The University City Science Center, which oversees three million square feet of offices, labs, stores and apartments for Penn, Drexel, CHOP and other big institutions, has tapped Mike DiPiano, co-founder of the 20-year-old, Radnor-based NewSpring investment group, as its new board chairman, writes Joseph N. DiStefano for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

DiPiano swaps titles with Craig R. Carnaroli, executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania, who chaired the center since 2011.

DiPiano’s NewSpring is one of the Philadelphia area’s largest private-equity firms, with $1.8 billion in assets under management at business-services, healthcare and information-technology firms.

NewSpring, founded in 1998, has backed 150 start-ups, expansions and recapitalizations since its founding 20 years ago, mostly outside Philadelphia.

Since its founding in the early 1960s, the science center has balanced its mission to encourage science employers to grow in Philadelphia with demand from college-affiliated tenants who have made University City one of the region’s most expensive office sub-markets.

Philadelphia, once a computing-industry pioneer, now trails rival cities in California, Texas, and New York and Boston as a software center but has developed as one of the leading U.S. biotech centers despite a l lack of locally-based growth capital.

Read more about DiPiano here.

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