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Staff Contacts & Bios

Burnley Jaklevic, Ph.D.

Burnley Jaklevic is Director in the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She joined the TTO in December 2012, where she is part of a team that works closely with UMass Amherst faculty, staff and students as they develop inventions and software that may have commercial applications.

Prior to joining the TTO, Burnley was a Licensing Associate in the technology licensing office at Texas A&M University. She earned her B.A. degree in genetics from UC Davis and worked for three years on the Human and Drosophila Genome Projects at Berkeley National Laboratory. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado Boulder where she carried out her thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Tin Tin Su on cell cycle checkpoints, DNA repair and apoptosis.

Following her graduate studies, Dr. Jaklevic was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Kristin Scott at UC Berkeley, studying neural circuits underlying taste and feeding behavior. Burnley enjoys working with UMA inventors and exploring the commercial potential of their inventions.

Contact Information

Phone: 413-577-0651
Email: bjaklevic@research.umass.edu

Ling X. Shen, Ph.D., M.B.A.

(Recently retired) Dr. Ling X. Shen is a Senior Licensing Officer in the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has worked as a technology transfer professional since 2007. Prior to joining the TTO, she spent eight years in the biotech industry in Cambridge, MA where she served in scientific and managerial positions with increasing levels of responsibility. In 2002, Ling joined Hybridon, Inc. as Director of Scientific Affairs, where she marketed the company’s technologies to universities and research institutes worldwide, and built multiple research collaborations in North America, Europe and Asia.

Ling earned her B.S. in Chemistry from Fudan University, M.S. in Chemistry from San Francisco State University, M.B.A. from the UMass Amherst Isenberg School of Management, and Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley. She pursued postdoctoral research in structural biology, biochemistry and molecular biology at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz.

Contact Information

Phone: 413-545-5276
Email: lxshen@research.umass.edu

Xiaoxiao Helen Ma, Ph.D.

Helen is a Licensing Officer in the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her portfolio will focus on engineering and software inventions. She will also identify, evaluate, and support projects with the potential to establish new startup companies and participate in the UMass Amherst I-Corps Site program and other campus entrepreneurship programs.

Prior to joining the TTO, she had been doing multi-disciplinary research and development (R&D) in the life science tools and diagnostics industry for seven years. She is an inventor herself: her previous R&D focused on the fluidic technologies and genomic/proteomic sequencing technologies, leading to multiple patent applications and contributing to innovative products (e.g., NextSeqTM 1000/2000). She was an engineer and tech lead for both Illumina, a corporate leading the genomic sequencing industry, and Quantum-Si, a startup company that went public in 2021. She has been enjoying working with inventors from a variety of disciplines and collaborators in the business and legal fields to bring ideas to products, both in industrial and academic settings. 

She received her Ph.D. and postdoc training at University of California, Los Angeles, with research on microfluidic platform for molecular imaging tracer synthesis. She earned her B.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Zhejiang University.

Contact Information

Phone: 413-577-3750
Email: hma@research.umass.edu

Lyne Laliberté

Lyne Laliberté is the Manager of Operations and Patent Administration in the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Lyne joined the office in 2001 and has a leading role in our “TTO Services for the Creative Arts” initiative. She is also responsible for the day-to-day operations of the TTO, including financial management, patent prosecution & maintenance, post-execution license compliance and copyright registrations. She also oversees the office’s information management database system and the TTO’s website.

Lyne is a member of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM). She holds a B.A. from Mount Holyoke College and prior to joining UMass served as a corporate paralegal for a marketing company and as a paralegal in the law offices of Doherty, Wallace, Pillsbury and Murphy, PC. Lyne also taught in the Springfield, Massachusetts school system.

Contact Information

Phone: 413-545-1062
Email: laliberte(AT)research.umass.edu

Maryanne Laukaitis

Maryanne Laukaitis is an administrative assistant in the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) where she is responsible for processing Material Transfer Agreements and Confidential Disclosure Agreements, among other administrative duties.

A graduate of Smith College, Maryanne worked for 9 years at Kollmorgen Corporation Electro-Optical Division as a mechanical designer for periscope subassemblies and training equipment. At UMass she was mechanical designer for the Five College Radio Astronomy program for 8 years, working on components for the radio telescope located at Quabbin Reservoir.

Subsequently, she was administrative assistant for the Director of the Massachusetts Rural Development Council, which was hosted by the UMass Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning department. There she ran the office as well as writing/editing the newsletter and actively participating in planning two national conferences on rural development.

Contact Information

Phone: 413-545-3606
Email: maryanne@research.umass.edu

Robert MacWright, Ph.D., Esq.

Robert (Bob) MacWright, Ph.D., Esq, is former Director of the Technology Transfer Office at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, currently serving as a consultant. Dr. MacWright has been an academic technology transfer professional since 1985.

Prior to joining UMass Amherst, he led three academic technology transfer programs; he was director of the Office of Corporate Liaison and Technology Transfer at Rutgers University, CEO of the University of Virginia Patent Foundation, and director of the Office of Technology Management at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies.

Dr. MacWright is also a registered patent attorney, and has practiced law with prominent law firms in New York and Washington, D.C. In his legal practice he represented academic institutions, biotechnology companies and venture funds in intellectual property transactions, litigation and corporate finance. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, and his law degree from Rutgers School of Law – Newark.

Contact Information

Email: macwright@research.umass.edu

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