Karen Imgrund Deak

Biography

As the Executive Director, Karen oversees the Technology Commercialization activities of the IDEA Center. In this role, she supports the team’s work with Notre Dame’s faculty, post-docs, and graduate student inventors. She also supports the Innovation Park operations team and the IDEA Center’s undergraduate entrepreneurship efforts.

Karen Imgrund Deak served as the interim Executive Director of the IDEA Center between September 2024 and October 2025 before being named Executive Director. She rejoined Notre Dame after spending the preceding two years in the startup world, including serving as the VP of Americas at qibri (B2B-SaaS, based in Vienna, Austria); and assisting with strategic and IP issues at PrimSphera (formerly VitalView Technologies), which is based on Notre Dame research.

In her previous roles at Notre Dame, Karen supported the IDEA Center and Notre Dame Research's philanthropic fundraising efforts; she was the Director of Network Engagement at the IDEA Center; a Commercialization Specialist in the Office of Technology Transfer as part of Notre Dame Research; and she began her Notre Dame career as the creator and Director of a master's-level program teaching patent law to prospective patent agents.

Karen is a registered patent agent, licensed to prepare and prosecute patent applications at the US Patent and Trademark Office. She began her career at what is now the world's largest law firm, representing clients as diverse as Washington University in St. Louis (and startups based on research conducted there) and large multinationals. She earned a PhD from the University of Chicago's Committee on Genetics, and a BS in Biology from UNC-Chapel Hill.

Karen holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Doctor of Philosophy in Genetics from the University of Chicago.