Alum Zoom: Career Conversation with Shweta Krishnan, PhD, Assistant Director of Life Sciences, Duke Office of Licensing & Ventures

On Feb 3, our guest is Shweta Krishnan, PhD. Shweta joined Duke's Office of Licensing and Ventures in 2016. As Assistant Director of Life Sciences, Shweta works with Duke innovators to evaluate the market opportunity, competitive and patent landscape of Duke technologies in the therapeutics, diagnostics and devices space, negotiates licensing deals with industry partners, and catalyzes the formation of Duke start-ups.

Shweta comes to the OLV with a strong background in life sciences research, and over 5 years of experience in technology transfer at Johns Hopkins and Duke. Prior to joining the OLV, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Shweta received her PhD in Pharmacology and Cancer Biology from Duke University, where her work focused on elucidating the actions of the progesterone receptor in breast cancer pathogenesis, with the goal of developing therapeutic interventions for the clinic.

5 Questions:
1. Could you tell us about your background?
2. How did you get your job at OLV?
3. What's a typical day like at your organization (pre- and post-COVID)?
4. What can postdocs and students who would like to work in this field (or explore it further) do to prepare?
5. What is the employment outlook for this field, given the COVID crisis? (please note that the answer to this question may be "We don't know yet.")