Take a look at the leadership team of the Bezos Center for Sustainable Protein, and you’ll find five unique leaders all working toward a single purpose – to research, create and translate new technologies for manufacturing environmentally friendly, healthy and affordable protein products. 

By now, you may be familiar with Co-Directors Bill Aimutis and Rohan Shirwaiker, who led the charge to secure the Bezos Earth Fund grant in 2024 and who have steadily laid the foundation for growth in the center’s first year. 

There are three other professionals on the Bezos Center leadership team whose professional oversight essentially lines up with the center’s three pillars – research and development, workforce development and community outreach and engagement. 

These accomplished individuals don several important hats at NC State while helping advance Bezos Center’s mission.

Meet Tim Martin, the Bezos Center’s associate director for innovation & commercialization. 

In Pursuit of Research Discoveries 

For NC State, Martin leads the university’s efforts to commercialize innovative research discoveries and drive economic growth, both locally and globally. He focuses on supporting researchers and participants in their efforts to bring their products to market in his role within the NC State Office of Research Commercialization (ORC).

“Once a research team completes the research and before they publish, sharing the academic methods through journals, meetings and presentations, ORC helps the research team commercialize their innovation through startup formation or a partnership with an established company,” says Martin. 

At this point, ORC will evaluate the innovation to determine if a patent should be filed and then commercialize those patents through license agreements with corporate partners or startup companies, of varying sizes.

The process doesn’t end here. ORC also provides comprehensive support and training to innovators to get from the initial disclosure to a product on the market.

Educating on Innovation 

Martin’s role for the Bezos Center is to ensure “education for everyone.” 

He’s created an annual cycle of training opportunities for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral students as well as faculty. The training investigates some basic questions about the commercialization process. 

“We cover things like defining intellectual property, reviewing the initial stages of start-ups, analyzing licensing to a large partner and navigating how to interface with industry members who express interest,” says Martin. 

Martin’s day-to-day involvement with the Bezos Center mostly focuses on advising how to become an entrepreneur, where to take developed innovation and how that innovation can be applied to the market. 

He is also assisting Aimutis and Shirwaiker in their efforts to develop an Industry Consortium to work in partnership with the Bezos Center. 

Impact from the “Get-Go” 

Martin supports the overall mission of the Bezos Center, to help feed the world sustainably in 2050 with the same or possibly fewer resources than it has today. 

Considering short-term impact, he thinks the center’s researchers have a unique opportunity to achieve this goal as they have directed funding and training supporting the progression of their science. 

“The researchers are thinking about the impact they can have from the get-go,” says Martin. “My team can support that by mentoring them through the technology translation process, filing strong patents and spinning out great companies based on that work or by securing industry partners to license. Having that focus is a real value.”

The Bezos Center’s long-term impact will be its ability to stimulate the creation of new industries in the state and the region to support economic development and sustainable businesses.

An Exciting New Opportunity 

Martin was first exposed to alternative proteins while working as the associate director of the UGA Start-Up Program at University of Georgia. He served as an industry mentor to an NSF funded I-Corps team that was originally looking at cell growth in human tissue but pivoted to alternative protein in the seafood industry, specifically alternative methods of growing shrimp. 

“It was truly rewarding to participate in a team that made the pivot based on customer discovery and set me up well to work with researchers at NC State and the Bezos Center,” he says. “It’s an exciting new opportunity.”

Martin looks forward to being able to provide more food options to people and the opportunity to use products and consume food that were developed at NC State.