From Lab to Launch: How Vanessa Chan Is Training Ph.D. Engineers for Real-World Impact

Vanessa Chan, Jonathan and Linda Brassington Practice Professor in Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) and Penn Engineering’s Vice Dean of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, is shaping a new kind of classroom. In her course, EAS5500: Applying Your Thesis to the Real World, Ph.D. students step beyond the lab and into the real-world ecosystems their research is meant to transform.

Chan’s course was launched in Spring 2026 to bridge a long-standing gap in engineering education: the divide between technical excellence and real-world impact.

“The way we train Ph.D. students is to focus on hard technical problems and success is defined by the number of papers you publish in quality journals,” says Chan. “But the future leaders in engineering need more than that to have an impact.”

As the former Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office of Technology Commercialization at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Chan uses her real-world experience to push students to examine the “adoption risks” of their proposed solutions. Grounded in the Adoption Readiness Level (ARL) framework developed under Chan’s leadership by DOE’s Office of Technology Commercialization, the course helps students identify non-technical barriers, including market demand, policy, manufacturing and supply chains, that determine whether technologies succeed in the real world. Students are also paired with industry mentors and conduct hands-on analyses to actualize what they learn in the classroom and develop a thesis chapter focused on commercialization.

“There are countless examples of technologies that failed not because the science didn’t work, but because other barriers weren’t addressed,” says Chan. “This course helps students understand and address those barriers while gaining insight from industry professionals on how to make the transition from academic research to real-world impact.”

Learning by Doing and Connecting

With a small, highly interactive format, the course emphasizes hands-on learning and real-world engagement.

Students interact with 30-40 industry professionals as part of their course objectives, often starting with cold outreach on LinkedIn, and getting closer connections with industry mentors through their own networking and in class through guest speakers. In parallel, they refine how they communicate their research, learning to translate complex ideas into clear, compelling narratives.

“At the beginning, many students are hesitant,” says Chan. “By the end, they’re confidently speaking with professionals and connecting their work to real-world situations and problems.”

“I completed 31 interviews across government, mining, wastewater processing and battery recycling,” says Sophia Jackson, a Ph.D. student in MSE using algae to capture rare earth elements (REEs) from secondary waste streams. “I’m grateful so many people shared insights on market pain points and where my technology might realistically fit. It sharpened my ability to ask meaningful questions, adapt my communication style and build rapport with people I had never met. It also made clear that the economics have to make sense alongside the science through technoeconomic analysis, economies of scale and manufacturing feasibility, giving me a much more complete picture of what technology translation actually requires.”

A New Approach To Training Engineering Students

Instead of a traditional final, students produce a new chapter of their Ph.D. thesis outlining how their research can be commercialized, using Chan’s Adoption Readiness Levels framework.

The result is that commercialization is no longer an afterthought, it becomes part of the research itself.

“Everything I had been exposed to up until this point fell into the school of thought where you identify a clinical need, develop the technology to solve it and then figure out how to get it to market,” says Zack Goldblum, a Ph.D. student in Bioengineering working on a software platform that enables real-time communication between patients and implanted brain devices. “Dr. Chan’s approach is to understand the existing ecosystem, the value chain, the incentive structures and policies, and then figure out how to mobilize the ecosystem to adopt your technology. This equipped me with an entirely new framework for thinking through technology commercialization.”

Graduates of the course leave with more than technical expertise: They develop the ability to communicate across disciplines, evaluate real-world constraints and build professional networks.

“I’ve only had a few courses over many years of school that have fundamentally shaped the way I think about difficult problems. And the ones that do are the ones that stick with you for life. This is one of those courses,” continues Goldblum. “There’s so much to learn here about how the real world works and how to position yourself to make a real impact — valuable insights for Ph.D. students regardless of their future ambitions.”

Strengthening Industry Connections

The course builds strong ties between Penn Engineering and industry through mentorship, networking and ongoing dialogue, and invites interested companies and individuals to be a part of these students’ skill building.

“You can’t have impact without understanding the world around you,” says Eric Stach, Robert D. Bent Professor of Engineering in MSE and mentor of multiple students in the course. “This course pushes students to get out of the lab and learn how things work, and I have seen firsthand how their problem-solving approaches have grown to include how they will make a difference using the lessons they learn here.”

“I am working on a nanoparticle platform that delivers RNA directly to bone to help promote mineralization and recovery after bone grafting procedures,” says Jedtanut Thussananutiyakul, a DScD student at Penn Dental Medicine. “This course has helped me understand how to bring this technology to the market. Through stakeholder interviews with clinicians, industry experts and investors in this course, I gained direct exposure to how decisions are made outside academia. These are not skills typically developed in traditional courses, yet they are essential for successfully bringing a technology from the lab to the real world.”

Industry mentors provide more than a touch point to real-world applications, they also help students find their next career move.

One mentor, Jon Kiel, Senior Manager at The Engine, a non-profit incubator and accelerator built by MIT, met Thussananutiyakul through this course and connected him to The Engine’s Blueprint program to help accelerate a startup co-founded around his technology.

“Translating research is incredibly difficult and Dr. Chan’s class is unique in developing the skills that researchers need to commercialize technologies for societal impact,” says Kiel.

Putting Penn on the Map for the Commercialization of Technologies

When ARLs were developed at the DOE, they were embraced not only by national labs and government offices but also by accelerators including Joules Accelerator to support startups, venture capital firms such as B. Capital, an investment firm with $11 billion in assets under management strategically partnered with Boston Consulting Group, and industry associations like the Geneva Association to frame insurance risks.

The ARL framework is also in the process of being embedded into the Penn Center for Innovation’s venture creation efforts.

“I first heard about ARLs during my days at the Department of Defense and it is an extremely powerful tool to drive actionable insights,” says Craig Gravitz, the new Executive Director of PCI Ventures. “I am now embedding ARLs into the DNA of our work here at PCI Ventures so that Penn’s entrepreneurs can use the same tools that have helped me. I expect this approach will enable more Penn-developed solutions to reach the market and ultimately change the world for the better.”

Penn Engineering’s EAS5500 course positions the University of Pennsylvania among the first academic institutions to formally teach commercialization to Ph.D. students and incorporate it directly into their doctoral thesis work.

“One of the biggest gaps I see as a VC is technically competent Ph.D. graduates who lack the skills to develop the non-technical side of innovation,” says Jeff Johnson, General Partner and Head of Energy at B. Capital. “When ARLs are taught alongside technical expertise, Penn Engineering students gain the tools needed to address the issues that commonly hinder success.”

Chan encourages students to look out for EAS5500, which will be offered again in Spring 2027. Learn more about Vanessa Chan and her work here.