Charesse Evans is a Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). For over two decades, Ms. Evans has delivered extensive intellectual property (IP)/patent and STEM expertise to entities at the intersection of technology outreach, scientific innovation, alliance management, and business development within academia, the federal government, and the private sector. She has advised organizations on matters related to patent protection, technology management, and innovation/disclosure capture, and has helped them increase efficiencies in their IP management processes.
Prior to her current position, Ms. Evans served as a Technology License Monitoring and Enforcement Officer at the National Institutes of Health. She is also a former USPTO patent examiner. In that role, she determined the patentability of innovations in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetics, foodstuff, and feedstock sectors.
When not at work, Ms. Evans helps others via community service and outreach in under-resourced communities, an endeavor she has been passionate about since she was young. She received her Juris Doctor from Mitchell Hamline School of Law (formerly Hamline University School of Law), her Master of Business Administration from the University of St. Thomas Graduate School of Business, and her Bachelor of Science in biology from Tuskegee University.