Emre Toker appointed managing director of Skandalaris Center​​

​Toker
​Toker

Emre Toker has been appointed managing director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Toker most recently served as entrepreneurship senior mentor-in-residence at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. The appointment is effective Aug. 15, according to H. Holden Thorp, PhD, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.

An accomplished entrepreneur, Toker is the founder or co-founder of five Arizona- and California-based technology companies – Arch Partners LLC, Surgical Tools LLC, Bioptics Corp., Rad-Icon Imaging Corp. and MedOptics Corp. Through these enterprises, he has invested in and mentored startups, and he developed novel medical devices and digital imaging systems for scientific, medical, industrial and military applications. As a project manager for Fischer Imaging Corp. in Denver, he led the engineering team that developed the world’s first clinical digital stereotactic breast biopsy system.

“We are ecstatic that Emre Toker has accepted our offer to lead the Skandalaris Center,” Thorp said. “With his passion for innovation and proven ability to develop, nurture and successfully launch startup enterprises, I am certain that he has the vision and ability to harness the creative energy of the university and the community to further our efforts to become a vibrant hub for entrepreneurship.”

In his new role, Toker will direct the activities of the Skandalaris Center, a campus-wide entrepreneurship initiative that serves the university and the broader St. Louis community. The center aims to ignite entrepreneurial interest and learning in all disciplines and to serve as the hub of entrepreneurial activity on campus, working to build an innovation environment across the university, where ideas and people can connect and cause action that changes lives.

At the University of Arizona, Toker taught graduate and undergraduate courses in industrial analysis, new venture development and development of new venture plans. A graduate of Reed College with a bachelor’s degree in physics, he also earned master’s and bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Arizona and the California Institute of Technology, respectively.

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