James Thompson is currently the Associate Vice President for Innovation at the University of Notre Dame and General Partner of Pit Road Fund, LLC (a seed investment fund). James has over 19 years’ experience in management, business development, marketing, biotechnology research and quality systems. Most recently James was the Interim Executive Director of the Technology & Venture Commercialization office (TVC) at the University of Utah. Prior to the University of Utah, James was the Director of Business Development and Director of New Product Development for a chemical company (Frontier Scientific) and a research reagents company (Echelon Biosciences), co-founder of four companies, Executive Director of the Spendlove Medical Research Institute, and a research microbiologist. James has an MS and BS in Biology from Utah State University and an AS in Biology from BYU-Idaho.