Dr. Samuel Kim has been selected to serve as the interim Chief Innovation Officer for The Texas A&M University System. Dr. Kim currently serves as the Managing Director of New Ventures at Texas A&M Innovation. He brings decades of experience in venture capital, with investments focusing on hard science and engineering spinouts from academia. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Bandgap Ventures, Dr. Kim has invested and served on boards of companies commercializing technologies from universities in areas such as advanced materials, semiconductors, photonics, and nanotechnology. Portfolio companies have included Inpria Corporation (from Oregon State University, acquired by JSR Corporation for $514M), Electroninks (from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), GXC Inc (from University of Texas Austin, acquired by Motive Companies), Crop Enhancement (from University of California Berkeley), and others. Dr. Kim is passionate about fostering innovation that bridges the gap between academia and industry, ultimately aiming to create impactful solutions for real-world challenges. Dr. Kim holds a dual Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Nanotechnology from the University of Washington, and a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. His research has been published and won best paper awards at several international conferences. He also holds patents in the area of advanced materials, nanotechnology, and medical devices.
