Dedric A. Carter

Biography

Dedric A. Carter serves as the Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Chief Commercialization Officer at Washington University in St. Louis, where his faculty appointments are as professor of practice in the McKelvey School of Engineering and professor of practice in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the John M. Olin School of Business. He has responsibility for the entrepreneurship, innovation and commercialization portfolios at the university and teaches courses in systems applications to technical, business and policy issues with an emphasis on the entrepreneurial process, innovation and new venture creation. Carter was the founding co-principal investigator of the $5M grant supporting the Missouri Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation in STEM program.

Prior to joining Washington University, he served as the senior advisor for strategic initiatives in the Office of the Director at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) in addition to serving as the executive secretary to the U.S. National Science Board executive committee. At NSF, Carter launched and oversaw the NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program to impact the speed of basic research commercialization. In the decade since launching, NSF I-Corps has become a national and international model for basic research translation and new venture creation.

In 2021 Carter was appointed chair of the Missouri Technology Corporation by Governor Parson. He is a member of the Carnegie Mellon Presidential Advisory Committee on the CMU Experience and an appointed member of the Board of Directors of the MIT Alumni Association. Additionally, he is a member of the board of the Center for American Entrepreneurship and the Lemelson Foundation International Advisory Board.

Dedric Carter has been an assistant dean of Engineering at MIT, a senior principal consultant in IT strategy and management, and an entrepreneur. He has an undergraduate and graduate degree in electrical engineering and computer science from MIT, an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management, and a PhD in information systems from Nova Southeastern University.