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President Sian Leah Beilock talks about plans to expand the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship at the Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum on Sept. 11. (Photo by Gary Sexton)
9/16/2026
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Search Underway for New Leader of the Magnuson Center
President Sian Leah Beilock has announced a major new push in support of entrepreneurship at Dartmouth, catalyzed by a $60 million expansion of the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship, including $40 million of institutional funding and a new $20 million campaign.
The initiative will create a campuswide accelerator; catalyze the societal impact of faculty research; strengthen alumni engagement; and expand student opportunities for immersive learning, business skills training, internships, and early-stage funding. It will unite the entrepreneurial programs of the existing Magnuson Center and the commercialization expertise of the Technology Transfer Office,which helps Dartmouth researchers take their innovations to market.
The new structure will elevate the Magnuson Center into a university-wide platform connecting students, faculty, and alumni in one cohesive entrepreneurial ecosystem. Dartmouth is a leader among the Ivies and other peer institutions in implementing this kind of holistic, pan-institutional model, engaging faculty and students from all of its schools and leveraging its tight-knit alumni network.
“It’s part of Dartmouth’s DNA that we want to do things differently,” says President Beilock, who announced the plans at the 13th annual Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum in San Francisco on Friday, Sept. 11. “Our students and scholars want to question things that others take for granted—to solve big problems. Magnuson is where our entrepreneurial spirit and groundbreaking research turn into real-world impact.”
Dartmouth students are builders.
Attribution
Sian Leah Beilock, president
Dartmouth—where the term artificial intelligence was coined 70 years ago—continues to be an engine of innovation, creating breakthroughs in precision surgery, photonics, clean power, food insecurity, student wellness, cancer immunotherapy, and many other areas. It is one of the top 100 universities in the world to be granted U.S. patents. Per faculty member, it ranks second in the Ivy League in patent citations of its research worldwide, according to the Nature Innovation Index, and among institutions of its size, it ranks sixth in the nation for undergraduate entrepreneurship.
“Dartmouth students are builders,” Beilock says. “The real differentiator of this new Magnuson will be students, faculty, and alumni working more closely than ever before, learning from each other, solving real-world problems together, and finding ways to connect those solutions to the people who need them.”
Of the $60 million needed to fund the Magnuson expansion, $40 million will come from funds generated by the commercialization—spearheaded by the Technology Transfer Office—of Dartmouth’s seminal coronavirus spike protein research, which led to a critical breakthrough behind the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Dartmouth research helped make the COVID-19 vaccine possible. Now the returns from that discovery will fund new Dartmouth breakthroughs,” Beilock says. “That’s the cycle we want to build.”
The remaining $20 million will be raised by gifts from alumni and friends. Already, the members of the Magnuson Board of Advisors have committed a total of $10.3 million to the campaign, including a lead gift from Trustee Emeritus Jeffrey Crowe ’78 and his wife, Amy. The Crowes’ gift will endow the center’s executive directorship.
“This gift will ensure that top talent is always leading the Magnuson Center,” Beilock says. “Jeff and Amy have been a part of this work from the beginning, and their commitment shows what’s possible when alumni invest in the next generation. I am deeply grateful for their vision and their willingness to step forward for Dartmouth.”
Jeff Crowe, who is senior managing partner of Norwest, co-founded the Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum in San Francisco in 2014 and directed the Forum for the first 11 years. He also served as founding chair of the Magnuson Center advisory board.
“One of President Beilock’s pillars is ‘Dartmouth for Life,’ and that has been very true for me. This community has energized and supported me throughout my career and enabled me to give back, too,” says Crowe, who also served as Dartmouth’s district enrollment director for the San Francisco Bay Area for 15 years. “Dartmouth has been one of the deepest, richest experiences that I’ve had in my life, and that’s why I keep looking for ways to give back.”
Trustee Emeritus Jeff Crowe ’78, left, speaks with William Chisholm ’91, co-founder and managing partner of STG and governor of the Boston Celtics, during a fireside chat on sports entrepreneurship at the Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum. (Photo by Gary Sexton)
The Crowes are parents of three Dartmouth alums and often host dinners at their Bay Area home for current students participating in Magnuson-sponsored immersion trips to the West Coast.
“Amy and I have been big supporters of the Magnuson Center over the years. We believe that teaching the mindset and the skillset of entrepreneurship is one of the biggest ways that we can have innovation and impact in our society, and from the start, Magnuson has been uniquely equipped to do that,” Crowe says.
