Mike and Renée Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Professor Andrew B. Hargadon

Professor Andrew B. Hargadon has written extensively on innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly the commercialization science and technology and the management of research and development. He has published numerous articles and chapters in leading scholarly and applied publications.

Hargadon is at the forefront of teaching, research and practice in cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship, and is founding director of  the Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Energy Efficiency Institute, both at UC Davis. These institutes are dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship and innovation through educational programs bridging science, engineering and business, as well as the humanities and social sciences. They provide a successful framework for university scientists and engineers to move their ideas out of the lab and into the world.

Hargadon received the 2009 Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award in recognition for his strong entrepreneurship curriculum and success with the two institiutes. A senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, he is the author of How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate (Harvard Business School Press, 2003). His most recent book is Sustainable Innovation: Build Your Company’s Capacity to Change the World (Stanford University Press, 2015).

Prior to his academic appointment, Hargadon worked as a product designer at Apple Computer and taught in the Product Design program at Stanford University. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford University’s School of Engineering, where he was named Boeing Fellow and Sloan Foundation Future Professor of Manufacturing. He received his M.S. in mechanical engineering and B.S. in engineering from Stanford University’s Product Design Program.