SAN ANTONIO (June 15, 2010) — Arjun Sanga, J.D., has been named executive director of South Texas Technology Management, a regional technology transfer office that serves four University of Texas institutions (the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, UT San Antonio (UTSA), UT Brownsville and UT-Pan American).
Sanga also was appointed assistant vice president for technology transfer, effective Aug. 2, said Brian Herman, Ph.D., vice president for research at the UT Health Science Center, and Robert Gracy, Ph.D., vice president for research at UTSA. Sanga will take over the day-to-day operations of South Texas Technology Management (STTM) from John Cole, Ph.D., who served as interim director while a national search was conducted. Dr. Cole will return to his role as special assistant to the vice president for research at the Health Science Center.
Sanga is associate vice chancellor for research and technology transfer at The University of Texas System. In this capacity he provides leadership, coordination and facilitation of major technology transfer initiatives and policy, including development and implementation of strategies to expand and enhance technology transfer and research funding to UT System institutions.
Before coming to the UT System, Sanga served as corporate counsel for the University of Kansas Center for Research, a nonprofit corporation charged with managing research administration for the Lawrence campus of the University of Kansas. In that role he provided advice for the full range of university research and technology transfer issues by working with researchers, faculty, administrators and external stakeholders on a wide variety of business, legal and policy matters.
Sanga is an active participant in several important local and national organizations. He is an executive committee member of the Commission on Competitiveness, Innovation and Economic Prosperity of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities. He is also an assistant vice president for metrics and surveys of the Association of University Technology Managers and is an editor of the association’s annual licensing survey. Within Texas, he is an advisory board member of the Austin Technology Council.
Sanga received his Juris Doctor of law from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and his Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from the University of Washington, with an emphasis in chemistry and computer science. He is a registered patent attorney and a member of the Texas, Kansas and Missouri bars.
“I am extremely excited about coming to this position,” Sanga said. “The UT Health Science Center at San Antonio has experienced exponential growth in research in the last five years and has recruited faculty stars from around the country. UTSA is on an accelerated path toward Tier One status and is doing a great job of hiring outstanding faculty. UT-Pan American and UT Brownsville are making important contributions to the Valley, and we have an opportunity to partner with them to continue to create companies and to spin off products that will be of benefit to the region.
“We have outstanding faculty and researchers coming to us from all these institutions who are making great discoveries with the potential to save lives. These discoveries are the raw materials which, through technology transfer, can be turned into real-world benefit to the citizens of Texas.”
South Texas Technology Management (STTM) is the regional technology transfer office that serves four South Texas UT institutions: The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, The University of Texas at San Antonio, The University of Texas-Pan American and The University of Texas at Brownsville. STTM’s mission is to provide comprehensive and integrated technology development services for its affiliates using the most effective protection and commercialization strategies to stimulate and capitalize on each university´s intellectual property portfolio. This will achieve maximum economic and humanitarian value for the institutions, their staff and their communities. For more information, call (210) 567-9208.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, one of the country’s leading health sciences universities, ranks in the top 2 percent of all U.S. institutions receiving federal funding. Research and other sponsored program activity totaled a record $259 million in fiscal year 2009. The university’s schools of medicine, nursing, dentistry, health professions and graduate biomedical sciences have produced 27,000 graduates. The $740 million operating budget supports six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. For more information on the many ways “We make lives better®,” visit www.uthscsa.edu.
The University of Texas at San Antonio is one of the fastest growing higher education institutions in Texas and the second largest of nine academic universities and six health institutions in the UT System. As a multicultural institution of access and excellence, UTSA aims to be a national research university providing access to educational excellence and preparing citizen leaders for the global environment.
UTSA serves nearly 29,000 students in 64 bachelor’s, 49 master’s and 21 doctoral degree programs in the colleges of Architecture, Business, Education and Human Development, Engineering, Honors, Liberal and Fine Arts, Public Policy, Sciences and Graduate School. Founded in 1969, UTSA is an intellectual and creative resource center and a socioeconomic development catalyst for Texas and beyond. More information is online at www.utsa.edu/today.
The University of Texas-Pan American in Edinburg is the 10th largest university in the state and the fifth largest in The University of Texas System. The four-year public university is located in South Texas and serves more than 18,000 students. More than 86 percent of the student population is Hispanic, which gives UTPA the distinction of having one of the largest enrollments of Hispanic students in the United States. UTPA offers 57 bachelor’s, 57 master’s, three doctoral and two cooperative doctoral programs.
The University of Texas at Brownsville, which partnered with Texas Southmost College in 1991, is a growing force in South Texas higher education, providing unique opportunities for more than 17,000 students coming from various walks of life. Through the unique partnership between UTB and TSC, students receive the hometown flavor of a community college while at the same time the rigors of a four-year institution. The University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College partnership offers certificates and associate’s, baccalaureate and graduate degrees in liberal arts, the sciences and professional programs designed to meet student demand as well as regional, national and international needs.