Kendra Hargis-Stenzel

Director, Innovation Talent Development, Launch Blue

Kendra Stenzel, Ph.D., MBA is the Director of Innovation Talent Development where she works closely with the next generation of innovation, commercialization, and entrepreneurial leaders by providing educational and experiential training opportunities to complement their current studies. She also works to educate researchers on campus about how to frame their research outcomes to ultimately impact the populations they seek to serve. 

Throughout her tenure at the University of Kentucky, Kendra has served in many roles on campus. Most recently, she was a Commercialization Manager for Medical Devices where she worked with UK innovators to develop business models and commercialization plans for the technologies and to direct UK OTC's resources to maximize the long-term impact of each UK intellectual property asset. Some of her other roles at UK include XOR Program Manager for XLeratorNetwork and Project Manager for the Kentucky Network for Innovation and Commercialization (KYNETIC) where she worked with innovators to develop proposals to obtain proof of concept funding, as well as educate innovators on the commercialization process. 

She earned her bachelor's degree in forensic science from Eastern Kentucky University, her Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Kentucky, and just completed her Masters of Business Administration with a concentration in entrepreneurship from UK. When she's not working with innovators, you can typically find her at concerts or practicing taekwondo.