Elizabeth Vokurka, PhD

Intellectual Property Management and Innovation Consultant

Originally from the States, Elizabeth has considered the UK her home for the past 17 years.  As a Marshall Scholar, she received a PhD in Experimental High Energy Physics from the University of Manchester based on research conducted at CERN.  Elizabeth then joined the world-class Imaging Science and Biomedical Engineering group at Manchester University's Medical School before moving to Edinburgh to develop clinical medical imaging software, conduct market analysis and manage IP for Voxar (now part of Toshiba).  She is an author on over 100 peer-reviewed academic articles and has broad industrial experience from that of a "lowly" engineer to that of an angel investor.

Elizabeth now uses her experience in Intellectual Property and Intangible Asset Management and technical research to assist high-tech startups and SMEs to protect and exploit their innovation.  She has advised a number of institutes of higher education and further education across the UK as a whole as well as advising a number of university spin-outs/start ups in both the medical and software industries.  Her clients develop a broad range of medical devices and software, work for NASA, provide applications to major mobile phone companies and financial institutions and fund Scottish high-tech industry to the tune of millions of pounds.

Elizabeth is a specialist external consultant for the Intellectual Assets Centre, an Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys and a member of the Licensing Executives Society, Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Physics and IEEE.  In her spare time, she sets questions for University Challenge.

Dr. Vokurka considers it a great honour to act as a Fellow of Sitekit Labs.  The Labs' pioneering efforts to explore and promote advanced web science bridges a gap between the Ivory Tower and industry in a way beneficial to both.  May it long continue.