Tom O’Donnell

Tom O’Donnell is currently Senior Director, Innovation Initiatives at UMass Lowell. This includes oversight and operations of the UMass Lowell Innovation Hubs in both Lowell and Haverhill, MA, co-working and incubator facilities supporting early stage, technology-based startups in a variety of areas including advanced materials, cleantech, robotics and information technology. Tom is also a faculty member at the Manning School of Business at UMass Lowell teaching graduate and undergraduate courses in New Venture Creation, Managing Innovation, Corporate Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management. He is actively engaged in mentoring student and faculty teams in starting new ventures and is a key contributor to ongoing efforts to expand innovation and entrepreneurship programs on campus for students, researchers and faculty. In addition, Tom has served as overall program manager for the annual Deshpande Symposium for Innovation & Entrepreneurship in Higher Ed (held at UMass Lowell) and is a member of the Leadership Advisory Team for EForAll – Lowell & Lawrence. He is also a long-term mentor with the MIT Venture Mentoring Service and serves on the advisory board for the Mass Tech Collaborative Annual Innovation Index. Prior to UMass Lowell, Tom worked for over 20 years in the high-tech industry in a variety of roles from business development, sales and marketing to engineering, research and advanced technology development. Tom holds a B.S.E.E from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, M.S. Computer Engineering from Boston University and MBA from MIT.