Cornell Innovation & Venture Advisors (“CIVA”) is a new and exclusive community of experts who are provided a first look at emerging technologies and venture opportunities from Cornell University’s Center for Technology Licensing (“CTL”) and Weill Cornell’s Enterprise Innovation.
Every quarter, CIVA members will be invited to an hour-long Zoom meeting to attend presentations from Cornell’s most promising inventors. There will be three innovation presentations in separate breakout rooms to select from, providing each advisor with something of interest to their specialty, including technologies from therapeutics, medical devices, materials and engineering, energy and environment, agriculture and food, and research tools.
During the sessions, advisors will be invited to provide feedback regarding the market opportunities and the commercialization strategies for the innovation.
CIVA group members are:
- Industry experts
- Entrepreneurs
- Angels and investors
- Weill Cornell and Cornell alum
- Friends and partners of the university
The next quarterly CIVA roundtable will take place on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, from noon to 1:00 PM (ET).
CIVA Presenter Highlights
Lawrence Bonassar, PhD
Daljit S. and Elaine Sarkaria Professor in Biomedical Engineering
Professor, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Aiyana Geimer Fortin, PhD
Ph.D. Candidate in Biomedical Engineering
Cornell Prime Dots (C’Dots), developed by Dr. Ulrich Wiesner, are ultrasmall fluorescent core-shell silica nanoparticles that have received FDA IND approval for human therapeutic clinical trials and have been shown to be safe and effective in multiple diagnostic clinical trials. While previously investigated for oncological treatments, Dr. Larry Bonassar and Aiyana Geimer Fortin are exploring the use of C’Dots as cartilage-penetrating delivery vehicles to treat osteoarthritis (OA) and other degenerative joint diseases. C’Dots enable rapid tissue penetration, chondrocyte internalization and retention, and persistence in rat knees for over 3 months after a single injection. When paired with a therapeutic, C’Dots are set to be a versatile platform to protect cartilage in early-stage OA or post-traumatic OA (PTOA).
Elizabeth Johnson, PhD
Associate Professor, Nutritional Sciences
Ceramides are a type of sphingolipid critical to maintaining the skin’s protective barrier and hydration, making them an important ingredient in skincare and cosmetic products. However, the production of sphingolipids for use in skin care and therapeutics is prohibitively expensive. Professor Elizabeth Johnson is developing engineered microbes that leverage her expertise in sphingolipid biosynthesis pathways to produce and accumulate sphingoid bases of interest for cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, using economically accessible inputs.
Fei Wang, PhD
Professor and Associate Dean for AI and Data Science at WCM
Dr. Wang is developing EmulatRX, a multi-agent AI system that uses real-world electronic health record data to autonomously design, refine, and evaluate clinical trial protocols through iterative, expert-aligned reasoning. Across multiple acute disease use cases, EmulatRX has demonstrated the ability to accelerate trial design while preserving clinical validity and causal rigor. Agentic AI is transforming clinical trials from manual, reactive processes to autonomous, proactive operations by using self-directed AI agents that collaborate with humans. The technology shifts the role of AI from a passive, supportive tool to an active, collaborative partner in research.
If you would like to be considered for a membership to CIVA, please email Kris Valentine Behnke at kvb24@cornell.edu.
