image: UVA Chief Innovation Officer Paul Cherukuri
Credit: University of Virginia
Charlottesville, VA - After a national search, the University of Virginia has named Paul Cherukuri its first chief innovation officer and the Donna and Richard Tadler University Professor of Entrepreneurship, pending approval by the Board of Visitors. He will begin on October 1. He will also hold faculty appointments in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the McIntire School of Commerce.
The Donna and Richard Tadler University Professorship in Entrepreneurship was created with a 2021 gift from the Tadlers, UVA alumni who support entrepreneurship at UVA, and matching funds from the University’s Bicentennial Professorship Fund.
Cherukuri will take the helm of UVA Innovates, the pan-University platform launched in 2024 to foster innovation and entrepreneurship among students, faculty, staff, alumni, and community partners. He succeeds Michael Lenox, who has served as special advisor to the provost on entrepreneurship since 2023 and held the Tadler Professorship while launching UVA Innovates. Lenox, a University Professor and leading scholar of business and technology strategy, corporate sustainability, and industry self-regulation, will continue his research and teaching at UVA’s Darden School of Business.
Cherukuri will lead the next phase of the development of a University-wide innovation ecosystem—fostering cross-school collaboration, empowering faculty and students to translate ideas into impact, and expanding partnerships with industry, government, and regional stakeholders. This initiative reflects UVA’s commitment to excellence, entrepreneurship, and driving positive change on both a local and global scale.
“I am deeply honored to join the University of Virginia as its first Chief Innovation Officer and Tadler University Professor,” Cherukuri said. “Thomas Jefferson envisioned UVA as the nation’s first truly innovative university, dedicated to advancing knowledge for the public good. Building on that foundation, I look forward to working with faculty, students, alumni, and partners to create an innovation ecosystem that transforms ideas into impact—across Virginia, the nation, and the world.”
Cherukuri has served as the inaugural vice president for innovation and chief innovation officer at Rice University since 2022. At Rice, Cherukuri spearheaded initiatives that redefined the university’s innovation enterprise, from launching the Rice Biotech Launch Pad and RBL LLC to rapidly advance lifesaving technologies, to forging the $12.5 million Woodside-Rice Decarbonization Accelerator to transform greenhouse gases into next-generation materials, and creating the Rice Nexus hub at Houston’s Ion District to scale AI-driven startups—efforts that firmly positioned Rice and Houston at the forefront of global innovation. Prior to this, he served as executive director of Rice’s Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering, forging interdisciplinary research partnerships with federal agencies and corporations and securing nearly $37 million to accelerate the development of new technologies into commercial products.
A physicist, chemist and medical technology entrepreneur, Cherukuri brings experience in academia, industry, and start-ups. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kentucky and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Rice. Before returning to Rice in 2014, Cherukuri was a visiting scholar in chemistry at Harvard University and in Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He was also a co-founder and chief technical officer of MAReNIR Technologies LLC and a senior scientist at Sanofi, where he developed drug products and biomedical devices.
“Paul has deep experience in promoting entrepreneurship and helping faculty develop real-world applications for their research, and I’m excited to welcome him to the University to build on Mike’s excellent foundational work,” Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Brie Gertler said. “UVA has fostered creative thinking and innovation for more than 200 years, and Paul will strengthen opportunities for members of our community to translate this work to the marketplace where it will benefit society broadly.”
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