Stories & Updates

The University of Delaware has been awarded a $699,258 Institutional Impact Grant from the Educating Character Initiative (ECI), part of the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University to launch a three-year, university-wide initiative focused on character development. The project, University of Delaware Coalition on Character Development: Advancing Flagship State Institutional Leadership, will create a strategic plan to align and elevate character development efforts across academic and co-curricular settings.

Our faculty are always on the move. Last summer, Dr. Laura Gasiorowski, Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship, captivated audiences at the Academy of Management Annual Conference in Chicago, IL, where she unveiled her research on how entrepreneurs’ responses during pitch Q&A sessions influence their chances of securing funding. We recently had the opportunity to sit down with Dr. Gasiorowski to dive deeper into her compelling findings.

(This article was originally published by University of Delaware's Lerner School of Business as part of their Seeing Opportunity series.)

This year, the UD Alfred Lerner College welcomed several new faculty members into its community. Tomé Salgueiro is an assistant professor of social innovation and entrepreneurship; he spoke with Lerner about his research focus and why he chose to join the University of Delaware.

How bias affects pitching competitions

Dr. Daniel Lee is one of the newest and most intriguing professors at Horn Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware. Professor Lee earned his B.A. in math and economics from Emory University, as well as his M.A. and Ph.D. in economics from Georgia State University. His economics start led him to entrepreneurship because he wanted to see how economic theory would translate into the real world, where people were actually starting up businesses and requesting funding. Dr. Lee saw a lack of public data and focused on finding results to help future entrepreneurs. Dr. Lee is currently studying the effects of free time on entrepreneurship.

This article is part of a series describing how UD Horn Entrepreneurship assists teams in moving their inventions and innovations into the marketplace, a process known as commercialization. Each team receives a customized blend of resources, including training, mentorship, and funding, through the Blue Hen Proof of Concept Program.  Mentorship and support is also provided by Horn Entrepreneurship partners, including the Office of Economic, Innovations and Partnerships and Delaware’s Small Business Development Center.

Lan Wang was a UD graduate student and postdoc, now Versogen’s Director of New Chemistry and Cofounder, who led the effort to scale the world’s leading polymer membrane technologies for converting water into green hydrogen.

The last six months flew by! But our community was anything but quiet. Check out all of the accomplishments - and give kudos to your friends. Smile knowing that you are part of a community making an impact on the world. 

Like a connoisseur of fine art, Christina Pellicane both understands and enjoys the details, technique and principles of commercialization. She’s spent most of her career on just that - making an impact through innovation. Her work is reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting - drips and splashes dotting the canvas - it is purposeful and groundbreaking.

Meet Glen Gaddy joining the Horn Entrepreneurship Team in a new role as Managing Director of the University Launch Fund. Gaddy plans to utilize his extensive experiences as an entrepreneur and innovator from both his corporate and academic roles. He comes to Horn as the Managing Member of long standing angel investor group, Robin Hood Ventures, and serves as chair of Mid Atlantic Diamond Ventures, the leading quarterly early stage pitch forum in the Mid Atlantic.

Photo by Evan Krape

The Blue Hen Proof of Concept program (POC), Horn’s startup incubator, was awarded $50,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition (GAFC).