“We want to endow Magnuson to continue to serve students and alums, and at the same time to expand its ability to work with faculty and drive innovation and impact through their research. That requires a broader financial platform—an endowment that allows Magnuson’s leadership to confidently project what programmatic steps the center can take in the future.”
Announcing Magnuson’s next executive director
At the Entrepreneurs Forum, Beilock also announced that Gabriel Schlumberger ’96—currently a managing director of the startup accelerator Techstars—has been named the inaugural Amy and Jeff Crowe ’78 Executive Director of the Magnuson Center.
Schlumberger, who starts at Dartmouth in January, will take over from founding executive director Jamie Coughlin, who has led entrepreneurship at Dartmouth since 2013 and is embarking on a new venture in the private sector. Coughlin’s many contributions were also celebrated at the forum.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join Magnuson at this dynamic time for Dartmouth and the world,” says Schlumberger. “It’s a privilege to build upon the incredible work of Jamie Coughlin and the rest of the team. I look forward to collaborating across campus and with our alumni around the world to redefine entrepreneurship at the intersection of higher education and help write Magnuson’s next chapter.”
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Gabriel Schlumberger ’96 starts in January as the inaugural Amy and Jeff Crowe ’78 Executive Director of the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship.
Schlumberger studied government and film studies at Dartmouth and began his career in feature animation at Pixar and Blue Sky Studios, working on films such as Cars, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Monsters Inc., and Horton Hears a Who.
He left animation in 2010 to build some of the first iPad apps, working with Sesame Street, Thomas the Tank Engine, and Martha Stewart. In 2011 he joined the Walt Disney Company as executive director of digital creative, working on several embedded startups. In 2018, he co-founded Fitz Frames, a vertically integrated custom eyeglasses company for which he served as CEO.
Building on his wide range of industry and entrepreneurial experience, he joined Techstars in 2024, where he leads two startup accelerators in partnership with the University of Southern California, the U.S. Space Force, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He has mentored and advised numerous startups across consumer, deep tech, climate, and the biosciences.
“Gabriel stood out among a highly competitive pool in a national search,” says Vice Provost for Research Dean Madden, who led the Invention2Impact study and also co-chaired the search committee along with Andrea Johnson ’91, chair of the Magnuson Board of Advisors. “He embodies the value of the liberal arts in entrepreneurship and brings the skills and ethos that will help us forge a unified, campus-wide ecosystem to convert discoveries into societal impact.”
In addition to Madden and Johnson, the search committee included:
- Jeffrey Crowe ’78, Magnuson Board of Advisors, Dartmouth trustee emeritus
- Maia Josebachvili ’05, Magnuson Board of Advisors, Dartmouth trustee
- Anna Mahoney, executive director, Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Public Policy
- Lisa Marsch, professor of psychiatry and director, Center for Technology and Behavioral Health
- Katherine Mirica, associate professor of chemistry
- Eileen O’Toole, director, Center for Entrepreneurship at Tuck
- Brian Pogue, Robert A. Pritzker Professor of Biomedical Engineering
- Charles Sentman, professor of microbiology and immunology
- Todd Sisitsky ’93, Dartmouth trustee
- Soroush Vosoughi, associate professor of computer science
The 2026 Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum
The Dartmouth Entrepreneurs Forum, where Beilock formally made the announcements, took place this year at Convene in San Francisco. It was part of Dartmouth’s yearlong “AI at 70” series, which includes a conference next month, AI at 70: What Must Remain Human?
The Entrepreneurs Forum brings together more than 600 founders, venture capitalists, students, faculty, and others interested in entrepreneurship for a day of networking, pitches, mentorship, panel discussions, and talks from prominent actors in the entrepreneurial space.
Also as part of forum events, Remitly co-founder and chairman Matt Oppenheimer ’05 was inducted into the Entrepreneurs Hall of Fame at a dinner on Thursday, Sept. 10.
Oppenheimer joins nine other industry-transforming alumni who have been honored since 2023, including Lew Cirne ’93, James Coulter ’82, Keith Dunleavy ’91, Brent Frei ’88, Thayer ’89, Steven Hafner ’91, Mark Mader ’92, Steve Mandel ’78, Chris Meledandri ’81, and Shonda Rhimes ’91.
