Stephen Jacopsen 2011 UTC Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech
Stephen Jacobsen - "Turning Ideas into Reality"
With a BS and MS in engineering from the University of Utah and a Ph.D. in engineering from MIT, Stephen Jacobsen has been mentored by some of the greatest life science minds of the past century -- including MIT legend Robert Mann and Willem Kolff, father of artificial organs, with whom he led the development of the wearable kidney. Jacobsen founded Sarcos, which he led until 2007 when it was acquired by Raytheon; and Sterling Technologies, which he currently runs. He has also led the development of Micro-Drugs Inc., Eye-Port Corp. and Motion Control Inc., all still operating in Utah; Iomed Inc. (acquired by Microject Corp. which was acquired by Sorenson Medical); and Precision Vascular Systems Inc. (acquired by Boston Scientific).
Jacobsen has employed more than 200 Utahns, garnered more than 200 patents and led more than 359 projects ranging from medical to entertainment, commercial and military. Sponsors and clients for these projects include Abbott, Becton Dickinson, Cordis, Merck and Pfizer, as well as Ballys, Disney, Honda, MIT, The Bellagio and Universal Studios, the U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Veterans Administration. The teams' creations have broken new ground and stood the test of time. The Utah Arm, developed in the early 1980s, is still widely considered the world's finest artificial limb. The exoskeleton developed at Sarcos and Raytheon was a significant inspiration for the Iron Man movie franchise.
A UofU distinguished professor and director of its Center for Engineering Design, Jacobsen is helping establish a center for biomedical design in the College of Engineering and has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, both within the National Academy of Science, and is a member of the National Academy of Orthotists and Prosthetists. A host of awards include the Leonardo da Vinci Award from the ASME, the Pioneer of Robotics Award from the IEEE and the Utah Governor's Medal for Science and Technology.
