Associate Vice President for Industry, Innovation, and Technology
Phone: 541-346-2090
Email: cdt5@uoregon.edu
Scheduling Support: Julio Aceves
Christine Dixon Thiesing joined the University of Oregon in October 2023 as the associate vice president for Industry, Innovation, and Translation (IIT). Previously, Christine was the associate vice president for Discovery to Impact at the University of Texas at Austin. Discovery to Impact launches startups and collaborates with established businesses to accelerate new products, services, and solutions to the market. She designed and implemented an expansive strategic plan to propel UT Austin to become a leader in academic commercialization. Among other components, the plan involved the launch of 16 programs in 18 months, including Proof of Concept Awards, a way finder to connect faculty and students to the 130+ resources available at UT Austin, SBIR/STTR support services, an SBIR/STTR Bridge to Phase II grant, and a seed fund that invests in companies advancing UT Austin intellectual property. Christine also served as the principal investigator for the NSF Southwest I-Corps Hub, a $15 million award that trains faculty and graduate students across nine institutions in the foundations of entrepreneurship, the business model canvas, and customer discovery.
Prior to UT Austin, Christine was director of academic innovations for South Carolina Research Authority. SCRA is a public, non-profit corporation, that fosters the state of South Carolina’s innovation economy by supporting entrepreneurs and investing in startups (up to $775,000 in grants and investments per company), enabling academic applied research, and connecting industry and investors to innovators.
Christine previously served as the associate director of technology development for the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Foundation for Research Development. She identified resources for the maturation of medical technologies, supported new venture formation, and established a program for startups to access SBIR/STTR funding. In addition, she founded PriMed, an accelerator dedicated to providing a business foundation for medical device and biopharma startups and served as the licensing officer for intellectual property at MUSC.
Her engagement with academic startups began at CyDex, Inc., which commercialized Captisol®, an enabling drug delivery system that is used in 13 biopharma products on the market today. In her six years there, the company grew from a five-employee startup to a venture-backed organization that raised more than $20 million in capital, had 40+ employees, and was ultimately acquired by Ligand Pharma. She also has founded a dental materials company and a commercial real estate holding company.
Christine has served as Board Member for several organizations: Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute, Southeastern Medical Device Association (SEMDA, now Southeast Life Sciences), South Carolina Biotechnology Industry Organization (SCBIO), and P.B. Hoidale Co., Inc.
Christine holds an MBA with a focus in finance from the University of Kansas. She obtained a BA in Biology from the University of Kansas Honors Program.