Ahmet Hamdi Cavusoglu, PhD

Ahmet-Hamdi Cavusoglu, PhD is the Director of Partnerships at the Innovation Accelerator Foundation and the Director of the Academic Venture Exchange (AVX).

 AVX matches high-quality entrepreneurs to new ventures emerging from research at 11 preeminent research institutions in the United States. From Oct 2016 to Nov 2018, AVX has facilitated over 1250+ introductions between 340+ entrepreneurs and 60+ venture capital groups to 180+ new venture opportunities, generating 12 matches along with 30 more pending matches. During 2018, Hamdi doubled the size of the AVX network as well as quadrupled the network’s activity and performance.

 While managing AVX, Hamdi also serves as an advisor to both the BioMedX Accelerator at Columbia University and the New York City Regional Innovation Node (NYCRIN) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) i-Corps program. Hamdi completed his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Columbia University in the lab of Dr. Ozgur Sahin. Hamdi’s research interests lie at the intersection of biology, energy, and the environment; his thesis is titled “A Theory of Renewable Energy from Natural Evaporation”. Hamdi has co-authored several papers in Nature Biotechnology and Nature Communications. During his Ph.D., Hamdi served as the President of the Graduate Student Advisory Council at Columbia University and worked for 6 years as a Fellow (3 years) and Senior Fellow (3 years) at Columbia Technology Ventures – the tech transfer office at Columbia University in the City of New York.