Rose Ritts

As Jefferson’s Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Rose Ritts leads the Jefferson Innovation Pillar and is a member of the President and CEO’s senior management team, along with the leaders of the Jefferson Clinical, Academic and Philanthropy Pillars. Jefferson’s four Pillars work in synch to strategize and implement programs and investments to transition the academic medical enterprise from the current hospital-centric operation model to a transformed future state as a consumer health entity. Dr. Ritts also manages the commercialization staff for the Office of Technology Transfer and the Jefferson Accelerator Zone which designs educational and programmatic entrepreneurship initiatives and experiences for Jefferson faculty, staff and students. In addition to her role at Jefferson, she is an active early stage investor. Dr. Ritts joined Jefferson in 2016, after spending 8 years in a similar role at Duke University with a team that grew innovation revenue from $3M to $35M/year and saw dramatic increases in entrepreneurial involvement at every level of the Duke enterprise. Prior to her academic gigs, Rose invested in and managed several early stage tech startups, served as the Director of Biotechnology and Materials at Sarnoff Corporation, was a member of the US Congressional Staff, and served as Program Manager in the chembio warfare defense program at the US DoD DARPA. While at DARPA she also served on a number of government think tanks and review panels across DoD, NIH, NSF and DOE. Dr. Ritts received her undergraduate degree from Duke University and earned both her PhD and MS degrees from Stanford University.

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