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In this episode, Jim Barrood sits down with Craig Arnold, Vice Dean for Innovation and University Innovation Officer at Princeton University, to discuss the evolving role of academia in entrepreneurship, commercialization, and innovation.
Craig shares his journey from professor to entrepreneur, explains why innovation is much bigger than startups, and discusses how Princeton is building bridges between researchers, industry, government, and the broader innovation ecosystem. They also explore why collaboration—not competition—is the key to translating ideas into meaningful societal impact.
Whether you're an entrepreneur, researcher, investor, or university leader, this conversation offers valuable insights into the future of academic innovation.
Jim Barrood: Welcome to the show, Craig. Thanks for doing this. Tell us, Craig what do you do?
Craig Arnold: Yeah, so hi, everyone. My name's Craig Arnold, and I'm the Vice Dean for Innovation and University Innovation Officer at Princeton University. I'm also professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering. And, my, my day-to-day, I am I lead up the innovation efforts at Princeton centrally.
I head up the Office of Innovation which is Princeton's, I guess I'd call it our front door to engaging with the community outside of outside of the university, and also coordinating the innovation ecosystem within our university.
Jim Barrood: Okay? Good. Yeah. And I'll, again, I'll edit this stuff out. Okay. So tell us Craig, tell us tell us about your journey. Tell us, take it from high school or college or wherever you want because you have an extraordinary- ... path you've taken. Go ahead.
Craig Arnold: I don't know. I don't think of it as extraordinary.
It's just sort of the path that I took. I, so you know I grew up on Long Island. And actually, early on I thought I wanted to be a truck driver. But then I decided not to. I went to college and I, I went to Haverford College and, at the time, my, my decision-making process, if you will I was always very interested in physics and science in general.
But also I was a, I was an athlete. I was a runner, and that factored into some of my decision-making. But really at the heart of it was I, I really wanted to be at a small liberal arts type of setting type of environment. And so at Haverford, I spent my four years, I was majoring in physics and math and and at that point, I was just, mostly spending my time running and just having a good time.
And after college, I went to graduate school. I learned early on that what I really loved to do is I loved teaching. I loved working with people. I loved talking with people. I loved really just exciting people by the things that I was excited about. And the real career path for me was going to be, being a professor.
And I wound up being fortunate enough to go to Harvard for my PhD where I was in the physics department there. But early on as I got to Harvard I learned that I didn't really resonate with any of the work that was happening in physics. And, I was starting to get concerned towards my, second semester there and I, wound up taking a course in engineering.
And, I had no idea at the time. Engineering was not something that was in my vocabulary. I didn't really know what it meant. And but I just really fell in love with material science. And I had to go back and learn all the things that I didn't know, I didn't learn as an undergraduate.
And and that's really what provided the foundation for, my, my background and the research that I do do today. But where really the big transition, I would say, in my, in my career maybe what's I don't know, maybe slightly interesting, I'm not sure, is that, I always chose those steps based on what I felt I really needed to know and where I felt that I was lacking in my desires and what I wanted to learn.
And so after I graduated with my PhD, I kind of went against all advice and I took a postdoc with the US Navy. I was working at the Naval Research labs. And, the reason why I did that was not because I had a, particular burning passion or something like that, but it was like I knew that there was so much more to the science that I was doing than just the fundamental knowledge I was generating.
I knew that there was connections. I knew that there had to be ways to connect it with society or connect it with real needs in the world. And so I decided that I wanted to do something that was really applied, something that had a real mission or a real kind of focus in that way. And so I spent two years working at the Navy and then I went and was applying for faculty positions.
And I really wanted to be at a small liberal arts school. I wasn't thinking like, "Oh, I want to go to Princeton," or something like that. And I I don't know, I kind of stumbled into it a little bit. I applied to some faculty positions and, Princeton wound up calling me back and I was like, "Ah, I don't know."
I kind of did the Ivy League run and it w- didn't feel like me. It's not... I wasn't that way. But then I came to Princeton and I really fell in love with the place. And what I found was this place where it's small, where people are just striving to learn things, and so excited about what they're doing.
And I really kind of fell into that, and I was very fortunate. And I've spent the last 24 years here. What I found is that it's really helped me to just expand my horizons to realize that the work that I do can make such a difference outside of these walls, way beyond, publishing papers or something like that.
