Thomas C. Skalak
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Biography
Thomas C. Skalak
As vice president for research at the University of Virginia, Thomas C. Skalak is responsible for the integration and enhancement of research activities across U.Va.’s 11 schools and multiple research centers.
He is leading University-wide strategic growth activities, including multidisciplinary groups in environmental sustainability, innovation, energy systems and biosciences. He led the launch of the OpenGrounds collaborative initiative, bringing faculty, students and external partners together for cross-boundary collaborations; the U.Va. Venture Summit, which brings billions in active venture capital to U.Va. to discuss windows on the future of emerging fields; the U.Va. Entrepreneurship Cup, a University-wide student concept competition featuring new business or social ventures that showcase some of the University’s business ideas; and the U.Va. Bay Game, a computer simulation game that predicts behaviors of the nation’s largest estuary in relation to the human communities that surround it.
The University’s goal is to integrate the unique resources of a comprehensive research and learning organization to explore, discover and invent, bringing diverse talents and approaches to bear on major societal problems and producing innovation that drives the creative economy.
Skalak served as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at U.Va. from 2001–2008. He is a past president of both of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering, representing 60,000 professionals, and the Biomedical Engineering Society.
While at U.Va., he has been principal investigator responsible for more than $40 million in research grants. He has served as the principal investigator of the U.Va.-Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Partnership and a co-managed fund with Johnson & Johnson that link faculty in engineering, medicine and business with the aim of delivering new methods and products to clinical use and commercialization. U.Va. has produced a 42:1 ROI from the top 10 percent of Coulter projects, and 7:1 overall ROI. This successful U.Va. model for proof-of-concept research with high-impact outcomes has been recognized by the U.S. Senate and Congress and has been scaled up to new programs at both the state and federal levels and with corporate research partners.
In 2011, U.Va. created a $20-million fund, based on a $10-million endowment from the Coulter Foundation and a one-to-one matching endowment of $10 million, to sustain the level of biomedical innovation investment at $1 million annually. A key goal is more new-venture creation, which creates U.S. high-value jobs that cannot be off -shored.
Skalak is program director of the world’s largest bioengineering network, BMEplanet, with support of the NSF Partnerships for Innovation program, connecting bioengineers in 52 countries spanning six continents. He serves as reviewer for National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Science Foundation Ireland and more than 30 scientific journals, and he consults on innovation strategies with Fortune 500 companies and small ventures.
Thomas C. Skalak, vice president for research and Elizabeth Turner, vice provost for the arts launch a new Science & Art Project, an initiative to promote experimental alliances between artists, scientists and visionaries for the expansion of new ideas and creative work.
The Science & Art Project came about as a result of the Spotlight Discussion Series, originated by Rosamond Casey, visual artist and teacher at Charlottesville’s McGuffey Art Center.
The title of the discussion was “How Ideas Emerge in Science and Art.” Participants included Tom Skalak, vice president for research at U.Va.; James Coan, director of the U.Va. Affective Neuroscience Laboratory; Ted Coffey, assistant professor of music, U.Va.; and Susan Skalak, design engineer.
After the presentation, Susan Crowder, a sculptor and installation artist, and Rosamond made a proposal to the Spotlight speakers and to the director of the U.Va. Art Museum. They suggested creating a project in Charlottesville designed to enable artists and scientists to collaborate. From that spark, the Science & Art Project was born.
Tom brought the conceptual ideas to later discussions with Elizabeth Hutton Turner, Vice Provost for the Arts at U.Va. Support for this initiative also came from Arthur Garson, Jr., M.D., Executive Vice President and Provost, U.Va., through his deep appreciation for the role of the creative arts in developing people in all professions, and belief that this program could be become a “model for the world.”