dardani also contributed to the intellectual property and licensing provisions in industrial sponsorship research agreements and strategic corporate initiatives.
“We are looking forward to having Dan join our team,” said Robin Rasor, Associate Vice President for Translation and Commercialization. “His wealth of experience at MIT will enable us to take the next step toward identifying and translating high-tech innovations, in particular out of the Pratt School of Engineering and Trinity College for Art and Sciences.”
“I am very excited about joining OTC and helping advance the scope, reach, and impact of Duke’s research endeavor,” said Dardani. “The timing couldn’t be better for capitalizing on emerging alignments in the physical and digital sciences as both university and corporate innovators seek out new ways to collaborate and apply software, data, AI, and machine learning techniques to questions in health, robotics, quantum, and related engineering fields.”
Dardani holds degrees in physics and political science from the University of Rochester. He also works as a longtime teaching fellow at Harvard University, co-teaching a survey course in intellectual property at Harvard’s Summer School for the past sixteen years.