Bennett currently serves as the associate vice chancellor for research at the University of California, Davis where he is responsible for technology transfer, strengthening research-based alliances with industry and supporting technology-based economic development in the Sacramento/Davis region. He also serves as the founding executive director of the Rockefeller Foundation-supported Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture (PIPRA); an organization comprised of 25 universities dedicated to the collective management of intellectual property to support broad commercial innovation as well as humanitarian uses of technology in agriculture. From 2000-2004, Bennett served as the executive director of the University of California System-wide Office of Technology Transfer and Research Administration. He earned B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in plant biology at UC Davis and Cornell University, respectively; and joined the UC Davis faculty in 1983.