Portrait image for Jennifer McCaney

Jennifer McCaney

Adjunct Assistant Professor
“As technology and medicine converge, strong fundamentals in innovation and health care management are critical skills to become future leaders in the industry.”
Areas of Expertise:
  • Digital Transformation
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Health Care
  • Medtech
  • Technology and Innovation
  • Venture Capital
About
 
 

Biography

Jennifer McCaney holds a dual appointment at UCLA Anderson School of Management and the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine’s Department of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonology and Critical Care. She is the co-executive director of UCLA Biodesign, a new joint interdisciplinary initiative led by UCLA Health, David Geffen School of Medicine and Anderson that promotes leadership and entrepreneurship in health care technology.

McCaney specializes in early-stage company formation and technology development in the health care sector, bringing her experience as an entrepreneur, advisor and operator to the classroom. Her interests are related to the disruption of the health care industry across digital health, medical devices, diagnostics and care delivery transformation. As the founding director of the MedTech Innovator Accelerator, McCaney has worked extensively with startup companies in the healthtech sector, as well as with business development executives from leading manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson, Amgen, Baxter, BD, Olympus and others.

She is an associate director of the UCLA Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), a research partnership of UCLA, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center/Lundquist Institute for Biomedical Innovation. As part of a broader CTSI network of 50 research hubs, McCaney is active in supporting the institute’s mission to support the translation of biomedical innovations that address the health needs of Los Angeles — one of the most ethnically and economically diverse counties in the United States — through the UCLA Biodesign training program.

As the co-lead of UCLA Biodesign, she works across clinical service lines at UCLA Health, ranked No. 1 hospital in California and No. 4 in the nation. At the core of the UCLA Biodesign program is a one-year fellowship for business, engineering, design and medical professionals that draws on the clinical resources of UCLA Health’s four hospitals and 190 patient clinics. UCLA Biodesign has a dedicated fellowship track for Anderson Fully Employed MBA students, and McCaney also serves as a faculty advisor to Anderson student teams that focus on the life science sector through the UCLA Biodesign Business Creation Option (BCO) track.

McCaney is currently the principal investigator of i6 Challenge Grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration to catalyze the development of a regional ecosystem for medical technology in Southern California. She says, “Anderson is uniquely situated in the heart of Silicon Beach, an emerging hub for healthtech and the life sciences. As the line between tech and health care becomes blurred, opportunities for new careers in health care are created that will ride the next wave of disruption.”

A Fulbright Scholar, McCaney completed her Ph.D. in mechanical engineering at Stanford University and M.S. in biomedical engineering at the University of New South Wales. She holds an M.S. and B.S. in mechanical engineering from MIT, where she was a Draper Fellow, and a B.S. from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

 

Education

Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, 2010, Stanford University
M.S. Biomedical Engineering, 2005, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
M.S. Mechanical Engineering, 2004, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 2002, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
B.S. Management Science, 2002, Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

Course

Health Care Technology (MGMT 275)
Technology Commercialization & Innovation (MGMT 298D)