Faculty

With 15 years of experience in industry and academia, Danielle Campeau is a scholar-practitioner committed to bringing industry experience to the classroom and providing experiential learning opportunities that advance the entrepreneurial mindset. Her research interests include application of the lean startup methodology, the firm creation process, entrepreneurship education and training, and rural entrepreneurship.

In addition serving on the St. Thomas faculty, David Deeds is an award-winning entrepreneur. He was awarded the NASDAQ Fellowship in Capital Formation and named a research fellow at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship. In 2007, Deeds was awarded the Haniel Fellowship in Entrepreneurship at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. His current research interests include new venture growth and adaptation, technological discontinuities and technology commercialization.

In addition to teaching courses in entrepreneurial finance, business development and small business management, Jay Ebben advises the Practicing Entrepreneurs group. In 2010, Ebben won the Julie Hays Teaching Award in the Opus College of Business. In 2011, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to teach in Slovenia in 2011, where he has returned each summer to lead an entrepreneurship program sponsored by AMCHAM and the U.S. Embassy. He has started several businesses and has worked with entrepreneurs at many stages of business development. He earned his B.S. in industrial engineering from Marquette University and his MBA and PhD in entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

AnnMarie Thomas focuses her research on design process and prototyping, and the ways creativity and play can enhance learning environments. She is the founder and director of the St. Thomas Playful Learning Lab, which invites students to look at engineering challenges through a playful lens. Working with St. Thomas undergrad students in the PLL, Thomas founded Squishy Circuits, a product that uses homemade play dough to demonstrate electrical properties and turns kids into circuit designers. The success of Squishy Circuits led to a popular TED talk.

John McVea researches and teaches entrepreneurial strategy and social entrepreneurship. His work had been published in The Journal of Business Venturing and The Journal of Business Ethics, among others. He’s written over a dozen business case studies about issues such as market entry strategy, innovation field studies, cash flow forecasting, challenges of growth and the use of social media.

Alec Johnson has published in entrepreneurship and strategy journals with his work focusing on entrepreneurial strategy and finance. He is active in developing case studies on opportunity identification, business models, entrepreneurial management and entrepreneurial finance. In 2013, Johnson and colleague James Ebben developed the innovative Lemonade Stand Class, which earned the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship® 2013 award for Special Recognition in Entrepreneurship Education Innovation. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.