Danny Reible and Changzhi Li’s works have been recognized by the NAI.
Two Texas Tech University professors have been named Fellows by the National Academy of Inventors (NAI).
Changzhi Li and Danny Reible, both faculty members in the Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering, were among the 169 distinguished inventors announced as NAI Fellows this year, joining nine existing Texas Tech and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center faculty as NAI Fellow.
Li, a professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, has been developing low-cost smart radar sensors for non-contact health care, advanced human-computer interaction, and security surveillance since 2005. He holds 11 U.S. patents with three others pending.
“It is a great honor for me to be named a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors,” Li said. “I deeply appreciate my colleagues at Texas Tech for the great support and inspiration on technology innovation.
“This recognition motivates me to keep working hard on the disclosure of intellectual property, mentoring innovative students and translating our inventions to benefit society.”
Reible, a Horn Distinguished Professor and the interim chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, also is a professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Construction Engineering and the Donovan Maddox Distinguished Engineering Chair.
He holds a patent on an environmental remediation technology and is a founder and chief technology officer for Envirostatus, LLC which seeks to advance passive sampling of the environment.
“The recognition is truly appreciated as well as the message it sends encouraging entrepreneurship and innovation, which is an increasingly important role for academics,” Reible said.
To date, NAI Fellows hold more than 58,000 issued U.S. patents, which have generated more than 13,000 licensed technologies and companies and created more than 1million jobs. In addition, more than $3 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries.
“The NAI, like other national academies, encouragesprofessional excellence and has a great impact acrossacademia, government and industry,” said Robert Duncan, a professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and a member of the NAI board of directors. “But the NAI emphasizes going further than just educating students and publishing papers on excellent research. NAI encourages the capture of early-phase intellectual property based upon new research results, and this permits a huge return on investment to society and the public, who finance our publicly-funded research efforts in academia.”
