Part 1: Dr. Mary Goldberg chats with Dr. Cathy Bodine, Associate Professor and Director of the Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering at UC Denver. Listen to how Dr. Bodine made the leap from industry to academia, the challenges and opportunities associated with getting technologies out of the university and what changes are happening to assist innovators.
Host: Dr. Mary Goldberg, Co-Director of the IMPACT Center at the University of Pittsburgh
Guest: Dr. Cathy Bodine, Associate Professor, Director, Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering
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Full Episode Transcript | PDF
Timestamps:
1:13 How Dr. Cathy Bodine got into assistive technology
3:19 Taking the leap from industry to academia
4:19 The start of the innovation hub at CU and Dr. Bodine's roles
6:01 Paths and challenges associated with getting technologies out of the university
7:59 Future changes assisting innovators
10:06 Advice for innovators in the CU ecosystem
11:44 Complimentary perspectives and team science
15:10 Involving the university's tech transfer office
16:46 Where partnerships between academia and industry can go wrong
19:07 Other guidance when working with industry partners in academia
Mary Goldberg 0:06
The IMPACT Center at the University of Pittsburgh supported by the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research, proudly present ImpacTech. Today's episode is diverse perspectives with our guest, Cathy Bodine, Associate Professor at the University of Colorado.
Recorded remotely from my soundproof bedroom closet in Pittsburgh, PA. This is your host, Mary Goldberg, and this is the episode three in the 2021 ImpacTech podcast series. Cathy, thank you so much for joining us today, I think that you have had a half dozen careers or more or may even still have a half dozen careers in your current position. We're so excited to learn more about your background and find out how you got into assistive technology. Could we start there?
Cindy Bodine 1:13
Sure. So a long time ago, I won't say when, I got my I started out with a master's degree in speech pathology, and I had a minor in audiology, and I got my first job. And the first five clients I met were non speaking. And at that time, if a psychologist diagnosed someone as having a severe to profound cognitive impairment, the recommendation was that they be institutionalized. And so because these folks couldn't take the test, he decided they had profound cognitive impairments. And so the long story short is I disagreed with him. And he told me to prove it. And so I found a professor at the University of Michigan, who was just starting out with Texas instrument toys, who taught me how to solder over long distance phone. And the long story short is we were able to retest these consumers, these five people, and three of them had above average intelligence, one had average and one was just slightly below. And that was back when IQ scores, quote unquote, mattered. But they didn't get institutionalized. And that just changed my world. So from that moment on, it was like, I have to work in technology. And that's all I've done. my entire career is work with people with disabilities, those aging into disabilities, and those who need technology to be more independent.
Mary Goldberg 2:43
So you were able to see the impact of technology firsthand. And it sounds like it really inspired you to continue on in product development and advisement in different ways.
Cindy Bodine 2:55
It did, and I, you know, I worked in industry for a while, before coming to the University of Colorado. I've learned what design teams how design teams operate, how they think, how manufacturers have to be cognizant of everything from the cost of materials to actually marketing getting something out there. And, and I find that really interesting, and I always have.
Mary Goldberg 3:19
So what made you take the leap, then to leave industry and come to academia? Did you go straight to the University of Colorado after your industry role?
Cindy Bodine 3:31
I didn't, I actually got hired at the Colorado Easterseals society to run the assistive tech program. And that evolved into a job with the National Easterseals society out of Chicago, where I was sent around the country to help various programs set up and began to deliver Assistive Technology Services. And so I kind of had a combination of hands on clinical, as well as then that whole notion of how do you set up an operation of a business model, if you will, within a nonprofit industry?
Mary Goldberg 4:04
That's fabulous. And I'm sure that your students and faculty and staff that you work with, you see benefit so much from that diverse perspective?
Cindy Bodine 4:15
I hope so. I do my best.
Mary Goldberg 4:19
So did the innovation centers start with your arrival? How long have you been involved in directing the Innovation Hub?
