Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia President Michael F. Adams has named Margaret Wagner Dahl, an administrator with nearly 30 years of experience at the intersection of biotechnology and economic development, special assistant to the president for the Georgia Health Sciences University/UGA Medical Partnership.
Dahl will assume her new responsibilities on July 1 and will continue her role as associate provost for economic development and director of the university’s BioBusiness Center.
“The governor and legislature have made it clear that job creation is job number one at present,” Adams said. “I know of no effort more likely to create jobs in Athens in the next decade than our medical initiative.Combining these two efforts-economic development and the advancement of the medical initiative-under the leadership of Margaret Wagner Dahl will benefit students, the research enterprise and the state of Georgia.”
Dahl will succeed Arnett C. Mace Jr., who will step down after 20 years of service to the university. As special assistant to the president, Dahl will guide the transition of the GHSU/UGA Medical Partnership and the UGA College of Public Health to the UGA Health Sciences Campus, which will occupy the 58-acre site in Athens vacated by the Navy Supply Corps School. She will work closely with members of the university’s senior administration, officials from GHSU and the state’s medical community to develop and implement clinical clerkships and graduate medical education.
“I look forward to assisting with the establishment of a strong medical education and research program alongside an already robust College of Public Health,” Dahl said. “I firmly believe these initiatives will lead to outstanding economic development opportunities for our region and look forward to serving in this capacity.”
As associate provost for economic development, Dahl links the intellectual and physical resources of the university with the state’s economic development needs. In addition to collaborating with local and regional economic development officials, she has helped establish a technology-based economic development program at the UGA Gwinnett campus in partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Advanced Technology Development Center. She has also worked with the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities to test an assessment tool that measures a university’s effectiveness in economic development.
In 2000, Dahl founded the Georgia BioBusiness Center, an incubator program that helps UGA faculty members turn their research into commercial ventures. The GBBC primarily focuses on research involving biotechnology. It currently works with 16 companies that in fiscal year 2010 alone raised $50 million in outside investment and currently employ 85.
Dahl has worked for nearly 30 years in technology transfer, intellectual property management and the formation of start-up companies. Before coming to UGA in 1999, she was director of operations at the Austin Technology Incubator, a program of the University of Texas at Austin, and then the corporate technology adviser at a Texas law firm. Previously, she was the director of licensing of the University of Washington’s Office of Technology Transfer in Seattle. Her career began with ten years of private sector experience in the technology industry, including positions with multi-national pharmaceutical companies. She also has created two successful startup companies, Video Electronics Ltd. and Mediscope (Ireland) Ltd. Her degrees are in sociology and geography with honors from the National University of Ireland, Maynooth University.
In 2005, Dahl was presented the Biomedical Community Award from Georgia BIO. She currently serves as chair of the Board of Trustees for Athens Regional Medical Center and serves on the boards of Georgia BIO and the Technology Association of Georgia. She is an advisory board member of the Georgia Department of Economic Development, represents UGA on the Investor Advisory Board of Georgia Venture Partners and has served as a trustee board member of the Georgia Hospital Association.
