The spark of innovation and the commercialization journey

To Vanessa Chan, effective engineers don’t just solve technical problems. To make an impact with a new product or technology, they need to bring it to market, deploy it, and make it mainstream. Yet this is precisely what they aren’t trained to do. 

In fact, 97% of patents fail to make it over the “commercialization wall.” 

“Only 3% of patents succeed, and one of the biggest challenges is we are not training our PhDs, our undergrads, our faculty, to commercialize technologies,” said Chan, vice dean of innovation and entrepreneurship at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. She delivered the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (DMSE)’s spring 2025 Wulff Lecture at MIT on March 10. “Instead, we’re focused on the really hard technical issues that we have to overcome versus everything that needs to be addressed for something to make it to market.” 

Chan spoke from deep experience, having led McKinsey & Company’s innovation practice, helping Fortune 100 companies commercialize technologies. She also invented the tangle-free headphones Loopit at re.design, the firm she founded, and served as the Department of Energy’s chief commercialization officer and director of the Office of Technology Transitions during the Biden Administration.  

From invention to impact 

A DMSE alumna, Chan addressed a near-capacity crowd about the importance of materials innovation. She highlighted how new materials—or existing materials used in new ways—could solve key challenges, from energy sustainability to health care delivery. For example, carbon fiber composites have replaced aluminum in the airline industry, leading to reduced fuel consumption, lower emissions, and enhanced safety. Modern lithium-ion and solid-state batteries use optimized electrode materials for higher efficiency and faster charging. And biodegradable polymer stents, which dissolve over time, have replaced traditional metallic stents that remain​ in arteries and can cause complications. 

The Wulff Lecture is a twice-yearly talk aimed at educating students, especially first-years, about materials science and engineering and its impact on society. 

Inventing a groundbreaking technology is just the beginning, Chan said. She gave the example of Thomas Edison, often thought of as the father of the electric lightbulb. But Edison didn’t invent the carbonized filament—that was Joseph Swan.  

“Thomas Edison was the father of the deployed light bulb,” Chan said. “He took Swan’s patents and figured out, how do we actually pull a vacuum on this? How do we manufacture this at scale?”  

For an invention to make an impact, it needs to successfully traverse the commercialization journey from research to development, demonstration, and deployment in the market. “An invention without deployment is a tragedy, because you’ve invented something where you may have a lot of paper publications, but it is not making a difference at all in the real world.” 

Materials commercialization is difficult, Chan explained, because new materials are at the very beginning of a value chain—the full range of activities in producing a product or service. To make it to market, the materials invention must be adopted by others along the chain, and in some cases,​ ​companies must navigate how each part of the chain gets paid. A new material for hip replacements, for example, designed to reduce the risk of infection and rehospitalization, may be a materials breakthrough, but getting it to market is complicated by the way insurance works. 

“They will not pay more to avoid hospitalization,” Chan said. “If your material is more expensive than what is currently being used today, the providers will not reimburse for that.” 

Beyond technology

But engineers can increase their odds in commercialization if they know the right language. “Adoption readiness levels” (ARLs), developed in Chan’s Office of Technology Transitions, help assess the nontechnical risks technologies face on their journey to commercialization. These risks cover value proposition—whether a technology can perform at a price customers will pay—market acceptance, and other potential barriers, such as infrastructure and regulations. 

​​​​​In 2022, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act allocated $370 billion toward clean energy deployment—10 times the Department of Energy’s annual budget—to advance clean energy technologies such as carbon management, clean hydrogen, and geothermal heating and cooling. But Chan emphasized that the real prize was unlocking an estimated $23 trillion from private-sector investors.​​ 

“Those are the ones who are going to bring the technologies to market. So how do we do that? How do we convince them to actually commercialize these technologies which aren’t quite there?” Chan said. 

Chan’s team spearheaded “Pathways to Commercial Liftoff,” a roadmap to bridge the gap between innovation and commercial adoption, helping identify scaling requirements, key players, and the acceptable risk levels for early adoption. 

She shared an example from the DOE ​​​​initiative, which received $8 billion from Congress to create a market for clean hydrogen technologies. She tied the money to specific pathways, explaining, “the private sector will start listening because they want the money.” 

Her team also gathered data on where the industry was headed, identifying sectors that would likely adopt hydrogen, the infrastructure needed to support it, and what policies or funding could accelerate commercialization.  

“There’s also community perception, because when we talk to people about hydrogen, what’s the first thing people think about? The Hindenburg,” Chan said, referencing the 1937 dirigible explosion. “So these are the kinds of things that we had to grapple with if we’re actually going to create a hydrogen economy.” 

“What do you love?” 

Chan concluded her talk by offering students professional advice. She encouraged them to do what they love. On a slide, she shared a Venn diagram of her passions for technology, business, ​and ​making things—she recently started a pottery studio called Rebel Potters—illustrating the motivations behind her career journey. 

“So I need you to ask yourself, What is your Venn diagram? What is it that you love?” Chan said. “And you may say, ‘I don’t know. I’m 18 right now, and I just need to figure out what classes I want to take.’ Well, guess what? Get outside your comfort zone. Go do something new. Go try new things.” 

Attendee Delia Harms, a DMSE junior, found the exercise particularly useful. “I think I’m definitely lacking a little bit of direction in where I want to go after undergrad and what I want my career path to look like,” Harms said. “So I’ll definitely try that exercise later—thinking about what my circles are and how they come together.” 

Jeannie She, a junior majoring in artificial intelligence and bioengineering, found inspiration in Chan’s public sector experience. 

“I have always seen government as bureaucracy, red tape, slow—but I’m also really interested in policy and policy change,” she said. “So learning from her and the things that she’s accomplished during her time as an appointee has been really inspiring and makes me see that there are careers in policy where things can actually get done.”