Catalin Fotache

Senior Director, Pratt & Whitney Program Office, United Technology Research Center.

Dr. Catalin Fotache is Senior Director, Pratt & Whitney Program Office at United Technologies Research Center (UTRC). In this position, Fotache provides technical and business leadership for all Pratt & Whitney activities at UTRC, with a focus on delivering technology-based solutions and identifying opportunities to foster development and implementation of innovative strategies and initiatives – while continuing to drive partnering with external customers to establish the research foundation for the next cycle of technological breakthroughs.

Fotache joined UTRC in 1997, and has since taken on roles of increasing responsibility, including Principal Investigator for projects in the Pratt & Whitney Program Office; Project Leader in the Hamilton Sundstrand Program Office; Group Leader for Combustion; and Business Strategy Manager in the Innovation Business Development (IBD) group. In his most recent assignment with IBD, Fotache was involved in all areas of technology licensing, from opportunity identification to deal negotiation.

Fotache has authored more than 30 publications and conference papers, holds seven patents, and sits on the Combustion, Fuels, and Emissions Technical Committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) International Gas Turbine Institute, and the Executive Board of the Eastern States Conference of the Combustion Institute. He is a member of ASME, the Combustion Institute, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA). Fotache was appointed Principal Advisor for Innovation to the Directorate General of Research by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in 2010.

Fotache earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest, Romania; Master of Arts and Ph.D. degrees in aerospace engineering from Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey; and an executive Master of Business Administration degree from Columbia University, New York, New York.