And the students that we educate and the people that I work with, they go on and do incredible things. And I just have just an incredibly lucky, fortunate time to be where I am and, trying my best to really make a difference with it.
It, that's amazing, from truck driver I know. My father was a truck driver, so you know, it's what I wanted to do.
Jim Barrood: But you've also been not typical in being very entrepreneurial. Yes. So tell us about some of your, efforts there.
Craig Arnold: So as I said, I started out, I, I guess I, I don't really know much about myself because I thought I wanted to be a truck driver.
I was wrong about that. And then I, I said I, I wanted to be a professor and, I thought, God, I would be terrible at anything else, right? I would be terrible working for a company or something. As I, went through my academic career, as I started really early on, like in my first year as a faculty member, I started developing technologies and ideas really, after spending that time with the Navy and realizing that the work that I do can have a direct impact on things.
I started realizing that maybe I should be filing some patents. I never really thought about it before that. It wasn't something that, I thought, very long and hard about, and but I realized there were some things that I think have potential for value. And I realized There's a lot of ways to have impact in the world, and it's not just the academic whatever, the, the, the publications, those kinds of things.
But that, if I can take an idea and convert it into something that other people can use, that this is just a whole another world that I didn't really appreciate. And so I kind of got brought into the entrepreneurship side, not so much because I started out saying, "I really want to do that," but because I had no other way to translate the ideas that I was working on.
My journey there is interesting in that, so in my early years as a faculty member, there- we spun out a number of technologies from my research group that I wanted nothing to do with, okay? I was afraid that I would not get tenure. I was afraid that it was just not something that was done.
And, this was, 20-some odd years ago, right? And I was afraid it would be looked down upon. And so I always purposely kept an arm's length from that type of work. One of those companies was in biodiesel, if you remember biodiesel way back when. There was another one in texturing of surfaces for dental implants and things like that to have better implants and stuff.
But then it wasn't until I got to the TagLens one, which we could talk more about, but that was something where, it's this really interesting and novel technology that uses sound to create an optical lens, to focus light. And there was no way that I could pass that to somebody else, right?
A- and as I kind of went through the science of it, we spent years understanding the physics and how it works and design, I realized that there was only one way that I would ever be able to get this out there. I couldn't hand this to somebody in the state that it was in. I had to take an active role.
And that was really just eye-opening to me because, I'm not somebody who does things partially. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to learn everything I can about it. I'm going to focus on that. And I really learned lots and lots about really starting a company, being involved in a company being engaged in translating technologies and ideas, and that's kind of what brought me into it.
I had no choice. There was no other way to really drive the kind of impact I was trying to drive. But then after that, there were a couple others along the way where, my, my perspective changed. And this perspective is not just on the translation, not just on the, "Here's what I'm doing with my science," but it made me a better faculty member.
It made me better at teaching, it made me better at engagement - it made me better at understanding scientific and research questions, and thinking about the need for fundamental knowledge to support the technology development in ways that I didn't really appreciate beforehand. And that's what kind of brought me into the entrepreneurial way.
And again, it's like my s- little thing about learning material science. When my eyes were opened to material science that second semester of graduate school, I had to learn everything I possibly could about it. I, I took every class. Like, why was I taking so many classes as a PhD student?
Because I needed to learn that, right? But when it came time for entrepreneurship, it was the same thing. It's like my eyes opened up to a way where it's like, "I have to learn more about this. This is amazing. I can do so much more." And that's really, I think, where I got to, and it's why I have this, this strange kind of connection or strange kind of balance between the technology, the entrepreneurship, the university side of things with the academic, the research, and the science.
Jim Barrood: Yeah, no, that's very special, right? There's so few faculty who have launched several companies.
Craig Arnold: Yeah, it's true, but it's... but this is a cool thing is that is changing. And, what I'm seeing and really it's a trend that I think goes back w- maybe less than 10 years now, but it's really in the last few years that you're seeing this, where what we're seeing is an acceptance.
We're seeing an acceptance, this notion that, that entrepreneurship is not orthogonal, it's not opposite, it's not in contrast to academic scholarship, right? And I think that's where we are today is really trying to understand what does that mean. What does academic scholarship mean in the context of translational activities, and how do we balance them?
A- and that's what I think makes for very interesting times. We could go too far one way, too far the other way, and... but we're seeing more and more faculty. And it's not generation. This is the fun thing about my position, right? Is because I see the whole university. It's not just oh, only the young faculty, right?
