This is How I Got Here, a series where we chart the career journeys of technologists. Want to tell your story? Get in touch.Baltimore’s reputation for life sciences innovation largely rests on the people, products and capital from its biggest research universities
Even with the resources of institutions like the University of Maryland (UM) BioPark, the city’s biotech boosters spent years trying to clear a hurdle they said stifled the sector’s development: a lack of wet lab space and related facilities where scientists and spinouts could actually work.
Come January 2025, more of this space will open up in West Baltimore, just across Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from downtown, when UM BioPark launches the first phase of 4MLK.
Boasting 250,000 square feet of wet lab facilities, flex offices and conference amenities, the building is just the latest part of a long-term vision of several leaders across academia and the private sector.
None of it would be possible without UM BioPark Executive Director Jane Shaab, a Baltimore native who sees this kind of development — one that attracts both local startups and foreign companies — as crucial to the region’s opportunity-rich future.
“We are doing this project to create a first-rate scientific environment and to bring companies, quality companies, into Baltimore City .. that really will work and grow here in the city, and help the university grow and learn,” said Shaab, who also serves as the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) associate vice president for economic development.
Shaab’s current roles are the culmination of a multidecade career at the intersection of tech, higher education, urban planning and economic development. She’s spent almost two decades with UMB, following stints with employers like The Rouse Company — putting her in Columbia back when the firm was building it into a planned community — and the Greater Baltimore Technology Council, which she led for several years.
The lifelong Baltimore champion discussed this career, her day-to-day, management philosophy and more in an interview with Technical.ly.
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