Nuša Fain is an Assistant Professor at the Smith School of Business, specializing in entrepreneurship and innovation management. She earned her PhD in Mechanical Engineering, focusing on process management in innovative organizations, from the University of Ljubljana (2010). Prior to joining the Smith School of Business, Dr. Fain was a lecturer at Strathclyde Business School (UK), where she taught Innovation Management, Strategic Global Marketing, and Integrated Marketing Communications. She has extensive consulting experience in product development and innovation management with a wide range of companies (including oil and gas, manufacturing, and retail). At the Smith School of Business, Dr. Fain teaches courses on entrepreneurship and new venture creation in the Commerce program and supports the delivery of project-specific content in the Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship program.

Her research spans the fields of strategy, entrepreneurship, and innovation management, with an increased focus on implementing open innovation practices in mature organizations and exploring pedagogies that support the development of an entrepreneurial mindset in design students. The research projects she is currently conducting include, but are not limited to: the startup mindset in corporate innovation, new venture creation in the gig economy, and design thinking for business. Most of her research projects are practice- or case-based, relying on qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, such as case studies, design, and netnography. The ASEF Fellow would contribute to research within the Strategy and Organization realm at Smith School of Business, where the key research focus is on the strategies and structuring of organizations and their relationship to their economic, institutional, and social environments.