Kerri Smith

Kerri Smith is the Executive Director of the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator and Associate Managing Director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. Since joining Rice University in 2004, she has led programs that support the growth of technology-enabled startups and strengthen the region’s innovation ecosystem. In addition to guiding the strategy and operations of the Clean Energy Accelerator, Kerri directs the NSF I-Corps™ Southwest Hub, helping founders move ideas from concept to market. Her work spans entrepreneurship education, startup acceleration, technology translation, and commercialization strategy, and she has coached hundreds of early-stage companies.

Prior to these roles, Kerri worked across multiple innovation and technology-transfer initiatives, gaining broad experience in building partnerships, developing commercialization strategies, and enabling scalable startup growth.