As Pennovation Works approaches its 10-year anniversary, we’re reflecting on the startups launched, partnerships forged, and discoveries made while looking ahead to the future. Together, we’re continuing to build an ecosystem where innovation thrives and Ideas Go To Work.
Senior Vice President
Facilities and Real Estate Services
University of Pennsylvania
Executive Director,
Greater Philadelphia Growth Partnership
Executive Vice President of Economic Growth,
The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia
Associate Vice Provost for Research
Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives
Office of the Vice Provost for Research
University of Pennsylvania
Senior Vice President
Facilities and Real Estate Services
University of Pennsylvania
Anne Papageorge is the Senior Vice President for Facilities and Real Estate Services at the University of Pennsylvania. Anne joined the University in October 2006 and is responsible for: Planning; Design and Construction; Facilities Operations, Maintenance and Utilities; and Real Estate Operations and Development.
Anne is a licensed landscape architect and was previously the Senior Vice President and Memorial Design Director for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMCD), managing the planning, design and construction of the nearly $1 billion project encompassing the World Trade Center Memorial, Memorial Museum, Visitor's Center and related facilities. Prior to joining the LMDC in 2004, she worked in design and construction for the City of New York, where she served as first deputy commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction, managing a staff of 1,200 and overseeing 750 projects valued at $4.4 billion.
Anne holds a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry School of Landscape Architecture, where she currently serves on the Faculty Landscape Architecture Advisory Council, and an M.B.A. from the City University of New York – Baruch College.
Executive Director,
Greater Philadelphia Growth Partnership
Executive Vice President of Economic Growth,
The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia
Claire Marrazzo Greenwood has dedicated her career to building a region where economic growth translates into real opportunity for the people who live and work in Greater Philadelphia. As Executive Director of the Greater Philadelphia Growth Partnership and Executive Vice President of Economic Growth at the Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, she serves in a critical role: anchoring the Chamber’s continued commitment to regional competitiveness through her leadership of the new, business-driven, multi-stakeholder Partnership to strengthen the regional economy and expand access to quality jobs across the region.
Claire brings more than two decades of experience working across public, private, nonprofit, and industry sectors to forge deep connections that strengthen communities and grow the region’s economy. Throughout her career, she has built and led numerous cross-sector coalitions, driven economic growth initiatives, and fostered catalytic workforce partnerships that have elevated Greater Philadelphia’s competitive profile nationally and globally as a great place to live, work and build a business.
She holds an MS in Organizational Dynamics from the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from the University of Delaware. Claire serves on the boards of the Greater Philadelphia
Managing Director
Pennovation Works
University of Pennsylvania
Denita Henderson is Managing Director of Pennovation Works, a 23-acre innovation hub with a distinctive blend of offices, labs, and production space that houses more than 100 companies and a robust community of researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry partners…all solving real world problems and translating inventiveness into viable ventures.
With over 25 years of experience in economic development and innovation ecosystems, Denita leads the implementation of Pennovation's master plan, managing leasing strategy, real estate development, operations, and strategic partnerships to advance innovation and economic opportunities throughout the region.
Deputy Secretary of Technology and Entrepreneurship
Jen Gilburg has decades-long experience working in both technology and manufacturing in the private sector. She has been at the forefront of high-growth technologies such as data security and artificial intelligence and has worked in advanced technologies for the automotive, medical, and robotics industries.
As Deputy Secretary of Technology and Entrepreneurship, she focuses on implementing the Shapiro Administration’s and DCED’s vision of attracting, fostering, and investing in people and companies focused on technology and innovation across multiple sectors and throughout the state.
Chief Innovation Officer
University of Pennsylvania
John S. Swartley, MBA, PhD is the inaugural Chief Innovation Officer at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) responsible for implementing and leading a campus-wide innovation agenda in support of Penn’s faculty and research community. Dr. Swartley works closely with Penn's leadership and Deans, as well as key external partners, to ensure that Penn continues to maintain its world-class status as an innovative leader in the field of technology development, translation, and commercialization. Dr. Swartley previously served for nearly a decade as Associate Vice Provost for Research and the founding Managing Director of the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI) where he led a multi-faceted team focused on new product development, corporate partnerships, technology licensing and new venture creation based on faculty expertise and discoveries made at Penn. Prior to joining Penn in 2007, Dr. Swartley served as Senior Vice President and General Partner of BCM Technologies (BCMT), the venture capital investment subsidiary of Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Swartley joined BCMT in 2003 from the Yale University Office of Cooperative Research where he was Associate Director of the Medical Campus Office.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Swartley has facilitated thousands of commercialization and research partnership agreements that have collectively generated over five billion dollars in licensing income and sponsored research funding, as well as participating in the formation and oversight of hundreds of university spin-out companies representing multiple billions of dollars of capital investment and value creation. He holds a B.S. in Biology from Bates College, an MBA from the Goizueta School of Business at Emory University, and a PhD in Microbial & Molecular Genetics from Emory University.
