Starting in October, Christine Dixon Thiesing will assume the role of associate vice president of Industry, Innovation, and Translation in the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation.
Dixon Thiesing most recently served as the associate vice president for Discovery to Impact at the University of Texas at Austin. She led the Discovery to Impact team (formerly Innovation and Economic Impact), which brings research discoveries to the marketplace. Dixon Thiesing’s UT Austin team launches startups and collaborates with established businesses to accelerate new products and services.
“We are very pleased to bring such a high-caliber leader to the UO to continue our upward trajectory of innovation growth,” said Anshuman “AR” Razdan, vice president for research and innovation. “Christine joins us at an exciting time in the university’s history as Launch Oregon and the Translational Opportunity Program are becoming available to our researchers to accelerate their ideas from bench to market.”
During her time at UT Austin, Dixon Thiesing developed and received approval for a comprehensive strategic plan to position the institution as a global leader of research commercialization. The plan has four founding tenets: Build a culture of innovation, minimize challenges and maximize deal flow, launch new programs to address gaps in support, and shift how success is measured to reflect impact.
“As someone who thrives on helping academic researchers amplify the outcomes of their research through commercialization, I am thrilled to join the UO at such a pivotal moment,” Dixon Thiesing said. “Through the support of the vice president for research and innovation and the new programs that drive commercialization, the UO is positioned to transform its societal and economic impact.”
Additionally, Dixon Thiesing was the principal investigator for the National Science Foundation I-Corps Southwest Region Hub, which trains faculty and graduate students on the business model canvas and conducting extensive customer discovery. She has been awarded more than $17 million in federal funding and has also brought in $1 million in philanthropic gifts to fund programming.
Prior to joining UT Austin, Dixon Thiesing served as director of academic innovation with the South Carolina Research Authority from 2017-2020. There she designed, implemented, and managed programs that awarded $3.2 million in funding to academic researchers and startups for use-inspired research, resulting in $10.5 million in follow-on grants and investments in that same period. She has also founded multiple life science startups, created and facilitated a life sciences accelerator, and developed more than 20 programs throughout her career to advance academic research to the market.
Dixon Thiesing received a Bachelor of Arts in Biology and a Master of Business Administration, both from the University of Kansas.
— By Kelley Christensen, Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation