The Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship will absorb Dartmouth’s Technology Transfer Office, which supports the licensing and patenting of faculty-produced technologies and research, in a $60 million expansion, College President Sian Leah Beilock announced at the 13th annual Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum on Sept. 11.
The Technology Transfer Office will be directly integrated into the Magnuson Center following the expansion, according to TTO director Kim Rosenfield.
The College will primarily fund the merger and expansion with approximately $40 million in revenues from licensing COVID-19 vaccine technology developed at Dartmouth, according to Magnuson Center interim director Barry Schweitzer ’82. The remaining $20 million, of which $10 million has already been raised, will be funded through alumni donations.
In response to The Dartmouth’s request for comment, College spokesperson Kathryn Kennedy shared excerpts from Beilock’s script for her speech at the Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum. The Magnuson Center is where Dartmouth’s “entrepreneurial spirit and groundbreaking research turn into real-world impact,” Beilock said in the speech.
“Dartmouth students are builders,” Beilock said. “The real differentiator of this new Magnuson will be students, faculty and alumni working more closely than ever before, learning from each other, solving real-world problems together and finding ways to connect those solutions to the people who need them.”
Beilock also announced that a donation from Amy and Jeff Crowe ’78 will endow the center’s executive director position. Following a nationwide search co-led by vice provost for research Dean Madden and Magnuson Center board of advisors chair Andrea Reisman Johnson ’91, with support from executive search firm Isaacson, Miller, managing director of the startup accelerator Techstars Gabriel Schlumberger ’96 will succeed inaugural executive director Jamie Coughlin, who stepped down in June to pursue independent ventures, according to Madden.
Schlumberger will succeed Schweitzer as interim director until his tenure officially begins on Jan. 1, 2027.
Schlumberger, who studied government and film studies at Dartmouth, previously worked for Pixar and Disney and founded a company specializing in 3D-printed eyewear.
Schlumberger said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the center’s expansion will create a “coherent and fast-moving ecosystem” for students, faculty, staff and alumni.
“There’s an opportunity to reinvent how entrepreneurship is taught and make it look more experiential and infuse it across the college experience,” Schlumberger said. “Anybody who’s interested in working for a startup should be able to find an internship; anybody who’s interested in starting a startup as an alum should have support and help from the College.”
Schweitzer said the new expansion will “really allow” the Magnuson Center to “reach more of campus, as well as bring in more students to work on projects that are related to faculty research.”
In an email statement to The Dartmouth, Johnson wrote that “every member” of the Magnuson Center’s board donated funds to support the center’s expansion.
“True to our roots, we will continue supporting entrepreneurial programming for students and alums, and now we get to extend that work to faculty and tech transfer,” Johnson wrote.
The merger of the Magnuson Center and Technology Transfer Office follows a May 2025 report released by the invention2impact advisory group on the Technology Transfer Office’s efficiency, convened by then-Provost David Kotz, according to Madden, who chaired the group. The report recommended combining the offices.
Madden said in an interview with The Dartmouth that the goal of the expansion was to create a “comprehensive” support system for students, faculty and staff.
“We wanted to bring them together into a holistic ecosystem so that there would really be a one-stop shop for anyone who was interested in entrepreneurship or commercialization,” Madden said. “We wanted to make sure it didn’t matter where you start in the system.”
Rosenfield added that there previously were “silos” that limited collaboration between the Technology Transfer Office and the Magnuson Center.
“It was decided that if we could rebrand and put additional resources into the enterprise, then we would be even more effective than we already are,” Rosenfield said.
Madden added that he hoped that the Magnuson Center will be a “home” for researchers from all backgrounds.
“We want to make sure that Magnuson is a home for folks interested in disseminating their work — not just for scientists or STEM researchers — but actually for the whole scholarly community,” Madden said.
Jonah Hymes ’28, a member of the Magnuson Student Leadership Board who attended this year’s Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum in San Francisco, said he is “excited” for new opportunities to collaborate with faculty and alumni.
“If a professor makes a company, they’re going to need help from students on the entrepreneurship end,” Hymes said. “That’s something that students can really be involved in and get some real hands-on experience with.”
Crowe and Coughlin did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication.
Sahil Gandhi ’29 is a reporter from Staten Island, N.Y., and is majoring in environmental studies and government modified with philosophy and economics. He loves word searches and falling down internet and Wikipedia rabbit holes.
