Tara Kirby has been the Director of the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) since 2020.  Previously, she supervised the CDC Team at the NIAID Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Office from 2015 to 2020. Dr. Kirby also worked at OTT from 2006 to 2015, starting as a postdoctoral fellow and ultimately assuming the role of CDC unit chief. Her research experience includes postdoctoral research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases investigating Y. pestis membrane protein structure, as well as pre-doctoral and postdoctoral research at the University of Minnesota focused on structure/function relationships of cardiac membrane proteins.  Dr. Kirby received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics from the University of Minnesota.