Or only the most senior faculty. It's across the board. I have senior faculty who, you would think would never have, i- in their 40 years of career, would never have thought to start a company, who are realizing that, "My God I really can make a huge impact." And then you have younger faculty who are just starting out already, two companies in from what they did as a graduate student or something.
It's really an amazing kind of time right now, I think, in academia
Jim Barrood: Yeah, no, that's a really good point. And I remember when I ran an entrepreneurship center, I remember cross-campus entrepreneurship was a thing. Like there was a- Yeah ... momentum like 10, 15 years ago or so. And so that's probably added to the acceptance, number one, the entrepreneurial fervor, across campus among faculty and interest, and then all the programs that help faculty-
Craig Arnold: Yes.
Jim Barrood: Yeah ... you know- Absolutely ... to do it if they want to, right?
Craig Arnold: Absolutely. Yeah. No, that's, that last part that you said is really critical. So I think to summarize all of those different things, it's really about culture, right? It's about the culture in a particular ecosystem.
And, we use those words a lot. We throw ecosystem, culture, change, et cetera, et cetera. But in reality, I think building the types of programs you talked about, building the types of relationships, even just having a network of people who can come together and share their experiences, it changes things, right?
And I think what's really driving it all, at least on the part of the faculty, in my own opinion, is the impact, right? And that's a word I use a lot. But I think what's happening is a lot of people are realizing, just like I did, that my impact could be so much greater if I help take this idea just an extra couple steps, right?
Where a l- 20 years ago, I may have taken it this far and said, "Okay, now it's time to pass it to somebody else," but now we're taking it the next couple steps. And when you do that, it's not a linear curve, it's an exponential curve, right? Things can really take off. And, I think we see a lot of that these days.
Jim Barrood: Yeah. No that's great. And so tell us about that at Princeton, right? Yeah. You obviously- You have been, risen this administrative ladder to run innovation. Yeah. And tell us how that has grown. W- Yeah ... there's so many things going on, and I think people need to hear about what's so special there.
Craig Arnold: Yeah. It's, every day is a new adventure. It's awesome, I like to say innovation is thriving. But it's constantly changing. It's, if you're somebody who needs, like I eat the same breakfast every day, the same thing, innovation's not for you, you have to be willing to, change and pivot and rotate and right now is a very dynamic time, obviously. But, I think at the core of it starts with an institutional premise or idea or focus, right? And I think that focus for Princeton, i- is really this idea that Princeton has a role to play in humanity, in society, in advancing, ideas, right?
And now as an institution when we realize that we're not just a ivory tower on a hill, where we do make a difference and we can make a difference in the world, the question starts becoming how. And, one of the things that I started out with was really how do we define this notion of innovation for a school like Princeton a leading liberal arts institution.
And, for that, I started out really by saying, innovation, it's not equal to entrepreneurship, right? I- if we start with that idea that innovation equals entrepreneurship, we lose out, right? In reality, innovation is about the translation and the transmission of the ideas, the knowledge that we generate, the technologies or the advances or, what people are working on in their labs or in their libraries or whatever workspace is, right?
It's how we bring that to society. It's how we translate that to the community. But ultimately, there's a third part, which is how we benefit humanity with it, right? And that general idea transcends technology. It- it's no longer the domain of just the engineers. It's natural science. It's social science.
It's humanities, right? And when you look across a place like Princeton, what you realize is that the real power for innovation is that, as you said it, that cross-disciplinariness, that, that ability to work across the boundaries. The abilities to bring humanists into AI discussions, right? To advance artificial intelligence, that, that ability to understand the societal impacts of policy on energy and climate change and how the technology feeds into that, right?
That type of holistic view is a real strength of Princeton. And so as built-- as I set out to build up the innovation efforts, what I realized is, like any kind of building anything, right? You have to lean into your strengths. You have to... I always like to say you need to lean into your superpowers.
And this is one of the things that we did here at Princeton. We realized that it does need to be across the campus. And in building the Office of Innovation, we brought together a number of the types of things that allow the translation of ideas. The patent office, the tech licensing people our engagement folks who-- people who work with industry who work with foundations, bringing those people together and then bringing that together with the programming, those, those network-building activities, the, the National Science Foundation funded ICoR with, local workshops that we run and innovation centers and other things that, that, that connect people.
