IPI Directors

Justine M. Kasznica, Executive Director

Justine Kasznica is an attorney, adjunct professor, and the Executive Director of the Innovation Practice Institute (IPI) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Kasznica moved to Pittsburgh in 2008, to pursue a Third Circuit federal judicial clerkship with the Honorable Thomas Hardiman. After completing the clerkship, Kasznica worked as a practicing corporate attorney and a business consultant for a variety of Pittsburgh robotics and high-tech start-ups.  During this time, Kasznica helped found and led ReefBot, a team of roboticists and aquarists committed to developing and utilizing underwater robotic technology for the purpose of coral reef conservation. In December of 2010, ReefBot, in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute and the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium, launched a state of the art children’s robotic exhibit at the PPG Aquarium.

Although not native to Pittsburgh, Kasznica is committed to Pittsburgh’s economic development, and is actively involved in a variety of entrepreneurial and community outreach endeavors. She serves on the Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum and the Board of the Yale Club of Pittsburgh, and serves on the Advisory Committee for Spark, a program of The Sprout Fund.

Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, Kasznica worked as a commercial litigation associate for WolfBlock LLP in Philadelphia, and taught in the Politics Department at Princeton University.

Michael J. Madison, Faculty Director

Michael J. Madison is Professor of Law and Faculty Director of the Innovation Practice Institute at the University of Pittsburgh, where he specializes in the law of intellectual property and the Internet. He has been a member of the Pitt Law faculty since 1998 and was previously the Director of Pitt’s Certificate Program in Intellectual Property and Technology Law.
Professor Madison has taught intellectual property law as a visitor at the Munich Intellectual Property Law Center in Munich and at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis. He taught at Harvard Law School in 1997-1998 as a Climenko Fellow. Prior to beginning his teaching career, Professor Madison practiced law with two private law firms in Northern California, Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich (now part of DLA Piper Rudnick) in Palo Alto, and Shartsis, Friese & Ginsburg (now Shartsis Friese) in San Francisco.
Professor Madison's scholarship has been published in numerous law reviews, including the Cornell Law Review, the William & Mary Law Review, the Fordham Law Review, the Boston College Law Review, the Case Western Reserve University Law Review, the Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, and the Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. He has spoken at dozens of academic and professional conferences on intellectual property and Internet law topics.
He received his J.D. from Stanford Law School in 1987, where he was an editor of the Stanford Law Review, and a B.A. from Yale University in 1983.