Executive Vice President University of Pennsylvania
CTO
Vertiq
Matt founded Vertiq after completing his PhD work at the University of Pennsylvania, which focused on designing and building of unique drones that require high precision motor control. His academic pursuits laid the foundation for Vertiq’s motor technology, and as his capstone PhD project, he built the world’s smallest self-powered flying vehicle. Matt is the innovator behind Vertiq’s anti-cogging algorithm and “Piccolissimo.” He is now the CTO of Vertiq, leading the company's engineering efforts.
Associate Vice Provost for Research
Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives
Office of the Vice Provost for Research
University of Pennsylvania
Michael Borda, Ph.D., is an institutional strategist and integrator whose work focuses on creating the conditions that allow discovery, entrepreneurship, and cross-sector collaboration to thrive. As Associate Vice Provost for Research at Penn, he serves as a senior adviser to the Vice Provost for Research and works across the research enterprise to develop initiatives, partnerships, and infrastructure that accelerate scientific discovery and societal impact.
Over the past decade, Dr. Borda has helped shape Penn's approach to research growth, innovation, and strategic collaboration. Rather than focusing on any single discipline or program, he works at the interfaces between institutions, sectors, and communities, bringing together researchers, entrepreneurs, government leaders, investors, foundations, and industry partners to create opportunities that would not emerge within traditional organizational boundaries.
A central theme of Dr. Borda's career has been ecosystem building. He believes that breakthrough innovation is rarely the result of individual organizations acting alone. Instead, it emerges from networks of people, institutions, and resources that are intentionally connected around shared goals. At Penn, he has focused on building those connections by helping create the organizational structures, strategic partnerships, governance models, and sustainable operating frameworks that enable innovation to scale. This work has included advancing interdisciplinary research initiatives, supporting entrepreneurship and commercialization, strengthening research infrastructure, fostering industry collaboration, and promoting regional partnerships that contribute to Philadelphia's growing reputation as a center for knowledge-based innovation.
Dr. Borda has been particularly interested in the role universities play as anchor institutions within innovation districts. He views places such as Pennovation Works not simply as physical spaces, but as platforms that bring together talent, ideas, capital, and opportunity. Through his work, he has sought to strengthen the links between research and application, faculty and industry, startups and investors, and Penn and the surrounding community. His approach emphasizes long-term ecosystem development, recognizing that sustainable innovation depends on creating environments where relationships, trust, and collaboration can flourish over time.
Before joining Penn, Dr. Borda spent a decade as a scientist and environmental consultant, leading projects focused on environmental remediation and emerging technologies. He earned his Ph.D. in Geochemistry from Stony Brook University and has authored more than 30 scholarly publications and book chapters. He is also an inventor on multiple U.S. and international patents and was recognized by Engineering News-Record as one of the nation's Top 20 Engineers Under 40.
Today, his work is guided by a simple principle: great universities generate extraordinary ideas, but their greatest impact comes from creating the partnerships, infrastructure, and innovation ecosystems that help those ideas improve lives, strengthen communities, and drive economic opportunity.
CEO
FEMSelect
Sasha Schrode is a healthcare entrepreneur, investor, and board director with over two decades of experience across MedTech, pharma, and finance. She is the CEO of FEMSelect, a global women's health company. Previously, Sasha founded Serpex Medical, raising venture capital, guiding three devices through FDA clearance, and exiting the company through a strategic acquisition that helped form Maverix Medical, in partnership with Hologic and KKR. She is also a partner at Robin Hood Ventures and serves on the boards of the FEMSelect, NeuRx, FloBio and the University of Pennsylvania's Health and Technology. She holds an MBA from Northeastern University.
Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
VIJAY KUMAR is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1987. He has been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987.
In addition to holding many administrative positions at Penn, Kumar has served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2012–2013). His lab has spun off many startups in robotics, and he is the founder of Exyn Technologies. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
He has served on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, and the Springer Tract in Advanced Robotics (STAR), and was the chief editor for the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics. He has won best paper awards at DARS 2002, ICRA 2004, ICRA 2011, RSS 2011, RSS 2013, ICRA 2014, BICT 2015, and MARSS 2016 and has advised doctoral students who have won Best Student Paper Awards at ICRA 2008, RSS 2009, and DARS 2010.
Kumar is the recipient of the 2012 ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Award, the 2012 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award, a 2012 World Technology Network (wtn.net) award, a 2013 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award, a 2014 Engelberger Robotics Award, the 2017 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society George Saridis Leadership Award, the 2017 ASME Robert E. Abbott Award, the 2018 IEEE Robotics and Automation Pioneer Award, and the 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Field Award. He was recognized with the John Scott Award in 2024 by City Trusts of the City of Philadelphia and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013, the American Philosophical Society in 2018, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022, and the National Academy of Inventors in 2023.