CENTER FOR INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURIAL DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Our team at UCSC Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurial Development applies their in-depth understanding of startup culture and years of experience with innovation to integrate proven strategies and achieve optimal results.
MANEL CAMPS
Faculty Director
Manel Camps joined UCSC in 2007 after obtaining a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford and a postdoc at the University of Washington. As Professor in Microbiology and Environmental Toxicology at UCSC, he leads a research group whose goal is to gain a better understanding of how drug resistance evolves both at the single-protein and at the genomic levels. In 2014 he was appointed Provost of Crown College. With the strong support of Crown alumni, Manel Camps oversaw the development of a robust educational program focused on experiential learning. This includes an entrepreneurship training program, developed in close collaboration with Nada Miljkovic, one of Crown’s lecturers. In July 2021, he was appointed Kapany Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED), where he is working with various stakeholders to promote the entrepreneurial mindset in UCSC students and to improve the diversity and volume of career development pathways available for them.
Here's a radio interview to hear Manel talk about his experience: https://on.soundcloud.com/PmLML
For more click here.
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NADA MILJKOVIC
Program Manager
Nada Miljković is a Continuing Lecturer at UCSC's Crown College, where she has significantly contributed to the development of Crown I&E classes and co-curricular programming, including the Lean Startup Bootcamp. She is CEO and co-founder of GetVirtual, a student run Project Management Internship Program, the Board Chair of United Services Agency, a non profit, and founder Artist on Art, LLC.
Nada's teaching career follows a successful tenure in construction project management. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Digital Arts & New Media from UCSC in 2009 and a PhD canditate in Digital Arts. Her diverse experiences and innovative approach to education and project management continue to inspire students and colleagues alike.
RICK VARGAS
Adjunct Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
"When I started at Apple in 2000 we were a small group of creatives. The Gel iMac had just launched and one of my first assignments was to name and market what is now the iPod. We also were tasked with developing the look and feel of our first retail stores. That included the wide graphic panels, posters, screen content, signage, even the look and feel of the receipt. An explosion of products and services launched one after the next–iTunes Store, iMac, iPod Shuffle, iPod Mini, Mac Book Pro, iPhone, iPad and iPad mini. I worked on marketing many of these and more.
I also worked on a variety of films. These included motion graphics for the retail store, short documentary films for the web, launch films for our keynote presentations, and broadcast commercials. I've also led teams that developed and implemented a wide variety of cross platform creative strategies for our website, retail stores and social network."
SRI RAO
Adjunct Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
"With extensive experience spanning academia, venture capital, startups, and corporate innovation, I specialize in identifying commercial opportunities that leverage machine intelligence as a core strategy. My work is driven by a focus on product development and human-centric design, resulting in the launch of products and businesses in fields such as spatial computing, computer vision, hardware, communications, e-commerce, and infrastructure."
JEREMY NEUNER
Adjunct Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Jeremy is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and facilitator. He brings this philosophy to CIED: some people will become entrepreneurs, but everyone needs to know how to thing entrepreneurially. Jeremy works at Google where he helps startups and developers build cool things with Google's technology.
ANDREA CARAFA
Entrepreneur in Residence
Andrea Carafa serves as Director of the Blackstone Launchpad powered by Techstars, as well as QB3 Entrepreneur in Residence and Hacking for Oceans Lecturer at UCSC. He was named a World Economic Forum Global Shaper, delegate to the UN Science, Technology & Innovation Forum for the Sustainable Development Goals, and member of the Fast Company Impact Council, among others. He founded a consumer tech startup, a sustainability innovation studio, and a sustainable food biotech startup, and conducted research and lectured about technology innovation, human-centered design, and entrepreneurship for sustainability and societal health at Stanford, CERN, Bocconi, and more.
