Nazita Gamini and Rong Zhou are Brandeis Licensing Associates that have served as Entrepreneurial Leads for the National Science Foundation I-Corps (Innovation Corps) National Teams program. Both have participated in rigorous, experiential, immersive programming focused on creating commercially viable scientific innovations. Through this program, Nazita and Rong gained the expertise to successfully transfer knowledge into products and processes that benefit society via customer discovery, competitive analysis and industry partnership.

Nazita Gamini joined the Brandeis University Office of Technology Licensing as a Technology Licensing Associate in October 2016. In this role, she deals with a number of intellectual property issues including negotiating, drafting and reviewing various agreements including IP licenses, research collaborations, material transfer and confidential disclosure agreements. Nazita also works closely with outside patent counsel to protect and maximize the value of Brandeis University’s Intellectual Property. Prior to joining the OTL staff, Nazita worked at various biotech startups in the Boston and Cambridge areas. Nazita is an attorney and holds an MS in Microbiology. She is a co-author on a number of scientific and legal manuscripts as well as a holder of a U.S. patent application. Nazita is fluent in Farsi and is an amateur poker player. Rong recently graduated from Brandeis University with a PhD in Chemistry. Her doctoral research was highly interdisciplinary, incorporating various aspects of material chemistry, biostatistics, and bioinformatics on the role of hydrogel in drug delivery and 3D cell culture. Rong received her B.S. in Chemistry in 2010 from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. Rong currently works on technology licensing at the Office of Technology Licensing. She has prior experience at Partners Healthcare Innovation in Cambridge, MA, where she examined patentability related to diverse inventions such as small molecule therapeutics, novel fabrication methods, and diagnostic medical devices.