Cindy Bodine 4:28
Gosh, I am embarrassed to admit it, but it will be 25 years June 1, that I've been at CU and our program has grown. We started out as the Assistive Technology Act Program back in the day. And the thing that I love about the tech programs, of course, there's one in every state and territory throughout the nation. But what I love is that that program is designed to serve as a catalyst within your state or territory. And we took full advantage of that we said let's catalize every single opportunity we can and build a program. So over the years, that's exactly what we've done.
Mary Goldberg 5:07
And so do I have it right that you actually direct two centers, the Innovation Hub and the biosense? bio science tech park?
Cindy Bodine 5:17
No, what I actually do is yes, I'm the director of the Center for inclusive designing engineering. And I'm also the director of our innovation ecosystem, which is part of our Colorado Clinical Translational Sciences Institute. This is a huge program that NIH sponsors throughout the country at various medical school campuses. And the whole notion is taking innovations from the lab and getting them out to the commercial marketplace. In one, you know, one way or another, whether it's a patent, whether it's IP, whether it's a startup company, whatever that is. And so I work with all of the colleges and universities throughout Colorado in that role.
Mary Goldberg 6:01
Thank you for the clarification. And so I assume that there are some unique paths and challenges associated with getting the technologies out of out of the university settings. Do you feel that this differs for assistive technology compared to other healthcare or biotech?
Cindy Bodine 6:23
That's a great question. And you know, it did for many, many years, in part because tech transfer offices, at universities in many instances, and I've talked to a lot of my colleagues and friends who've had run into similar issues, historically, they've looked at the disability market as a model that cannot be successful. And of course, we know that's not true this year alone, well in 2020, the assistive tech market in the United States alone was $55.8 billion. So what is shifting? A lot of things are shifting. First and foremost, the technology is here now, you know, stuff that I wish I would have had 20 years ago now exist. Voice recognition, you know, the accessibility features that are built in all of this stuff is now current. Whereas before, we were working with older tech, and we had dreams of what we wanted to do, now it's more of a reality. So that's one piece. But the second piece is with the aging demographic, that is front and center of almost every industry right now. And in the tech sector, in particular, this notion of aging in place, the notion of how can we help our mothers, our grandmothers, you know, our grandparents, that's really kicking into high gear and in industry, they're seeing, oh, my goodness, this is a massive market worldwide. That has really shifted the tone, and it's gotten a lot more exciting.
Mary Goldberg 7:59
That's fabulous. So it sounds more like an opportunity than a particular challenge. Could you describe the future that you see, and how how these changes may assist innovators?
Cindy Bodine 8:14
Sure, for let's take the aging demographic. You know, there's going to be a lot more old people than young people just within the next 10 to 20 years in the United States and around the world. And we're already seeing that in certain parts of Asia, and other parts of the world. What that means is there are fewer people working, potentially, or people working longer. So I tell my students, for example, don't be surprised if the person in the cubicle next to you is 75, and maybe has a hearing loss maybe has a little visual impairment. So I think this notion of creating environments or ecosystems where everyone can be successful, even though we may be focused on aging, the reality is that if we focus on aging, we're also focusing on functional impairment. And people, you know, young children have functional impairments that today's technology being developed, developed for seniors could very possibly help them do something more independently. And and so I see a future where, number one, first and foremost, disability is going to become much more real. I think COVID is a great example, unfortunately, of teaching people without disabilities, what it's like to be socially isolated. And now we see this huge push. We know that social isolation has the same impact as smoking like 15 cigarettes a day, having cardiovascular disease, etc. So the mortality, morbidity of social isolation is now way more understood than it was a year ago. All of these things are changing how we think about humans and how we think about the environments that humans exist in or live in, and work in play. And that is all going to be useful for people with disabilities.
Mary Goldberg 10:06
Thanks Cathy. And so how will that impact the advice that you give innovators that are a part of your particular ecosystem?
