Aileen Huang-Saad of the College of Engineering (CoE) and Bill Lovejoy of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business have been named co-directors of U-M’s new master’s degree in entrepreneurship.
The joint program, which will train students to turn ideas into inventions and inventions into successful businesses, begins in fall 2012, pending approval in October by the Presidents Council, State Universities of Michigan.
Huang-Saad, assistant director for academic programs at the CoE Center for Entrepreneurship and faculty member in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, developed and taught the department’s first graduate design course, taking students through the innovation value chain in the classroom environment. Students in the course work with physicians to develop innovative solutions to medical challenges and are responsible for manufacturing prototypes and developing commercialization plans. Students in the class have gained national recognition for their work.
Prior to joining CoE, Huang-Saad worked in industry gaining experience in biotech, defense and medical device testing. She has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from the Ross School and a doctorate from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Lovejoy, the Raymond T. Perring Family Professor of Business Administration and a professor of operations and management science at the Ross School, is an expert on managing across functional boundaries, innovation, health care, and capacity and supply chain management. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from Cornell University and a doctorate in operations research from the University of Delaware.
For nearly two decades, Lovejoy has taught an experiential, interdisciplinary product design and development course called Integrated Product Development. The award-winning course — Businessweek magazine dubs it one of the top design courses in world — involves teams of students from business, engineering and the School of Art & Design, who design and build fully functional products and compete with other teams in simulated Web-based and physical trade show markets.
The joint master’s degree in entrepreneurship is a one-year, 36-credit-hour program. Students will participate in science- and engineering-focused courses in parallel with business-focused courses. The program will provide students with the tools and confidence necessary to become business-savvy technology innovators.
