Dr. Gdowski is one of very few faculty to have worked both in the academic research, industry, and incubation settings. He served on the faculty in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Rochester from 2001-2010 where he established and managed a NIH-funded research laboratory in vestibular sensory processing. During that time, he advised numerous MS students, mentored 4 PhD students, and trained 1 Post Doctoral Fellow. From 2010-2012, he worked at Blue Highway, located on the campus of Syracuse University, as a Senior Research Engineering Fellow. Blue Highway, initially owned by Welch Allyn, was an incubator designed to translate and commercialize products from the academic environment. His role was to manage ideation, invention, incubation, and subsequent innovation opportunities. He helped to develop, foster, and fund external relationships with academia, industry partners, government agencies, and individual investors. He also helped to triage more than 500 academic project submissions and presented business development opportunities to senior leadership at Welch Allyn. The proprietary selection processes served as a due diligence engine that resulted in nearly 30 academic projects that were funded by Welch Allyn through Blue Highway. More than 12 differentiating products, services, and tools were delivered to Welch Allyn. In his role, he served as the primary commercialization mentor and contact for numerous faculty members at institutions in both the U.S. and Northern Ireland. In 2011, Blue Highway was acquired by Syracuse University. Dr. Gdowski managed R&D efforts and served as a commercialization subject matter expert for faculty-oriented workshops designed to determine the viability of new start-up concepts being spun-out of Syracuse University.
In 2012, Dr. Gdowski returned to the University of Rochester and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Medical Technology & Innovation (CMTI). The purpose of the CMTI is to coordinate educational and entrepreneurial activities related to the development of novel technological solutions to clinical problems. The CMTI brings together physicians, engineers, business leaders, and industrial partners to foster a unique training program and path by which medical technologies at the University of Rochester are cultivated and brought to the marketplace. A principal activity is the development of a Master’s Degree program in Medical Technology Innovation within the Department of Biomedical Engineering. The students within this program interact with both clinical and engineering faculty to identify critical needs in the clinic and to develop practical engineering solutions that will facilitate and improve health care delivery. A second goal of the Center is to provide a service and pathway that helps the faculty and students transition their technology developed on the lab workbench to commercialization. The Center fosters interactions with the medical device industry to facilitate a more readily traversed path to commercialization. His role in mentoring faculty in commercialization has continued and he now assists and serves as a commercialization subject matter expert for faculty-oriented workshops hosted by NextCorps. Dr. Gdowski has had roles on several SBIR and STTR study sections for the NHLBI including serving as Study Section Chair.
Dr. Gdowski has developed considerable ties to the engineering and biotechnology industry in the Upstate NY region. He also is a member of the Board of Directors for the Medtech Association, which is an association of over 150 Upstate NY pharmaceutical, biotech and medical technology companies, their suppliers and service providers, and research universities. These relationships have helped facilitate numerous faculty/industry collaborations across NY state.