The University of Texas at Austin has launched the Discovery to Impact Ambassadors program,a new initiative for faculty members to serve as champions of innovation within their academic units. Faculty ambassadors will highlight opportunities for students to engage in entrepreneurship and inspire their peers to pursue pathways that bring research to market to impact lives.

The new program is named after Discovery to Impact’s role in helping UT faculty members and innovators cultivate ideas and navigate how to best move academic research from the University to the commercial sector for the benefit of society, while also generating returns that are reinvested in the University’s research enterprise. Ambassadors will help connect campus innovators to Discovery to Impact resources and take part in shaping ways in which it can better support faculty members and graduate students. The program will be led by Discovery to Impact’s Longhorn Ventures unit, the team responsible for building and supporting startups spinning out of the University.

“The new Discovery to Impact Ambassador program is aimed at strengthening UT’s innovation ecosystem,” said Mark Arnold, associate vice president of Discovery to Impact and managing director of Longhorn Ventures. “Every day,our talented faculty are leading incredible discoveries. We want to provide them with the knowledge on how to protect those discoveries while showing them opportunities to commercialize their discoveries into tangible products and services. Ambassadors will serve as a peer-to-peer resource for advancing research innovations and fostering the entrepreneurial spirit embedded deep within our colleges and schools.”

“The Discovery to Impact Faculty Ambassador program is a pivotal step toward embedding innovation deeply across UT Austin’s academic fabric,” said Fernanda Leite, interim vice president for research. “By activating trusted faculty liaisons in every school and college, we aim to accelerate translation of research into real-world impact — strengthening Longhorn Ventures, enabling seamless licensing, and scaling innovations that change lives across Texas and beyond.”

This fall,the pilot cohort launches in the Cockrell School of Engineering with four inaugural ambassadors:

• Associate Professor Alex Hanson, Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Associate Professor Chris Rylander, Mechanical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering
• Assistant Professor Javad Mohammadi, Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
• Associate Professor Farshid Alambeigi, Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Texas Robotics
  ‍

Beginning in Spring 2026, the program will expand to additional colleges across the University, followed by further growth in Fall 2026. The long-term goal is to engage faculty members across the University, ensuring that innovation and entrepreneurship become recognized hallmarks of the UT experience.

“UT Austin has always been at the forefront of discovery and innovation,” said Roger Bonnecaze, dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering. “The Discovery to Impact Ambassadors program strengthens that tradition by equipping faculty to extend entrepreneurial perspectives into their teaching and scholarship, and by building a stronger culture of innovation across the Forty Acres.”

Tailored to UT’s distinctive strengths, the program will scale up during the next three years. Ultimately, it will help ensure that entrepreneurship is embedded into the academic fabric of the University — driving new discoveries, startups and societal impact.

With this initiative, UT reinforces its role as a national leader in innovation and sets the stage for broader collaborations between faculty members, students and industry.

For more information, contact Weston Waldo at innovation@utexas.edu.