From Research to Mission: A Systems Approach to Accelerating Microelectronics Transition
Microelectronics and advanced manufacturing have become defining constraints on U.S. economic competitiveness and national security. In microelectronics, the decisive advantage is not discovering what is possible, it is delivering what is usable. This talk presents a systems approach to compressing the path from research to mission by aligning stakeholders, infrastructure, and execution to move innovations from lab to fab to field.
Using NORDTECH, a DoD-funded regional innovation hub based at Cornell, as a case study, I will walk through the end-to-end transition pipeline: problem framing with government stakeholders, capability mapping across university and fab infrastructure, multi-party teaming, program design, and the governance needed to execute across institutions and incentives. I will highlight practical patterns for reducing transition risk, accelerating prototyping, and aligning workforce, IP, and investment strategies to sustain a regional ecosystem.
The talk will close with lessons learned from my career spanning military aviation, intelligence, cyber, and national security R&D, and a set of actionable principles students and practitioners can use to move complex technology programs from concept to fielded outcomes.
Bio: Michael R. Greene is the partnerships director for NORDTECH (Northeast Regional Defense Technology Hub) at Cornell University, where he leads strategy and cross-sector partnerships for a $50M+ DoD-funded hub focused on accelerating microelectronics R&D and lab-to-fab transition. He previously managed national security R&D and capture at BAE Systems/Ball Aerospace, led threat and systems analysis programs at Johns Hopkins APL, and held senior intelligence and cyber warfare leadership roles supporting DoD acquisition and operations. A former U.S. Marine Corps naval aviator, he holds an MBA and M.S. in systems engineering from George Washington University and a B.S. in physics and astronomy from the University of Rochester.