And that's what we did. Really, I guess we're in our second year right now. We just finished our second year of doing that. And what we're seeing is we are seeing recognition. We're seeing people asking us for help, people reaching out saying, "Wow, I had no idea I could get support to do XYZ." Or people saying, "How can we work together?
I have a problem. I have a question. How can you help me do this, and this?" And that's really where I see so much of the opportunity for us. That's where I see so much of our growth is really building out those ideas that It's good to think beyond the walls of our campus, and we support that.
That's a part of being a researcher at a university like Princeton. How can we facilitate it? I'll just say one other analogy. I always talk about it as, our job is not to do all the work. Our job is to pave the roads, plow the roads, fill in the potholes, paint the lines, put the guardrails up so that those cars can go super-fast.
And the cleaner, safer we can build the roadways the faster people can go. And that's really my goal for innovation, is to be a resource for our community, not just Princeton, but even the people outside of Princeton who want to engage with us, so that those connections can happen fast, so that translation can happen, so that we're not putting walls up, but that we're knocking down those barriers and allowing ideas to get out there into the world.
Jim Barrood: Yeah. No and you've done a ... Personally, I- I've seen you've done a great job, and it's hard working- Appreciate that. Yeah ... within the ivory tower or any academic setting- Yeah ... because things move so slow, bureaucracy, politics, et cetera, and you've done a really extraordinary job of breaking down those walls and- Appreciate that
and engaging the community, which again, historically for most universities, especially ivory towers, hard, right?
Craig Arnold: it's so important. It's true. But, it's interesting because I don't know that ... I guess this kind of gets at a more general issue, which is about, I think, the change.
When we talk about universities, we think of them as static entities, right? But in reality, if you look at the history of, academia, it it's in a state of constant change, just the timescale is, hundreds of years or decades or whatever. What we're seeing today is, I think, a more rapid change, a more rapid evolution of how our universities are engaging.
And, I think that for a school like Princeton- We know that what we do sets the tone for our region, for our country and in some ways, for the world. And we're very cognizant of that, and it means that we tend to step carefully and thoughtfully. But, the, the timescale is changing a lot faster right now.
We need to respond to changes in our environment and our landscape that are happening. And, I think that we're doing it well. I think that we're doing a lot of really good things there. But it does require us to work together, right? It's not something we can do alone. Like I found some of the most amazing things that we've done in the last couple years in innovation here has been engaging with our partners around the state.
Putting together programming together with Rutgers, and NJIT, and Rowan, and Stevens, and those places is really... It's moving the needle for the whole region. Building out the AI hub where we're bringing together not just the other institutions, but companies and things like that. That's the kind of thing that really moves the needle, and that's where that type of, as you said that, that glacial pace of change, if you will that's where it changes because all of a sudden it's not you doing it alone.
It's you building out this ecosystem and helping to make it go. And, everyone has a role to play. Princeton can't do it all. But we can be, and we are, a really a key player in advancing the whole region and really ad- advancing, national and international goals.
Jim Barrood: Yeah, no, for sure.
And we'll talk about that a little bit- Yeah ... about the national environment, right? Yeah. It's obviously been let's say, a challenging time for all of academia and- Yeah ... and the innovation ecosystem in many ways. So-
Jim Barrood: how do you see that from your perch?
Craig Arnold: Yeah. Change is not always good.
It's not always bad. Change is change. We need to respond to it. We need to focus on doing, what we need to do. But what I would say is that there's a practical answer, which is that, faculty are good at figuring out how to do what they need to do, right? Innovation is something that, in some ways never goes out of style.
Creative thinking, learning how to ask good questions is always important. And what I've found is that, faculty are looking at other ways of engaging. We're seeing tremendous strength in our engagement with industry with faculty doing research collaboratively with industry. We're seeing new opportunities for our students as they go off and they graduate, and they're seeing other paths that, that maybe they didn't have a few years earlier.
But, what I would say is that it is challenging right now given the, the landscape and the climate. But, at the same time- This idea of impact that I've been talking about that's really at the heart of what we do. And some of it is, how do we get our message out?
How do we get people to understand that Princeton and places like Princeton or academia in general are not these closed off, walled off think tanks, right? But they're actually vibrant ecosystems that engage thought across the disciplines, that, that engage, conversation with not just academics thinking about, irrelevant problems but engage with, the Department of Labor or engage with companies, or engage with economic development, engage with all of these parts of the ecosystem that affect people every day, right?
