Office: 471 RBC Phone: 610-758-4954 Fax: 610-758-4677 Email: watkins@lehigh.edu Microfinance (Eco 296) Managerial Economics (Eco 402)

Todd A. Watkins, Ph.D. holds the Arthur F. Searing Professorship.

Director, Microfinance Program and Entrepreneurship Program

Department of Economics:  Professor

Education
-  University of Rochester, B.S.
-  Harvard University, M.P.P., Ph.D.

Todd A. Watkins is the director of the University’s new Microfinance Program, and director of Lehigh's Entrepreneurship Program.  Prior to his graduate studies, he worked in Optical Design and Optical Manufacturing Engineering for the Eastman Kodak.

Author of more than 50 related publications, his research and teaching focus on the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, public policy and economics. He is co-editor of the forthcoming volume, Moving Beyond Storytelling: Emerging Research in Microfinance/and has published in the journal, Science, and well as Research Policy, Issues in Science and Technology, Technology Review, Defence and Peace Economics, Small Business Economics, and other journals and books. His teaching areas encompass managerial economics, technology entrepreneurship, new product development and microfinance innovation.

Professor Watkins co-founded Lehigh’s Community Research and Policy Service (Lehigh CORPS) and was one of the founders of Lehigh’s Integrated Product Development Program, national winner of the ASME Curriculum Innovation Award. Watkins is a four-time winner of the Outstanding Instructor award from the National Technology University for his teaching via distance learning, and he also received Lehigh’s MBA teaching award. He’s been a research consultant to the U.S. Department of Commerce's NIST Advanced Technology Program, the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, and a member of The National Academies’ Committee on Innovation Models for Aerospace Technologies, advising NASA on improving their innovation processes. He is a founding member of the Faculty Advisory Council for ACCION International’s Center for Financial Inclusion, which seeks to promote innovation and growth of commercial microfinance worldwide.

Selected Publications

• "Absorptive Capacity and R&D Tax Policy: Are In-house and External Contract R&D Substitues or Complements?" with Lolita Paff. Forthcoming, Small Business Economics.
• "Can Students in Technology Entrepreneurship Courses Help Foster Start-ups by the Unemployed? with M. Jean Russo and John B. Ochs. Forthcoming, Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.
• "Do Workforce and Organizational Practices Explain the Manufacturing Technology Implementation Advantage of Small Defense Contractors over Non-Defense Firms?" Defence and Peace Economics, 18(4), 2007.
• "Glide Path to Irrelevance: Federal Funding for Aeronautics," with Alan Schriesheim and Stephen Merrill, Issues in Science and Technology 23(1) 69-78, Fall 2006.
• "Innovation Facilitators and Accelerators for Aeronautics," principal author (unattributed), in Aeronautics Innovation: NASA's Challenges and Opportunities, Stephen A. Merrill, ed., Committee on Innovation Models for Aerospace Technologies, Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy, National Research Council of The National Academies, The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2006.
• Direct and Spillover Effects of ATP-Funded Photonics Technologies, with Theodore W. Schlie, NIST GCR06-893, Economic Assessment Office, Advanced Technology Program, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Technology Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington DC, December 2006.
• "A Comprehensive Model for Integrating Entrepreneurship Education and Capstone Projects while Meeting ABET Requirements," with John B. Ochs, Gerard P Lennon and Graham Mitchell, Proceedings of the 2006 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, Chicago, June 2006.
• "Leveraging What Freshmen Don't Know: Product Development in an Integrated Business and Engineering Freshman Workshop," with John B. Ochs and Drew M. Snyder, Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition, 2003.
• "Manufacturing Scale, Lot Sizes and Product Complexity in Defense and Commercial Manufacturing," with Maryellen R. Kelley, Defence and Peace Economics 12(3), 2001.
• "Creating a Truly Multidisciplinary Entrepreneurial Educational Environment," with John B. Ochs & Berrisford W. Boothe, Journal of Engineering Education 90(4), 2001.
• "The Effects of Commercial Offsets on Aerospace Subcontractors," in Status Report of the Presidential Commission on Offsets in International Trade, Executive Office of the President, Washington, DC, January 2001.
• "Extending Case Study Methodologies for Technology Policy Evaluation," The Advanced Technology Program: Assessing Outcomes, Charles Wessner, ed., National Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, Washington D.C, 2001.
• "Dual-Use Supplier Management and Strategic International Sourcing in Aircraft Manufacturing," in Trends and Challenges in Aerospace Offsets, Charles Wessner, ed., National Academy of Sciences, National Academy Press, Washington D.C., 1999.
• "Are Defense and Non-Defense Manufacturing Industries Really all That Different?", with Maryellen R. Kelley, in Gerald I. Susman & Sean O'Keefe, eds., The Defense Industry in the Post-Cold War Era: Corporate Strategies and Public Policy Perspectives, Pergamon, 1998.
• "Learning Across Functional Silos: Lehigh University's Integrated Product Development Program," with John B. Ochs, Berrisford W. Boothe & Heather Beam, in Richard G. Milter, John E. Stinson & Wim H. Gijselaers, eds., Educational Innovation in Economics and Business III: Innovative Practices in Business Education, Kluwar Academic Publishers, 1998.
• "The Myth of the Specialized Military Contractor," with Maryellen R. Kelley, Technology Review 98(3), April, 1995.
• "In From the Cold: Prospects for Conversion of the Defense Industrial Base," with Maryellen R. Kelley, Science 268, No. 5210, 28 April, 1995.
• The Defense Industrial Network, with Maryellen R. Kelley, Office of Technology Assessment, US Congress, August, 1992.
• "A Technological Communications Costs Model of R&D Consortia as Public Policy," Research Policy 20, April 1991.

Links

Personal Web Page

Link to Vitae

 

 

   

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