KATI GREANEY
Entrepreneur Instructor
Kati Greaney is originally from St. Louis, MO and came to UC Santa Cruz as an undergraduate in the Community Studies department and then returned as a graduate student in the Social Documentation program. She has always been passionate about storytelling and has a deep curiosity and passion for humanity. She has worked as a photographer and documentary filmmaker for the past decade and has been teaching at UCSC since 2017. Her work has taken her across the US, throughout Southern India, Cuba and Brazil. She is a mother of two living children and one who passed away. She is currently teaching at the college level, working as a freelance film producer, and working on building a business in honor of her son.
YULIYA MONASTYRSKA
Entrepreneur Instructor
Yuliya Monastyrska is a UC Santa Cruz alumni, she graduated with degrees in Economics and Literature. She is a co-founder, executive board member, project manager and instructor at GetVirtual. She is currently the lecturer of the GetVirtual class (Crown 95) at UC Santa Cruz.
ALEXA LOKEN
Social Entrepreneur Instructor
Alexa Loken’s passion is helping people. In 2014, she started Loken Careers, her third company. Since then, she’s been inspired every day by the clients she speaks with that want to make a difference in their lives and move forward in their career path. A serial entrepreneur and do-gooder, Alexa’s career has had many twists and turns. She worked at Indeed.com as a certified career coach for software engineers in both the U.S. and Europe, started a cause-based marketing firm, co-founded a recruiting firm for women in tech, and began her career while working for environmental nonprofits.
She’s also an Entrepreneurship Professor in the business schools at CU Boulder (now virtually) and teaches Public Speaking at Cal Poly.
Fun Facts: Alexa has two rambunctious dogs, a curious toddler, and a giggly baby at home. She absolutely adores tea and public libraries. She’s been playing piano since she turned 30, and her and her husband built a tiny house in Austin. While in college, she was on the cover of USA Today about Generation Y “creating their own brand of social consciousness.”
PETER KOHT
Entrepreneur Instructor
Peter Koht joins CIED after a career that focused on the digital delivery of local government services. He was the founder of a successful govtech firm that went public in 2019. Prior to that he worked on broadband, parking and permitting policy for local government. Long ago, he graduated from UCSC with a dual major in music and history.
DEBORAH LINDSAY
Entrepreneur Instructor
Deborah Lindsay has her BA in Culture, Ecology, and Sustainable Communities at New College of California and her MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio Graduate School in San Francisco. She's the Executive Director of the non-profit, Environmental Volunteers based in Palo Alto, CA that brings science and nature education to children in the Bay Area, throughout CA and NY, and she has a long career as an operations executive for startups, small businesses, and non-profit organizations. Once a daily talk radio show producer and host of Tomorrow Matters, dedicated to solutions of today for a better world tomorrow, an elected city councilperson in Pacific Grove, CA who ran on the first carbon-neutral campaign, and a co-founder of a long-standing non-profit, Communities for a Sustainable Monterey County, Deborah is committed to multidisciplinary solutions for regenerative living. Deborah also has a passion for mentoring women in leadership, public speaking, and entrepreneurship. She resides in Santa Cruz, CA, and enjoys this beautiful, dynamic central coast town she's called home for 30+ years.
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WAYNE FENTON
Entrepreneur Instructor
Wayne Fenton is an accomplished technology innovator and leader with extensive experience in building products for companies of all sizes, from startups to Fortune 500 enterprises. With a strong background in software architecture and a passion for operational excellence, Wayne has driven significant growth and successful acquisitions through scalable technologies. His expertise spans development, operations, system architecture, and managing distributed teams. Wayne has held senior engineering roles at Upwork, Owler, Smarking, alarm.com, Qualcomm, Cisco, and eBay, among others. He holds an MS in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and BAs in Computer Science and Economics from UC Berkeley. Wayne is also a dedicated mentor and advisor, supporting business leaders through organizations like Everwise and RippleWorks.
Elizabeth Firestone
CIED Student Lead
Elizabeth Firestone is an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz double majoring in Business Management Economics and Biotechnology. She was awarded the Climate Action Prize for the Santa Cruz Launchpad 2023 Startup competition and has continued to work on her start-up, FarmItUp. She is currently the captain of the UC Santa Cruz women's lacrosse club and enjoys producing music, climbing, and getting outdoors in her free time.