Monica Novoa

Monica’s professional career spans two decades, during which she has directed operations, business development, marketing, and strategic collaborations across the higher education, private, and government sectors. She previously served as a research faculty member at the Enterprise Innovation Institute (EI²) at Georgia Tech, where she led various projects focused on strengthening regional innovation ecosystems in the United States, Latin America, and the Caribbean (LAC). Her work involved close collaboration with universities, business incubators, non-profit organizations, economic development agencies, and private sector entities in regions such as Puerto Rico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Panama, and Mexico. Through these collaborations, Monica identified a significant gap in research related to innovation ecosystems and academic entrepreneurship in the LAC region, as well as a lack of evidence-based policies to foster the conditions necessary for entrepreneurship. This realization motivated her to pursue a Ph.D. in Public Policy at Georgia Tech.

As a doctoral student, Monica’s research lies at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic development. Her work focuses on three key themes: the development of innovation ecosystems, the diffusion of knowledge, and the impact of national and local policies on entrepreneurship. A central aspect of her research involves university technology commercialization and start-up incubation programs, critical in translating scientific research into marketable products and services and in broader regional economic development. In particular, her work seeks to address the gap in research related to innovation ecosystems and academic entrepreneurship in LAC as a region that presents unique challenges and opportunities.

Her other recent research interests include the dimensions and challenges of transformative innovation policy (TIP) at the regional level and place-based economic development policy to improve economically distressed areas. Additionally, Monica has recently collaborated on studies about gender disparities in research in Latin America and the experience of underrepresented minority Ph.D. students in the United States.

Before her tenure at Georgia Tech, Monica was the Associate Director at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business (GSB), where she directed global innovation and entrepreneurship programs for graduate and professional students. Before that, she served as a director at the University of San Francisco’s School of Management, overseeing global innovation and entrepreneurship programs. Monica’s diverse career includes experience as a finance manager for an intellectual property law firm in California and as a systems analyst for the Tourism Corporation in Venezuela’s Nueva Esparta State.