Jessica Sharon

Jessica Sharon, MS, MBA, has extensive experience in managing early stage companies and technology development. Jessica is currently the Director of Innovation Programs at the University of Louisville.

She leads several broad innovation-based grant programs including the UofL Coulter Translational Partnership, NSF AWARE:ACCESS, UofL NSF I-Corps Site, and serves as a Project Manager for the NIH REACH Program in Kentucky. These grant programs provide “gap funding” to support the translational research and entrepreneurial training to develop promising technologies to benefit patients through improved diagnosis and treatment of disease or provide significant cost savings.

Prior to these positions at UofL, Jessica assisted early stage technology companies towards commercialization at a local health and life science incubator. Jessica developed commercialization and regulatory strategies, completed due diligence for potential investment by private equity investors and raised more than $5 Million of professional investment for several companies, one of which is publicly traded.

Jessica earned a Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Dayton and an MS in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Kentucky, where her research focused on tailoring bone biomaterials for drug delivery. She also has an MBA with an entrepreneurial focus from the University of Louisville.