Cindy Bodine 10:16
I think what's really important and a great example. So we have a large, a large, world large medical device company here in Colorado. And I talk to my students about human factors. You know, historically medical devices were designed for, you know, white male surgeons. So human factors, body size, the grip on a surgical instrument needs to accommodate both large and small people. It needs to accommodate differences in pressure points, and things like that. So it's becoming more real, for lots of reasons, more and more women are entering all these crazy fields that, you know, 20 30 years ago, we weren't allowed in. And also the that notion of disability, if you're an older surgeon, for example, and you're going to be using a med tech device, we want to make sure you can see any kind of icon icons that might be on the device, any text or numbers that they might need to see. So how do you adjust for changes in visual systems of people as they age, all of those little details in that human factors component really matters in device design writ large. And of course, we're more on that med tech, assistive tech side of things coming out of the med school. So that's where we put a lot of emphasis.
Mary Goldberg 11:44
So it sounds like bringing some complimentary perspectives and knowledge and experience into the teams would be really fruitful for these innovators. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you encourage collaborations how you help to build partnerships, just in general, or in your ecosystem within the university and outside, perhaps with some of these medical device companies that you've mentioned?
Cindy Bodine 12:13
Well, it's really, this is a part of what I do that I actually really love. We call it team science. And team science is a buzzword that's getting out there. But it's the notion that you cannot go alone anymore. Every federal funding agency is looking for collaborators, for example. And so when it comes to for the disability market, I'll stick there for a minute in industry partners within disability. Number one, I've always respected industry, I know how tough it is to get a product to market and to actually survive as a company. And so I always approach into potential industry partners. With that knowledge in mind, you know, it's not like, Oh, I have a great idea. You've got to manufacture this. Rather, it's how can we work together to have a successful product launch, and have this product stay out there in the market and do well. So that's the first thing is really approaching industry. with an open mind. We talk a lot about language, I talk about language with my bioengineering students, I talk about language in my clinic. And what I mean by that, and my clearest example I tell my students is when you say stress, and I say stress, we just might be talking about two different things. So we spend a lot of time talking about language and how communication matters, because that's the cornerstone of any successful collaboration is making sure that everyone is clear and understands the conversation that's occurring. So that's a big piece of it. Secondly, you know, we talk a lot about skill sets. So what are your particular skill sets? What do you have that can contribute to this? And then most importantly, what don't you have? And where are you going to find that person? Now locally, in our university, we're kind of blowing up our research enterprise right now as we go into the next round of strategic planning. And that's something that's pretty fun and exciting to be a part of. And we're looking at how can we centralize things? One of the examples that we're really deeply considering is like a Genius Bar, where you can actually whether you're a junior faculty or senior faculty, you can hit up the Genius Bar for ideas on where the collaborators who are people that know this stuff, and we can begin to negotiate those introductions in a much more fluent and successful way. So teamwork matters, I think is really the bottom line and that's what we talk about.
Mary Goldberg 14:55
I would love that Genius Bar myself.
Cindy Bodine 14:57
I know it's just a route for a grant at a university.
Mary Goldberg 15:00
Right? That's fabulous. And is that a role that your tech transfer office has traditionally played? Or is this something new,
Cindy Bodine 15:10
Um, they've done a bit of it, yes. And more and more as time goes on. We revamped our cu innovations, that's what we call our tech transfer office a number of years ago. But I will say I have always worked closely with our tech transfer office. And that's also very key, particularly if you're in the assistive tech kind of sector, because they don't know what we're talking about. And so we do, for example, what I call guided tours. So we have literally invited our tech transfer office, to our, to our labs, to our clinic, to our classes, I have one of the tech transfer guys, for example, teaching how to do a pitch to my bio engineering students next week. So I make sure they know what we're doing. I also invited our institutional review board members over to my clinic and labs and gave them a guided tour. So they would understand when they get a protocol from us for a research project, where the risk lies, because initially, they were freaking out that we were going to do quote, research with people with disabilities, they didn't understand. So we invited him over. So we do a we we put energy into building those relationships. Our CU Innovations has embedded tech transfer people in my in my group. So we meet once a month with our CU Innovations team. And we're constantly talking. And I think that's key for faculty to think about. And it's not something we do naturally, it's something we have to learn.
