ASU Now | July 30, 2020
Sustainability scientist Mariana Bertoni and colleague Jennifer Blain Christen – both associate professors in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering and co-founders of technology startups extending from their research at ASU – are receiving high-profile support from the Fulton Entrepreneurial Professors program as its two newest fellows.
These two-year fellowships provide tenured or tenure-track engineering faculty members with the equivalent of $200,000 in time and resources to accelerate their nascent ventures toward successful commercialization. They do so by reassigning teaching responsibilities and supplying research staff to manage laboratory groups. With freedom from these responsibilities, fellows can apply themselves to pursuing small business training and seed funding, working with patent lawyers, meeting with potential equity investors and consulting with industry advisers.
Bertoni will use her forthcoming Fulton Entrepreneurial Professors fellowship experience to advance Crystal Sonic, the technology company she co-founded two years ago to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of next-generation semiconductor manufacturing.