To Vanessa Chan PhD ’00, efficient engineers don’t simply remedy technical issues. To make an influence with a brand new product or know-how, they should convey it to market, deploy it, and make it mainstream. But that is exactly what they aren’t educated to do.
In actual fact, 97 p.c of patents fail to make it over the “commercialization wall.”
“Solely 3 p.c of patents succeed, and one of many greatest challenges is we’re not coaching our PhDs, our undergrads, our school, to commercialize applied sciences,” mentioned Chan, vice dean of innovation and entrepreneurship on the College of Pennsylvania’s Faculty of Engineering and Utilized Science. She delivered the Division of Supplies Science and Engineering (DMSE)’s spring 2025 Wulff Lecture at MIT on March 10. “As an alternative, we’re targeted on the actually arduous technical points that we’ve to beat, versus every thing that must be addressed for one thing to make it to market.”
Chan spoke from deep expertise, having led McKinsey & Co.’s innovation observe, serving to Fortune 100 firms commercialize applied sciences. She additionally invented the tangle-free headphones Loopit at re.design, the agency she based, and served because the U.S. Division of Vitality (DoE)’s chief commercialization officer and director of the Workplace of Expertise Transitions in the course of the Biden administration.
From invention to influence
A DMSE alumna, Chan addressed a near-capacity crowd in regards to the significance of supplies innovation. She highlighted how new supplies — or current supplies utilized in new methods — might remedy key challenges, from vitality sustainability to well being care supply. For instance, carbon fiber composites have changed aluminum within the airline trade, resulting in decreased gasoline consumption, decrease emissions, and enhanced security. Fashionable lithium-ion and solid-state batteries use optimized electrode supplies for increased effectivity and quicker charging. And biodegradable polymer stents, which dissolve over time, have changed conventional metallic stents that stay in arteries and might trigger issues.
The Wulff Lecture is a twice-yearly discuss aimed toward educating college students, particularly first-years, about supplies science and engineering and its influence on society.
Inventing a groundbreaking know-how is just the start, Chan mentioned. She gave the instance of Thomas Edison, usually regarded as the daddy of the electrical mild bulb. However Edison didn’t invent the carbonized filament — that was Joseph Swan.
“Thomas Edison was the daddy of the deployed mild bulb,” Chan mentioned. “He took Swan’s patents and discovered, how will we really pull a vacuum on this? How will we manufacture this at scale?”
For an invention to make an influence, it must efficiently traverse the commercialization journey from analysis to growth, demonstration, and deployment available in the market. “An invention with out deployment is a tragedy, since you’ve invented one thing the place you will have numerous paper publications, however it’s not making a distinction in any respect in the actual world.”
Supplies commercialization is troublesome, Chan defined, as a result of new supplies are on the very starting of a worth chain — the total vary of actions in producing a services or products. To make it to market, the supplies invention should be adopted by others alongside the chain, and in some circumstances, firms should navigate how every a part of the chain will get paid. A brand new materials for hip replacements, for instance, designed to cut back the chance of an infection and rehospitalization, is perhaps a supplies breakthrough, however getting it to market is sophisticated by the way in which insurance coverage works.
“They won’t pay extra to keep away from hospitalization,” Chan mentioned. “In case your materials is dearer than what’s at present getting used at the moment, the suppliers is not going to reimburse for that.”
Past know-how
However engineers can improve their odds in commercialization in the event that they know the best language. “Adoption readiness ranges” (ARLs), developed in Chan’s Workplace of Expertise Transitions, assist assess the nontechnical dangers applied sciences face on their journey to commercialization. These dangers cowl worth proposition — whether or not a know-how can carry out at a worth prospects pays — market acceptance, and different potential obstacles, reminiscent of infrastructure and rules.
In 2022, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation and the Inflation Discount Act allotted $370 billion towards clear vitality deployment — 10 instances the Division of Vitality’s annual funds — to advance clear vitality applied sciences reminiscent of carbon administration, clear hydrogen, and geothermal heating and cooling. However Chan emphasised that the actual prize was unlocking an estimated $23 trillion from private-sector buyers.
“These are those who’re going to convey the applied sciences to market. So, how will we try this? How will we persuade them to really commercialize these applied sciences which aren’t fairly there?” Chan requested.
Chan’s crew spearheaded “Pathways to Industrial Liftoff,” a roadmap to bridge the hole between innovation and business adoption, serving to establish scaling necessities, key gamers, and the suitable threat ranges for early adoption.
She shared an instance from the DoE initiative, which acquired $8 billion from Congress to create a marketplace for clear hydrogen applied sciences. She tied the cash to particular pathways, explaining, “the personal sector will begin listening as a result of they need the cash.”
Her crew additionally gathered knowledge on the place the trade was headed, figuring out sectors that might probably undertake hydrogen, the infrastructure wanted to assist it, and what insurance policies or funding might speed up commercialization.
“There’s additionally neighborhood notion, as a result of once we discuss to individuals about hydrogen, what’s the very first thing individuals take into consideration? The Hindenburg,” Chan mentioned, referencing the 1937 dirigible explosion. “So these are the sorts of issues that we needed to grapple with if we’re really going to create a hydrogen financial system.”
“What do you’re keen on?”
Chan concluded her discuss by providing college students skilled recommendation. She inspired them to do what they love. On a slide, she shared a Venn diagram of her passions for know-how, enterprise, and making issues — she not too long ago began a pottery studio known as Insurgent Potters — illustrating the motivations behind her profession journey.
“So I would like you to ask your self, What’s your Venn diagram? What’s it that you simply love?” Chan requested. “And it’s possible you’ll say, ‘I don’t know. I’m 18 proper now, and I simply want to determine what lessons I wish to take.’ Effectively, guess what? Get outdoors your consolation zone. Go do one thing new. Go attempt new issues.”
Attendee Delia Harms, a DMSE junior, discovered the train significantly helpful. “I believe I’m positively missing slightly little bit of course in the place I wish to go after undergrad and what I would like my profession path to appear to be,” Harms mentioned. “So I’ll positively attempt that train later — desirous about what my circles are, and the way they arrive collectively.”
Jeannie She, a junior majoring in synthetic intelligence and bioengineering, discovered inspiration in Chan’s public sector expertise.
“I’ve all the time seen authorities as forms, crimson tape, gradual — however I’m additionally actually fascinated by coverage and coverage change,” She mentioned. “So studying from her and the issues that she’s achieved throughout her time as an appointee has been actually inspiring, and makes me see that there are careers in coverage the place issues can really get carried out.”
