Dr. Jacob Smith

Dr. Smith is an Innovation Advisor with the RTI Innovation Advisors, a business unit of the global nonprofit research institute RTI International. Jacob’s professional aspirations are driven by a passion to enable cutting-edge technologies to make a positive transformative impact on society. He has over 12 years of experience at the cutting edge of research, innovation, and innovation strategy and leads research efforts for a variety of open innovation services including technology scouting and landscaping, partner identification and assessment, strategic advising, and technology commercialization assessment. He is currently supporting the Technology Foraging focus area of the Criminal Justice Technology Testing and Evaluation Center (CJTTEC), a program of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) operated by RTI International which uses research-based methodologies to enhance the capabilities of law enforcement, courts, and corrections agencies. Outside of work with the NIJ, he has worked with a variety of Fortune 500 companies, other government agencies, and global foundations across sectors to help them innovate for a better future.

Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH) where he also spent a year as a fellow in the UNC-CH Office of Technology Commercialization.