When groundbreaking research leaves the lab and begins the path toward real-world use, the journey can feel unfamiliar—even for accomplished faculty. Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV) is working to make that path more visible through its Faculty Ambassadors program, a peer-led initiative that helps researchers better understand commercialization, licensing, and entrepreneurship. According to CTV, the program was launched to help faculty connect not only with the office, but with one another around innovation and translational impact.
Among the inaugural cohort are two Columbia Engineering faculty members with ties to Electrical Engineering: Harish Krishnaswamy and Vishal Misra. The ambassadors serve as experienced, peer-level points of contact for fellow researchers—especially junior faculty, postdocs, and others who may be curious about commercialization but unsure where to begin. CTV describes ambassadors as faculty who have already worked with the office to bring technologies closer to market and who are willing to share their experiences with colleagues across the University.
The program officially launched in February 2024 after recruitment began in fall 2023. Since then, ambassadors have taken part in fireside chats, departmental conversations, and networking opportunities that connect faculty with CTV staff, licensing experts, and executives-in-residence (XIRs). These engagements are designed to demystify the commercialization process and create more opportunities for faculty and students to learn about available support for patents, startups, licensing, and industry engagement.
For Krishnaswamy, the work is deeply personal. He partnered closely with CTV to commercialize DARPA-funded research from his lab on millimeter-wave power amplifiers and beamformers. With CTV’s assistance, he spun out MixComm in 2017. Backed by Kairos Ventures and other investors, the company spent the next several years translating university research into products, customers, and revenue before being acquired by Sivers Semiconductors in 2022 for $155 million.
“The background is that I worked closely with CTV in commercializing some DARPA funded research from my group on millimeter-wave power amplifiers and beam formers,” Krishnaswamy said. “I spun out a startup company called MixComm in 2017 with CTV’s assistance. The company was backed by Kairos Ventures and others, and over the subsequent 4-5 years, we brought the technology from the university into the company, built products, won customers and revenue and in 2022, MixComm was acquired by Sivers Semiconductors for $155M.”
That experience now shapes the guidance he offers to others. “Subsequently, I have been working with CTV as a part of their Ambassadors program to mentor other faculty in the commercialization/startup journey,” he said.
That peer-to-peer model is central to the program’s success. As CTV noted in a recent story of the initiative, many of the biggest barriers to commercialization are not lack of interest, but lack of awareness and education. Faculty may want to move their work toward real-world impact, but often need practical guidance on where to start, how licensing works, or how to balance entrepreneurial ambitions with academic responsibilities. The ambassador model helps answer those questions through trusted colleagues who have already navigated the process themselves.
CTV has also found that ambassadors play an important role in surfacing new innovators, including postdocs and early-career faculty who may not yet be connected to the office. Feedback from the first year of the program helped shape clearer educational tools around startup pathways, licensing timelines, and faculty expectations. Every ambassador from the first year has remained involved for year two, and CTV is now planning for the program’s third year.
For Columbia EE, the continued participation of faculty offers a valuable resource for researchers interested in extending the impact of their work beyond the lab. Their involvement underscores a growing culture of innovation at Columbia—one in which faculty are not only advancing discovery, but also helping one another translate ideas into technologies, companies, and broader societal benefit.
