My scholarly endeavors - research, teaching and public engagement - are motivated by my interest in entrepreneurship and social innovation as a means of fostering more equitable, resilient and sustainable communities of well-being. In my research, I explore dynamic processes of emergence and evolution, with a particular interest in the roles of power and agency in shaping fields, ecosystems, and the entrepreneurial opportunities within them. My primary research stream concerns fields and systems of institutions. In this vein, I explore how field-level and organizational processes of power and meaning-making shape the emergence and structuration of new fields, and how organizations navigate the moral conflicts that can arise from innovation. My second stream of research is on ecosystems that support entrepreneurial emergence and scaling. I am a first-gen college graduate, a daughter and grand-daughter of immigrants, and prior to entering academia was a national award-winning advocate and a strategic communications leader in both the private sector and government. I held management or strategy roles in the hospitality, technology, and consumer goods industries, while working with global marketing firms, state and federal legislative and executive branch agencies, and global multilateral development organizations. I also co-founded a social enterprise consulting firm to support nascent mission-driven firms during early-stage growth. In these varied roles, I have been directly involved in issues related to corporate-level and business-level strategy, stakeholder relations, emerging markets, sustainability, micro-enterprise operations, and social innovation. I earned a BA in Communication from Trinity University and an MBA in International Business from Georgetown University.
