Greg Thomas Gdowski, Ph.D.

Professional Background

Dr. Gdowski serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Medical Technology & Innovation. He has worked both in the academic research and industry/incubation settings. He served on the faculty in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester from 2001-2010 where he established and managed a NIH-funded research laboratory in vestibular sensory processing. From 2010-2012, he worked at Blue Highway, located on the campus of Syracuse University, as a senior Research Engineering Fellow. Blue Highway was an innovation incubator designed to fill Welch Allyn's pipeline with differentiating products from the academic environment. His role was to manage ideation,invention, incubation, and subsequent innovation opportunities. He helped to develop, foster, and fund external relationships with academia, industry partners, government agencies, and individual investors. He also helped to triage more than 500 academic project submissions and presented business development opportunities to senior leadership at Welch Allyn. The proprietary selection processes served as a due diligence engine that resulted in nearly 30 academic projects that were funded by Welch Allyn through Blue Highway. More than 12 differentiating products, services, and tools were delivered to Welch Allyn.

The purpose of the Center for Medical Technology & Innovation is to coordinate educational and entrepreneurial activities related to the development of novel technological solutions to clinical problems. The Center brings together physicians, engineers, business leaders, and industrial partners to foster a unique training program and path by which medical technologies at the University of Rochester are cultivated and brought to the marketplace. A principal activity is the development of a Master's Degree program in Medical Technology Innovation within the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The students within this program interact with both clinical and engineering faculty to identify critical needs in the clinic and to develop practical engineering solutions that will facilitate and improve health care delivery. A second goal of the Center is to provide a service and pathway that helps the faculty and students transition their technology developed on the lab workbench to commercialization. The Center fosters interactions with the medical device industry to facilitate a more readily traversed path to commercialization.

Dr. Gdowski has resided in both Rochester and Syracuse. He has served as the Chair and has managed both the Syracuse and Rochester IEEE Sections, representing over 2,000 engineering professionals. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the MedTech Association and serves as the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee. Through MedTech, he is actively networked and connected to an association of over 150 Upstate NY pharmaceutical, biotech and medical technology companies, their suppliers and service providers, and research universities.

Research