The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) was created by University of Wisconsin visionaries to enable the university’s research to solve the world’s problems. As the designated patenting and licensing organization, we’ve helped advance transformative discoveries to market for the past century.
Enable University of Wisconsin-Madison research to solve the world’s problems
To support scientific research within the UW-Madison community by providing financial support, actively managing assets and moving innovations to the marketplace for a financial return and global impact
WARF is committed to an organizational culture that embraces key values that our team members practice daily. This includes community engagement through our One WARF Gives Back initiative. If you’re interested in joining our team, view our open careers.
WARF manages a substantial investment portfolio that fuels an annual grant of tens of millions of dollars to support UW-Madison. These gifts are used to recruit and retain faculty, support student fellowships, build new facilities and advance the Wisconsin Idea.
Unlike any other university technology transfer office in the nation, WARF covers all the costs of our intellectual property commercialization and defense. This saves Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars. Learn more about WARF patenting.
WARF’s independent, private status enables us to invest in Wisconsin entrepreneurs and startups that are driving job creation in our state. Learn about our work through WARF Ventures.
Browse our website to get to know WARF a little better. Then connect with us so we can get to know you.
Board Chair MBA ‘97 Retired CEO, Covance
Vice Chair BA ’63, MA ‘69 Senior Fellow, Migration Policy Institute
BS ’85, MS ’87, MBA ‘89 Clinical Assistant Professor Emergency Medicine, UW Health
PhD ’05 General Manager, BioBanks Data Analysis Platforms, DNAnexus
PHD ‘91 CEO, Spotlight Therapeutics
BA ’94 Senior Vice President, Chief People & Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary, Rockwell Automation
CEO, WARF
BBA ’83, MS ’84 Founder, Warbasse67
Chancellor, UW-Madison
PhD ‘95 Senior Advisor, Genaesis; Managing Director, S&T LLC
BS '78 President, SIMCO Holdings
BBA ’82 Retired Senior Vice President, Medtronic Inc.
BS ’85, MS ’87, PhD ’91 Chief Technology Officer, Qualcomm Technologies
Together, WARF and our partners advance academic competitiveness, support the work of campus investigators and work to commercialize inventions from university labs.
