The Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and Duke University have announced the selection of the 2020 Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professorship recipients. Five individuals from the fields of economics and entrepreneurship will spend a year strengthening collaboration between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University, contributing to the schools’ teaching missions, and providing at least one major public lecture or performance.
The Keohane Professorship was established in 2004 to recognize the contributions of Dr. Nannerl Keohane during her term as president of Duke University, and the unprecedented level of cooperation she and then-UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor James Moeser created between their two institutions. The 2020 recipients will work closely with an entrepreneurship project team consisting of Ted Zoller, director of the UNC Entrepreneurship Center; Greg Brown, executive director of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise; Jon Fjeld, director of the Duke Entrepreneurship and Innovation Initiative; Chris Bingham, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship and Phillip Hettleman Distinguished Scholar at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School; and David Robinson, director of research at the Duke Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative.
The 2020 Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professors are:
Tom Byers, Faculty Director, Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), Stanford University
At Stanford University since 1995, professor Tom Byers focuses on education regarding high-growth entrepreneurship and technology innovation. He is the first holder of the Entrepreneurship Professorship endowed chair in the School of Engineering, and is also a Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education.
Professor Byers has been a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP), which serves as the entrepreneurship center for the engineering school, since its inception. He was the director and lead principal investigator of the Epicenter, which was funded by the National Science Foundation to stimulate entrepreneurship education at all US engineering and science colleges. He is the co-author of a textbook called Technology Ventures: From Idea to Enterprise that is published by McGraw-Hill.
Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner, Backstage Capital
While homeless, Arlan Hamilton built a venture capital fund from the ground up. She is the founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, a fund dedicated to minimizing funding disparities in the tech sector by investing in high-potential founders who are people of color, women, and/or LGBT. Started from scratch in 2015, Backstage has invested nearly $5 million into 100 startup companies led by underrepresented founders. In 2018, Hamilton co-founded Backstage Studio, which launched four accelerator programs for underrepresented founders in Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia and London.
Yael Hochberg, Ralph S. O’Connor Professor of Entrepreneurship, Rice University
Professor Hochberg’s research and teaching interests are focused on entrepreneurship, innovation and the financing of entrepreneurial activity. She serves as the head of the Entrepreneurship Initiative at Rice University and as academic director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.
Professor Hochberg also holds a research affiliate position with MIT’s Sloan School of Management, is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, and is managing director of the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, which publishes the annual ranking of accelerator programs in the U.S.
Edward P. Lazear, the Morris Arnold and Nona Jean Cox Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution since 1985, is also the Davies Family Professor of Economics at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, where he has taught since 1992. Lazear served as chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and was at the White House from 2006 to 2009. In his position as the chief economic advisor to the president, he advised on a broad range of matters involving macro- and microeconomic issues.
Professor Lazear is the foundering editor of the Journal of Labor Economics, a fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Econometric Society, and a research associate with the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is the former president of the Society of Labor Economists and has published more than 100 articles and 11 books.
Matthew Rhodes-Kropf, Visiting Associate Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management
Matthew Rhodes-Kropf is a visiting associate professor in the finance department at the MIT Sloan School of Business, where he teaches entrepreneurship. He is also a managing partner at Tectonic Ventures and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Professor Rhodes-Kropf’s research on venture capital and exits has been published in many leading finance and economic journals. Previously a faculty member in the Entrepreneurial Management department at Harvard Business School, he has also published many HBS cases. Professor Rhodes-Kropf is regularly quoted in major print and broadcast media, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the BBC, and CNN.
Welcome to all the 2020 Keohane Distinguished Visiting Professors! We look forward to hearing more from you.