Translation Program Director
Listed on 2026-08-22
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Research/Development
Research Scientist
General Information
Position Number 001937 Vacancy Open to All Candidates Working Title Translation Program Director Position Designation EHRA Non-Faculty
Employment Type
Permanent - Full-time Months per Year 12 Work Schedule
8:00 am – 5:00 pm;
Monday – Friday with occasional evening and weekend hours required, as necessary. Hours per week 40 FLSA Status Exempt Division Research Department Div of Research (Adm) Work Location PORTAL Building 226
The Office of Research Translation and Industry Alliances (ORTIA) exists to convert UNC Charlotte’s research into realized economic and social impact for the Charlotte region and beyond. It does this by organizing around the full translation arc — from identifying promising research at its earliest stages, through validating it against real industry problems, to forming spinout companies and building sustained partnerships with Charlotte’s corporate community.
ORTIA’s three units — Translation Intelligence, New Ventures & Industry Alliances, and IP & Technology Transfer — work in sequence to ensure that translatable research finds its way to the companies, investors, and markets that can deploy it, rather than exiting through publication unrealized. As UNC Charlotte’s R1 infrastructure matures, ORTIA is the institutional mechanism that converts research excellence into the spinouts, industry partnerships, and deployed technologies that define what R1 status means in practice.
Purpose of Position
Leads proactive, systematic engagement with UNC Charlotte’s full research portfolio — in research centers, institutes, and directly with individual researchers not affiliated with any center — to identify commercially promising research at TRL 2–3, before it self-selects through formal disclosure or exits through publication unrealized.
Translates early-stage research findings into problem statements that Charlotte’s industry partners and the region’s financial community recognize as operationally relevant and worth investing in, drawing on deep personal domain expertise in energy, advanced manufacturing and metrology, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, national defense and intelligence, and optics and optoelectronics.
Connects researchers with the right corporate counterparts, investors, and Mentors-in-Residence through peer-level personal relationships built over a career in industry — converting UNC Charlotte’s proximity to six Fortune 500 headquarters and the Carolinas Engine for Grid Modernization coalition into active translation partnerships.
Drives the translation pipeline that feeds all three ORTIA units — coordinating across Translation Intelligence, New Ventures & Industry Alliances, and IP & Technology Transfer — and produces the Translation Validation documentation required to move technologies into spinout formation, industry alliance development, and funding programs.
Summary Of Position Responsibilities- Conducts proactive, campus-wide engagement with UNC Charlotte researchers — in research centers, institutes, and directly with individual researchers not affiliated with any center — to identify research with commercial translation potential at TRL 2–3, before it self-selects through formal disclosure or exits through publication unrealized.
- Facilitates structured problem-framing sessions between researchers and Charlotte industry counterparts, translating scientific findings into operational problem statements that corporate partners in energy, advanced manufacturing, autonomous vehicles, aerospace, defense and intelligence, and optics recognize as real and worth solving.
- Evaluates the translation readiness of technologies in the assigned portfolio by conducting Technology Readiness Level (TRL), Adoption Readiness Level (ARL), and Manufacturing Readiness Level (MRL) assessments, and prepares the Translation Validation Clearance documentation required for handoff to New Ventures & Industry Alliances.
- Cultivates and sustains direct, working-level relationships with VP and Director-level counterparts in corporate R&D and engineering at Charlotte’s corporate partners and with C-level leadership at SMBs in assigned domains,…
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