SPEAKERS

Michael Oakes serves as the Senior Vice President for Research and Technology Management at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, OH. He is the Veale Professor of Technology Transfer and Commercialization, as well as a tenured professor in the School of Medicine.

Oakes oversees all aspects of CWRU's rapidly growing $642 million research enterprise, including its technology transfer program. He is responsible for the university's forthcoming $300 million Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Building, as well as its startup incubator building. Oakes leads CWRU's efforts in economic development, including its $275 million NSF Engines initiative with Ohio manufacturers and the NIST- supported initiative for a national center on AI in manufacturing.

Prior to joining Case Western Reserve, Oakes served as the University of Minnesota's interim vice president for research and associate vice president for research, leading their $1.2 billion research enterprise. While there, he founded and served as the executive director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Interdisciplinary Research Leaders, a national program designed to elevate the impact of historically disadvantaged scholars.

Oakes is an applied statistician and epidemiologist whose research has been highly collaborative, interdisciplinary, and focused on three main areas: research methods, social epidemiology, and research ethics. He has published over 150 scientific papers and co-authored the leading textbook in the area.