As Pennovation Works approaches its 10-year anniversary, we’re reflecting on the startups launched, partnerships forged, and discoveries made while looking ahead to the future. Together, we’re continuing to build an ecosystem where innovation thrives and Ideas Go To Work.
Senior Vice President
Facilities and Real Estate Services
University of Pennsylvania
Associate Vice Provost for Research
Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives
Office of the Vice Provost for Research
University of Pennsylvania
Senior Vice President
Facilities and Real Estate Services
University of Pennsylvania
Anne Papageorge is the Senior Vice President for Facilities and Real Estate Services at the University of Pennsylvania. Anne joined the University in October 2006 and is responsible for: Planning; Design and Construction; Facilities Operations, Maintenance and Utilities; and Real Estate Operations and Development.
Anne is a licensed landscape architect and was previously the Senior Vice President and Memorial Design Director for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMCD), managing the planning, design and construction of the nearly $1 billion project encompassing the World Trade Center Memorial, Memorial Museum, Visitor's Center and related facilities. Prior to joining the LMDC in 2004, she worked in design and construction for the City of New York, where she served as first deputy commissioner of the Department of Design and Construction, managing a staff of 1,200 and overseeing 750 projects valued at $4.4 billion.
Anne holds a bachelor's degree in landscape architecture from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry School of Landscape Architecture, where she currently serves on the Faculty Landscape Architecture Advisory Council, and an M.B.A. from the City University of New York – Baruch College.
Associate Vice Provost for Research
Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives
Office of the Vice Provost for Research
University of Pennsylvania
Michael Borda, Ph.D., is an institutional strategist and integrator whose work focuses on creating the conditions that allow discovery, entrepreneurship, and cross-sector collaboration to thrive. As Associate Vice Provost for Research at Penn, he serves as a senior adviser to the Vice Provost for Research and works across the research enterprise to develop initiatives, partnerships, and infrastructure that accelerate scientific discovery and societal impact.
Over the past decade, Dr. Borda has helped shape Penn's approach to research growth, innovation, and strategic collaboration. Rather than focusing on any single discipline or program, he works at the interfaces between institutions, sectors, and communities, bringing together researchers, entrepreneurs, government leaders, investors, foundations, and industry partners to create opportunities that would not emerge within traditional organizational boundaries.
A central theme of Dr. Borda's career has been ecosystem building. He believes that breakthrough innovation is rarely the result of individual organizations acting alone. Instead, it emerges from networks of people, institutions, and resources that are intentionally connected around shared goals. At Penn, he has focused on building those connections by helping create the organizational structures, strategic partnerships, governance models, and sustainable operating frameworks that enable innovation to scale. This work has included advancing interdisciplinary research initiatives, supporting entrepreneurship and commercialization, strengthening research infrastructure, fostering industry collaboration, and promoting regional partnerships that contribute to Philadelphia's growing reputation as a center for knowledge-based innovation.
Dr. Borda has been particularly interested in the role universities play as anchor institutions within innovation districts. He views places such as Pennovation Works not simply as physical spaces, but as platforms that bring together talent, ideas, capital, and opportunity. Through his work, he has sought to strengthen the links between research and application, faculty and industry, startups and investors, and Penn and the surrounding community. His approach emphasizes long-term ecosystem development, recognizing that sustainable innovation depends on creating environments where relationships, trust, and collaboration can flourish over time.
Before joining Penn, Dr. Borda spent a decade as a scientist and environmental consultant, leading projects focused on environmental remediation and emerging technologies. He earned his Ph.D. in Geochemistry from Stony Brook University and has authored more than 30 scholarly publications and book chapters. He is also an inventor on multiple U.S. and international patents and was recognized by Engineering News-Record as one of the nation's Top 20 Engineers Under 40.
Today, his work is guided by a simple principle: great universities generate extraordinary ideas, but their greatest impact comes from creating the partnerships, infrastructure, and innovation ecosystems that help those ideas improve lives, strengthen communities, and drive economic opportunity.
CEO
FEMSelect
Sasha Schrode is a healthcare entrepreneur, investor, and board director with over two decades of experience across MedTech, pharma, and finance. She is the CEO of FEMSelect, a global women's health company. Previously, Sasha founded Serpex Medical, raising venture capital, guiding three devices through FDA clearance, and exiting the company through a strategic acquisition that helped form Maverix Medical, in partnership with Hologic and KKR. She is also a partner at Robin Hood Ventures and serves on the boards of the FEMSelect, NeuRx, FloBio and the University of Pennsylvania's Health and Technology. She holds an MBA from Northeastern University.
Managing Director
Pennovation Works
University of Pennsylvania
Denita Henderson is Managing Director of Pennovation Works, a 23-acre innovation hub with a distinctive blend of offices, labs, and production space that houses more than 100 companies and a robust community of researchers, entrepreneurs, and industry partners…all solving real world problems and translating inventiveness into viable ventures.
With over 25 years of experience in economic development and innovation ecosystems, Denita leads the implementation of Pennovation's master plan, managing leasing strategy, real estate development, operations, and strategic partnerships to advance innovation and economic opportunities throughout the region.
Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
VIJAY KUMAR is the Nemirovsky Family Dean of Penn Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics, Computer and Information Science, and Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He received his Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1987. He has been on the Faculty in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania since 1987.
In addition to holding many administrative positions at Penn, Kumar has served as the assistant director of robotics and cyber physical systems at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (2012–2013). His lab has spun off many startups in robotics, and he is the founder of Exyn Technologies. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
He has served on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design, and the Springer Tract in Advanced Robotics (STAR), and was the chief editor for the ASME Journal of Mechanisms and Robotics. He has won best paper awards at DARS 2002, ICRA 2004, ICRA 2011, RSS 2011, RSS 2013, ICRA 2014, BICT 2015, and MARSS 2016 and has advised doctoral students who have won Best Student Paper Awards at ICRA 2008, RSS 2009, and DARS 2010.
Kumar is the recipient of the 2012 ASME Mechanisms and Robotics Award, the 2012 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award, a 2012 World Technology Network (wtn.net) award, a 2013 Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Award, a 2014 Engelberger Robotics Award, the 2017 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society George Saridis Leadership Award, the 2017 ASME Robert E. Abbott Award, the 2018 IEEE Robotics and Automation Pioneer Award, and the 2020 IEEE Robotics and Automation Field Award. He was recognized with the John Scott Award in 2024 by City Trusts of the City of Philadelphia and elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2013, the American Philosophical Society in 2018, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2022, and the National Academy of Inventors in 2023.