That creates jobs that, that brings benefit to humanity. And that part of it is something that's, it's really important, and we see a lot of interest in it. We see a lot of people who are stepping up, within the university saying, "I want to make something happen. I want to do more than just write, this article.
I want to do more than just, read this book. I want to engage more." And I think, so what I'm seeing is I'm seeing more of that desire among our community in the universities to want to engage, to want to get out and share that knowledge and share that excitement and that understanding with the world.
And I think that's, that's a great thing, and that's what we're trying to facilitate.
Jim Barrood: Yeah, no, for sure. So and it's so exciting, right? So many things are happening. As you say, change is happening all the time. Yeah. And some of it is we can see it as negative, some positive, but change is always happening.
We have to adapt, right? Yeah. And that's so refreshing to hear from a, someone from academia because it's a reality. Yeah. We usually do this has been a great conversation, Craig. W- we usually do short clips of just one thing. So can you share just, just one sort of tidbit about, a prediction for the academic in- innovation ecosystem?
Craig Arnold: Yeah. So, prediction. Okay. So I guess what I would say is my prediction is that impact is going to continue to drive the conversation. And what I mean by that is saying that, we're going to be seeing more ways that we define impact. We're going to see ways in which impact is connected to societal benefit in ways that we maybe hadn't thought of before, and we're going to see that continue to drive a lot of what's pushing academics to, excel in their research mission.
We're going to continue to see the importance of liberal arts education because I think learning how to think broadly, learning how to ask good questions is always going to be necessary for society to take those next steps. And if I were to say, if I were starting out today as a young professor I would say get another jo- no, I wouldn't say that.
I would say-- No I wouldn't say that. I would say it's an amazing opportunity, and really think about the impact that you want to have in the world and how you want to take that knowledge that you're generating, that understanding that just inquiry and creativity and just enthusiasm, and how do you want to change the world with it?
Because what we're seeing is new ways to do that, and now is a time to really step up, and push that
Jim Barrood: Great advice. Great advice. All right, we usually end with a poem or a quote or a saying. What do you have for us?
Craig Arnold: So I have a thing that I always say, okay? And one of the things when I'm thinking about innovation, talking about innovation, I always say that 100% of zero is always less than any percent of a non-zero number.
And I don't know if I made that up or if I heard that somewhere or what, but if you think about it, the math works. But really the idea behind that is I think so many times we have ideas and we want to hold them so closely because we want to own them, we want to control them, we want to, be recognized for our own ideas as academics and things like that.
But in reality, when it comes to the translation of ideas, one of the things that we have to realize is that there's value and benefit in partnership in things that we don't know, things that we're, you know, not the best at or things like that but also in mechanisms and approaches. To really move ideas forward, it takes people it takes teams, it takes partnerships.
And, when you can give a little bit, when you can share a little bit more you can grow in ways that will really benefit the ideas, really benefit the translation. Otherwise, you're holding on to, a, a little tidbit that's not going to go anywhere and it's not going to change the world.
And so 100% of zero is always less than any percent of a non-zero number.
Jim Barrood: I love that. That's a great... That's, those are great words of wisdom for everyone, right? Including entrepreneurs, right? We always hear- Absolutely ... entrepreneurs are like, "I don't want to tell anyone my idea." Yeah. It's 100% of zero.
Not doing anything with that idea or not sharing it to move the ball forward, not going to get you anywhere.
Craig Arnold: This is one of these things with in a lot of spaces. And again, I think we're seeing this more and more in research. And not to, continue our conversation beyond the time that we have, but you're seeing more large partnership type funding opportunities from the federal government, building teams.
We've seen that in Europe for over a decade now in how they approach funding research. We see venture capitals supporting teams of people, not individuals. You would not think of one person going to a VC and saying, "Give me money for this idea." It wouldn't fly, right? And this notion of working together as people I think is really a critical thing in really almost all aspects of our work these days.
And you could get a lot more that way. And, the other place more practically is in technology transfer and intellectual property and what you do with it. IP has no value until it's commercialized. And you can own a patent all day long, but unless somebody takes that and commercializes it, it really has no value, and I think that these types of understanding, understanding the value of the partnership means that you can come to productive agreements that will allow these ideas to get out there.
Jim Barrood: That's a great way to end Craig. The importance of collaboration and moving the ball forward. Thank you so much for this.
This has been really enlightening. This was fun.
Craig Arnold: Thank you Jim, I enjoyed it. Thanks for having me on.
