Innovation Faculty Fellows

Innovation Faculty Fellows is a semester-long program focused on enhancing faculty involvement in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at URI to establish an active, collaborative network of colleagues who are motivated to integrate an entrepreneurial mindset into their teaching and research. With a rigorous structure of teaching, mentoring, participation in curricula design, and networking, they are positioned as a vital part of the URI campus and tri-state RISE UP entrepreneurial ecosystem. Innovation Faculty Fellows learn key techniques on how to incorporate the Lean Startup Methodology into the design of their courses and effectively teach multidisciplinary teams on tackling real world challenges through research.

Applications are currently closed and will reopen in Spring 2025.

Lead Faculty Fellow in innovation Nancy Forster-Holt, PhD, MBA, CMA, RFG, is Clinical Associate Professor in the College of Business. At URI, she developed the interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship major, minor, and certificate programs. Her teaching interests include Lean Startup, Innovation and entrepreneurship, Intrepreneurship, Acquisition entrepreneurship, and small and new venture accounting and finance. She is an advocate of real-world learning through ‘stimulation, not simulation’ and in her award-winning INE149 course, every student starts a side-hustle business. Her research interests include: gerontology and aging of business owners, innovation in existing (and family) businesses (‘intrepreneurship’), gendered investigations of business owner retirement (“ENDrepreneurship”), and entrepreneurial and small firm exit and acquisition strategies. Dr. Forster-Holt has presented her research nationally and internationally, including on the TEDx stage. Prior to academia, she had a 25-year career in public accounting and tax (Ernst and Young, NYC and Sacramento, CA), and as CFO of the second largest credit union in Maine. She was CFO of a tech startup and also co-owner of a family business, the manufacturing company Shaw & Tenney, which was a finalist for the Maine Family Business of the year.