Maria Minniti
Director
Maria is Director of the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society. She is also Professor and the Bantle Chair in Entrepreneurship and Public Policy at the Whitman School of Management. Maria received a Ph.D. in economics from New York University and has held permanent and visiting positions at the London Business School, Copenhagen Business School, Humboldt University, Aalto University, Southern Methodist University, and the Max Planck Institute among others. She is currently an editor for the Small Business Economics Journal.
Maria has published more than 100 academic articles, monographs and book chapters in leading entrepreneurship, management and economics publications. Her work has been featured in media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, Financial Times, Forbes, and Chicago Tribune among others. Her recent research investigates entrepreneurial solutions to social problems, the relationship between entrepreneurship and institutions, and the effects of regulation on innovation. As IES director, Maria serves as mentor for Ph.D. students and is responsible for developing IES’ academic vision. In 2020, Maria was listed as one of the top 2% most impactful researchers globally and across all sciences by a PLOS Biology study.
Roger Koppl
Associate Director
Roger is Associate Director of the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society. He is also Professor of Finance in the Whitman School of Management of Syracuse University and a faculty fellow in the University’s Forensic and National Security Sciences Institute. Roger has published three books, edited or co-edited another 9 volumes and published over 120 academic articles and book chapters in several areas, including economics, entrepreneurial studies, and forensic science.
Roger’s research interests include the economic theory of experts, innovation and economic growth, complexity theory, and the production and distribution of knowledge in society. His work on forensic science reform has been featured in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Forbes magazine, Reason magazine, Slate, The Huffington Post, and other outlets.
Roger’s Erdös number is 3.
David S. Lucas
Faculty Fellow
David is Faculty Fellow of the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society. He is also Assistant Professor in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from George Mason University and has received awards from the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and the Association of Private Enterprise Education.
David has published in Research Policy, Southern Economic Journal, Public Management Review, and Journal of Business Venturing Insights, among others. His research sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship and public policy. He also studies how entrepreneurship and innovation can address social challenges like poverty. David writes for popular audiences in outlets including RealClearPolicy, and has testified before Congress on the issue of homelessness.
Zach Rodriguez
Postdoctoral Researcher
Zach is a Postdoctoral Researcher of the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society and a member of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management. He received a Ph.D. in Economics from West Virginia University in 2020. Since 2008, Zach is also the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Embrace It Africa (EIA), a nonprofit organization working to encourage sustainable community growth in southern Uganda by providing, among other things, an outpatient healthcare clinic and student sponsorship programs.
His research focuses on the intersection between entrepreneurship and economic development, with special emphasis on bottom-up entrepreneurial solutions to public health-care access in both developing and developed countries.
Fabian Parada Diaz
IES Ph.D. Student
Fabian is a 4th year Ph.D. student in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management, and an Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society Fellow. Prior to joining IES, Fabian earned a M.S. in Economics from San Jose State University. From 2010 to 2017 Fabian was a successful entrepreneur and worked as operating manager in a moving company he cofounded in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Fabian’s research focuses on the legitimating effects of labor regulations, such as licensing and, in particular, studies entrepreneurs in competitive environments such as the moving industry. He is also investigating whether compliance with regulations helps or hinder new ventures in stigmatized contexts such as the tattooing industry. His work has been presented at several conferences, and included in the 2020 AOM Best Paper Proceedings. In fall 2021, he will join the Department of Entrepreneurship and the Center for Free Enterprise at the University of Louisville as an Assistant Professor.
Kurian George
IES Ph.D. Student
Kurian is a 4th year Ph.D. student in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management, and an Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society Fellow. Prior to joining IES, Kurian earned a M.S. from the Institute of Rural Management in Gujarat (India), where he also worked for the Ministry of Rural Development.
Kurian’s research focuses on the legitimation strategies entrepreneurs use to attract resources for their ventures, and on how they adjust these strategies to different contexts. Specifically, using both in-depth interviews and regression analyses, he investigates how immigrant entrepreneurs and resettled refugees navigate, often innovatively and with great success, the challenges of establishing legitimacy in a foreign country.
Kurian’s work has been presented at several conferences, including AOM, BCERC, and at the Symposium on Market Solutions to Grand Challenges held in 2019 at the Carey Business School of Johns Hopkins University.
Devin Stein
IES Ph.D. Student
Devin is a 3rd year Ph.D. student in the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management, and an Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society Fellow. Prior to joining IES, Devin earned a M.S. in Economics from Utah State University. He also worked as a policy analyst at Strata Policy, where he focused on bottom-up solutions to energy and environmental issues.
Devin’s research investigates how individuals, communities, and firms can use institutions to create social value and to address complex problems. Focusing on the management of wildfires in Northern California, Devin uses geospatial and archival satellite analysis to show that communities acting locally while communicating with government agencies are more effective at reducing fire risk than communities acting alone or relying solely on government interventions. Devin grew up in New York, and has a passion for skiing, hiking, and good pizza.
Kerianne Lawson
IES Visiting Ph.D. Student
Keri is a 4th year Ph.D. Student in Economics in the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University, and a visiting Fellow at the Institute for an Entrepreneurial Society at Syracuse University during Spring 2021. Prior to joining WVU in 2017, Keri received a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Southern Methodist University.
Keri’s research interests focus on law and economics, and on entrepreneurial solutions to the provision of public goods. In particular, she studies how property rights and the availability of public goods affect health and criminal behavior. Her current work is focusing on how electrical load shedding is related to fires, pollution, and crime in South Africa.
Almantas Palubinskas
IES Research Fellow
Almantas is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Center at EMLyon Business School in France. Almantas was a IES Ph.D. student and, in December 2020, he received his Ph.D. from the Department of Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises at the Whitman School of Management. Prior to joining IES, Almantas earned a B.S. in Mathematical Economics from Hampden-Sydney College.
Framed within the context of the emerging drone industry, his research examines how regulations shape the emergence of different types of innovation, and how entrepreneurial firms may influence an emerging industry’s competitive structure using political strategies. His work has been presented at several conferences, including AOM, ISA, BCERC, and the Summer Residence for Entrepreneurship Scholars at Oxford University.
Almantas has received the Humane Studies Fellowship from the Institute for Humane Studies, and a Syracuse University Graduate School Dissertation Fellowship. In 2021, Almantas’ Dissertation was selected as one of the five finalists being considered for the Outstanding Dissertation Research Award in Strategic Management at AOM.