Jenn MacLean

Jenn MacLean

Assistant Vice-President, Innovation and Research Partnerships at York University

Dr. Jennifer MacLean is Assistant Vice-President, Innovation and Research Partnerships at York University. She is leading York’s innovation activities, developing and implementing the innovation strategy and building key partnerships to advance the University’s research, innovation, commercialization, entrepreneurship and knowledge mobilization priorities.

Preceding York University, she was Vice President of Research and Innovation at Aspire Food Group. Dr. MacLean drove Aspire’s research and innovation strategies, building and supporting strategic partnerships that bolstered Aspire’s position as a world leader in the edible insect movement.

Prior to joining Aspire, Dr. Maclean served as the Director of Collaboration at NGen, the Next Generation Manufacturing Supercluster. In that role, she fostered partnerships to drive industry investment in advanced manufacturing in Canada, and to accelerate the development and adoption of transformative technologies.

Previously, Dr. MacLean was the Executive Director of SOSCIP, a unique research and development consortium which uses advanced computing to drive industry innovation. In this role, Dr. MacLean supported the launch of more than 200 collaborative projects and facilitated the renewal of SOSCIP’s mandate through until 2023.

Dr. MacLean also worked with Mitacs Inc., a national not-for-profit organization that designs and delivers research partnership and training programs in Canada, serving on their business development and program management teams. Dr. MacLean credits her early hands-on work in establishing industry- academic partnerships with fostering her drive to build effective, impactful and mutually beneficial collaborations.

Dr. MacLean has a BSc in Biology, (Honours Genetics) and a PhD in Medical Biophysics, both from Western University.