Portland State University has promoted Abigail Van Gelder to director of the Center for Entrepreneurship.
Van Gelder succeeds Juan Barraza who is taking a position with VertueLab as director of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Van Gelder joined the center in 2021 and has been assistant director since May of that year.
“It’s incredible to be a part of the journey these students take,” she said on LinkedIn about her new role.
The Center for Entrepreneurship is a resource for students and faculty at the university who want to commercialize ideas and research. The center has an incubator for student startups, and it organizes a pair of programs designed to highlight student inventions. One is the PSU Cleantech Challenge for university students from undergrad to doctorate levels to compete for $10,000 in grants and prizes. The other is InventOR, a competition for students at universities statewide.
Prior to PSU, Van Gelder spent a decade in marketing and creating experiential projects. That work can be seen in the Library of Congress Gateway to Knowledge tour, Smithsonian’s Animal Connections, and with Oregon’s Tillamook County Creamery Association.
