Andrea P. Belz is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

innovation

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...

, academic and author. She is a Professor of Practice in Industrial and

Systems Engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering util ...

and the Vice Dean of Transformative Initiatives in the Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC). Belz is most known for her work on deep technology development and

commercialization Commercialization or commercialisation is the process of introducing a new product or production method into commerce—making it available on the market. The term often connotes especially entry into the mass market (as opposed to entry into ear ...

, public-private partnerships, and management of internal

research and development Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in Europe as research and technological development (RTD), is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products, and improving existi ...

programs. Her work integrates

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

and

systems engineering Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design, integrate, and manage complex systems over their enterprise life cycle, life cycles. At its core, systems engineering util ...

with the development of novel tools. She authored a book titled ''The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Product Development''. She was a Director of Caltech laser spinoff manufacturer, Ondax until its acquisition by Coherent. Belz is the current President-Elect of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operation ...

Technology and Engineering Management Society (TEMS).

Education

Belz completed her BS degree in

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

/Economics at the

University of Maryland at College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of Mary ...

. She earned a PhD in experimental

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and her dissertation was titled "Investigations of novel effects in semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering". Later, she earned an MBA in

Finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...

from Pepperdine University Graziadio School of Business.

Career

Early in her career Belz did postdoctoral research in geobiomicrobiology and

biogeochemistry Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, t ...

at the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

(JPL) and the Caltech Geological and Planetary Science Division, studying microbial metal cycling as a model for life detection for the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding th ...

(NASA). For ten years she was a consulting systems engineer in the Mission Systems Concepts Division of the

(JPL). Belz created and led Innovation Node-Los Angeles, a regional hub for the

National Science Foundation The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering. Its medical counterpart is the National I ...

(NSF) I-Corps program from 2014 until 2019. She then went to NSF to lead the Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) Division and served on the leadership team that launched the new Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships (TIP) Directorate, where she oversaw NSF's principal applied research programs, including the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR), Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR), I-Corps, Partnerships for Innovation (PFI), and Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) programs. Belz joined the University of Southern California in 2012, where she has had appointments in the Marshall School of Business, the Iovine and Young Academy (where she was on the founding faculty) and the Viterbi School of Engineering. She has also served as a Visiting Professor at Caltech. She was the inaugural Vice Dean of Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Viterbi School of Engineering. Following her service at NSF, she returned to USC and now serves as the first Vice Dean of Transformative Initiatives in the Viterbi School of Engineering. Belz founded the Management of Innovation, Entrepreneurial Research, and Venture Analysis (MINERVA) lab at USC as a partnership between the Viterbi School of Engineering and Price School of Public Policy. Her work focuses on the intersection of government funding and the private sector in supporting entrepreneurship. Her project SBIR: Commercializing Invention and Financing Innovation (SCIFI) is an analysis of the NASA proposal database. She is the architect of Patentopia, an interface for the United States Patent and Trademark Office PatentsView database. She has studied the impact of gender in innovation.

Books

''The McGraw-Hill 36-Hour Course: Product Development'' (2010) ISBN 978-0071743877

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Belz, Andrea Living people Year of birth missing (living people) University of Maryland, College Park alumni California Institute of Technology alumni Pepperdine University alumni