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 James Petell has joined UND as the director of technology transfer and commercialization within the Division of Research.

 His job is managing the University’s intellectual property — principally the new knowledge generated by its researchers — with an eye toward creating partnerships with the private sector to bring UND discoveries to market. The University will file more than 20 patent applications yet this fiscal year, Petell predicts.

  Petell holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California-San Diego and has wide experience in both higher education and business. Most recently he was manager of intellectual property licensing for ProfiGen Inc.’s operation in Nashville, Tenn. ProfiGen specializes in the commercialization of university research, largely in the agricultural sector.

Research seed money This past year UND made 25 seed money awards totaling $708,353 to faculty who presented ideas that might eventually compete in the national arena for outside funding. The Faculty Research Seed Money Fund, a grassroots faculty initiative, was established to help researchers pursue ideas that might eventually result in full-blown proposals to external entities such as the National Science Foundation. The seed money is provided through a partnership between UND, the city of Grand Forks, and the UND Foundation. Since 2000, faculty receiving seed money have submitted $40 million in proposals to outside funding sources, bringing in $8,579,000 in new external grants. The return on investment for this highly successful program is 10 to 1.