Innovation Manager, MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation
Karen Golmer is an innovative industry leader who facilitates collaboration to advance new technologies, identify technical challenges, and find solutions to mitigate business risks. Karen is a Chemist with an MBA and 35 years of corporate experience from lab professional to global program director with companies including GE, Ecolab, Calgon, Diversey, and Kodak. She is the Innovation Manager at the MIT Deshpande Center and cofounded a new filtration membrane startup out of MIT: Via Separations.
At the Deshpande Center, Karen manages the grant program to bring both funding and the critical industry input to research at MIT. This industry expertise is both technical and commercial and the result of collaborative efforts of volunteers who are current leaders in their field. Ultimately, the Deshpande program enables the potential impact that so much of the promising work at MIT can offer the world.
Karen is also active in leading water innovation. She mentors and judges many start-up competitions including Imagine H2O, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center Catalyst and Innovate Mass, MIT Water Club and Delta V.