Chuck Eesley
Short version: Chuck Eesley is a Stanford professor and public thinker on how innovation and entrepreneurship can drive inclusive growth. His research spans refugee entrepreneurship, startup ecosystems, and the unintended consequences of AI and digital platforms. As a founder of global training programs for underserved entrepreneurs, and a former startup advisor and investor, he bridges theory and practice to reimagine how technology and markets can serve public good. Longer academic bio: Chuck Eesley ("ease-lee") is an Associate Professor and W.M. Keck Foundation Faculty Scholar in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. He is also a Faculty Director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program and a faculty affiliate at the Stanford Center for AI Safety (SAFE), where his work explores the intersection of artificial intelligence, entrepreneurship, and platform governance. His recent research focuses on how AI/ML algorithms shape opportunity access and performance in platform-mediated entrepreneurship, as well as the role of digital platforms in financing and spreading misinformation. Prof. Eesley’s broader research examines how institutional and university environments influence high-growth, engineering-driven entrepreneurship. He studies how education and policy can better support the economic and entrepreneurial outcomes of engineering students and alumni. His field research spans China, Japan, South Korea, Chile, Bangladesh, Uganda, Ethiopia, Thailand, and Silicon Valley, and has received awards from the Schulze Foundation, the Technical University of Munich, and the Kauffman Foundation. He serves on the Steering Committee for the Stanford King Center on Global Development and the Advisory Committee for the Stanford Center at Peking University. He is also a faculty affiliate at the Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions and the Woods Institute for the Environment, and he serves on the Editorial Board of the Strategic Management Journal. His work has been published in Nature, Organization Science, Strategic Management Journal, and Biological Psychiatry, among others. A former entrepreneur and investor, Prof. Eesley has been a mentor and advocate for immigrants and first-generation, low-income students in STEM and entrepreneurship. He earned his Ph.D. at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and a B.S. in neuroscience from Duke University. NovoEd.com launched around his online course, which was the first entrepreneurship MOOC and has taught over 200,000 students in over 100 countries.
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Stanford, California, United States