Ben Bickerstaff

Ben has always believed that technology is no good sitting in a lab collecting dust. It needs to get out into the marketplace — where it becomes a life-saving product, a game-changing new tool, or the foundation of an entirely new industry. That belief has shaped every career decision he's made.

He pursued that conviction through engineering — earning a BS in Civil Engineering, a Master's in Civil & Environmental Engineering, and an MBA, all from the University of Alabama. Roll Tide! Fresh out of grad school, he joined the university's technology transfer office, first as a graduate intern and then in a full-time role as a Licensing Associate in Venture Development — helping faculty, staff, and students with licensing strategies and startup creation for technologies that came in from every corner of campus.

His job was to figure out what value the technology created, who benefited from that value, and what path could deliver it.

Working in tech transfer also teaches you something no classroom can: how to quickly understand a little about a lot — and then dive two, three, four layers deep on any given topic. It's where Ben became a deep generalist. The kind of person who can walk into a conversation about plasma-facing materials, EV battery additives, or biomedical imaging devices and hold their own — because he's done it, repeatedly, across dozens of technology domains.