Wout Salenbien is an Innovation Analyst for RTI Innovation Advisors, a business unit of RTI International. He provides insights and commercialization support to commercial and federal clients.
Dr. Salenbien has worked on a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-funded project to develop an easy-to-use approach to screen, assess, and manage climate and environmental impacts. He identifies positive and negative climate and environmental consequences of new investments and enhances positive contributions of the investments towards climate change adaptation, resilience, and sustainability. In collaboration with the National Institute of Justice’s Forensic Technology Center of Excellence, Dr. Salenbien identifies implementation strategies and barriers for drug checking services at harm reduction sites to guide future programs. For commercial clients, he works in the areas of consumer goods recycling, circular economy, and household building material recycling.
With knowledge of federal grants and contracts, Dr. Salenbien has extensive experience writing research proposals for clients’ medical development, banking, software and technology, and agriculture frameworks. Before joining RTI in 2022, Dr. Salenbien worked with Eva Garland Consulting, where he created R&D roadmaps for non-dilutive funding across life sciences, manufacturing, green technology, and other industries. He also wrote, managed, and submitted proposals to private foundations and federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, , Economic Development Administration, Department of Education, National Institutes of Health, and Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy.
In 2017, National Geographic Learning (with Cengage) highlighted in their Panorama Science reading materials Dr. Salenbien’s research on reconstructing Amazonian environments throughout time. Dr. Salenbien also volunteers as a reviewer for the National Geographic Society’s Early Career Grants program.
