Program Staff

Dan Geller, Assistant Director, UGA Startup Program, Innovation Gateway
706.583.0876 | dgeller@uga.edu

Dr. Dan Geller is The Assistant Director of the Innovation Gateway Startups Program and Agricultural Engineering Faculty in the College of Engineering. Dan has a long history of industry directed research and has developed several commercial bio-based products including “Smarter-Starter” a renewable charcoal lighter fluid. Dr. Geller is also an entrepreneur and owns several companies including Kindercore Vinyl, a phonograph record press which opened in 2017.

Kevin Wu, Design Engineer/Engineering Catalyst, UGA Startup Program, Innovation Gateway
706.542.2051 | kwu@uga.edu

Wu is an engineer working with the UGA Startup Program. He oversees the engineering and material science startups in the Startup Program’s portfolio, and provides prototyping assistance to startups. Wu obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Biological Engineering from UGA and has worked on projects spanning from indoor UAV navigation to a portable blood flow monitor.

Programming Support

Christy Anderson, Associate Director for UGA Innovation Gateway
706.542.1673 | christy5@uga.edu

Christy Anderson is the Associate Director for the UGA I-Corps program lead, Ian Biggs. Christy works directly with the I-Corps’ project members, assisting with their day-to-day needs during the accelerator program. In addition, she is responsible for ensuring team members submit proper documentation for travel and equipment purchases. Christy processes reimbursements for team members and reports I-Corps expenses.

Program Advisors

Derek Eberhart, Director of the UGA Innovation Gateway
706.542.2207 | dereke@uga.edu

As director of Innovation Gateway, Eberhart leads UGA’s efforts to maximize the impact of research discoveries and foster economic development. He led the strategic integration of UGA’s technology licensing and startup programs to form Innovation Gateway in order to streamline the path from lab to market. Prior to joining UGA in 2008, Derek served as director of Alliance and Portfolio Management at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, a spinout from Baylor College of Medicine. He managed several of Lexicon’s drug discovery partnerships, including alliances with biopharma companies. His over two decades of management and commercialization experience, along with his broad scientific expertise, equip him to lead UGA’s efforts to facilitate the translation of discoveries into products and companies that benefit the public across a diverse spectrum of market sectors. Eberhart received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UGA and earned his Ph.D. in genetics and molecular biology at Emory University. As an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, his research focused on the generation and analysis of mouse cancer models.