Mary Goldberg 16:46
Where can that kind of partnership then go wrong? So I'm insinuating from your remarks that if the tech transfer office, for example, maybe doesn't understand the ins and outs of the assistive technology market, that you of course, are more informed of that there could be some missed opportunities. But does it go beyond that? Could you talk about maybe some experiences that you've had that have not been so successful?
Cindy Bodine 17:15
Sure. I won't name the industry, the company name. But many, many years ago, in a previous iteration of our tech transfer office, I worked with an engineer at a very large company, to develop an algorithm to smooth the cursor movement of the mouse when someone has an essential tremor. So if their hand shakes and you're trying to move the mouse, you know, smoothing out that tremor. And I went to tech transfer, and I said, Hey, you know, I'd like to look at this from a patent or from an IP exchange with this particular industry. And back then they said to me, Oh, honey, you know, it's those people with disabilities, I don't think you need to worry about that. Let's just give it away. That's not worth our time to, you know, or money for an attorney. Well, this particular company sold that idea for $65 million.
Mary Goldberg 18:12
Wow, that's incredible.
Cindy Bodine 18:14
And so I went back to tech transfer, and I said, Gee, guys, we just missed out on this opportunity. And that was actually the catalyst for me to really step back and think about how did I want to work with tech transfer? What did I need from them? And then what was the best strategy to make that happen?
Mary Goldberg 18:38
What a lesson learned, and nugget of wisdom, right, that will really speak to all of the young innovators that that you're mentoring moving forward. And so I can imagine them that the first step is to encourage them to file perhaps an invention, disclosure. And what other guidance do you give them in these early discussions that involve any kind of, of intellectual property with industry partners, or others? Go ahead.
Cindy Bodine 19:07
Sure, no there are a number of things to think about. First and foremost are the rights and responsibilities of faculty, students and staff when it comes to intellectual property. And so we're very clear upfront with that invention disclosure. You know, and we, we've forced the issue of what percentage of this is your idea or your work or your whatever? it's one thing if a professor brings you in for a Master's project or a student project and says, Hey, here's my idea. Here's what I'm doing. I've already you know, I need you to do X. That's one thing. It's another thing when a student has a great idea and takes it to a professor and says, Hey, what do you think of this? And so we spend time in our research methods class, in particular, in our labs, talking about the rights and responsibilities of both parties, and we get that ironed out way up front before anything can go wrong. We also spend a fair amount of time talking to our students and frankly, some, some faculty about, you know, if a large corporation is flattering you and and saying, oh, tell me more, you know, you may be giving away 10s of millions of dollars just by having that conversation. So how do you think about protecting yourself, the university, of course, and the industry partner, frankly? So we spend a fair amount of time really processing that and role playing, I do all these crazy things with my students, they think I'm absolutely nuts, until they get their first job. And then I love it when they come back and say, Dr. Bodine you were right.
Mary Goldberg 20:58
That's great. It's kind of like being a parent, right? Those magic words that you maybe don't hear too often.
Cindy Bodine 21:07
Yep.
Mary Goldberg 21:08
That's awesome. And that's wonderful advice. Well Cathy, thank you so much. I really appreciate all of your insights thus far. And I'd like to dig in in a future episode a little bit more about some technologies that might not follow the traditional path, for example, those that might be open source and how your advice may differ, as well as little bit more about other success and failures of tech transfer in academia. So thank you again for your time today.
Cindy Bodine 21:40
Very welcome. Thank you, Mary.
Mary Goldberg 21:45
Until then, keep making a positive impact in whatever you do and stay healthy. If you like ImpacTech, please review us on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
A quick note from our sponsors. IMPACT initiatives are being developed under a grant from the National Institute on Disability Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research. NIDILRR is a center within the Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services. IMPACT initiatives do not necessarily represent the policy of NIDILRR, ACL or HHS, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government and the same goes for the University of Pittsburgh. We'd like to thank our ImpacTech guests and our production team at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Michelle Zorrilla from the Department of Rehab Science and Technology, Natalie Vasquez and Dr. Marie Norman, from the IDEA Lab at the Institute for Clinical Research Education.