Meet Our Team
Brett Smith
Founding Director
Amanda Lawson
Assistant Director of Research
Dr. Kylie Heales
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
Michael Conger
Assistant Director of Research
Brett Smith
Founding Director
Brett R. Smith, Ph.D. is the Cintas Endowed Chair of Entrepreneurship, the Founding Director of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Founding Research Director of the Leading the Integration of Faith & Entrepreneurship (L.I.F.E.) Research Lab at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His research interests focus on social and faith-based entrepreneurship. His research has been featured in a number of leading academic journals including Academy of Management Journal, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Venturing, Leadership Quarterly, and Long Range Planning.
Smith serves on the editorial board for the Journal of Business Venturing and as an Associate Editor, Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.
Smith has won several international awards including the GCEC Award for Best Social Entrepreneurship Program. He has been awarded more than $500,000 in grants from the U.S. Department of State to host seminars on social entrepreneurship for Fulbright students from Afghanistan and North Africa. He has been invited to speak around the world at the United Nations, Nelson Mandela Foundation, Tedx Youth, and a number of leading universities including Columbia, Duke, and Oxford. His work has been highlighted in Time, Business Week, Financial Times, CNN, MSNBC and 100 other media outlets.
Smith is a co-founder and advisory board member for Flywheel Social Enterprise Hub and is a member of the Board of Directors of OCEAN Programs, a faith-based technology accelerator.
To see his CV, click here.
Amanda Lawson
Assistant Director of Research
Amanda has been a part of the John W. Altman Institute for Entrepreneurship since 2019, working with the L.I.F.E. Research Lab. Prior to that, she attained a Master’s degree in foreign relations history from Miami University, with a focus on NGO involvement Latin American development. She works with Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Investor as a writer and content coordinator, where she has over 40 publications. She also serves on the Board of Directors for Living Hope Mission, a faith-based 501(c)3 in Cap Haitien, Haiti that is dedicated to sustainable community development through education, clean water, and microenterprise efforts.
In addition to entrepreneurially-minded papers, Amanda has published 4 articles in Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, an academic journal hosted by Ohio State University, including a feature piece on Human Rights and the United Nations, with an emphasis on cooperation and development.
Since joining the L.I.F.E. Research Lab, Amanda assisted in teaching Miami’s first course on faith and entrepreneurship, co-directed the 1st Annual L.I.F.E. Research Conference and serves as the advisor for the L.I.F.E. Student Group on Miami’s campus. A firm believer in an interdisciplinary approach, Amanda’s primary focus is academic research, enhanced by her background in foreign relations history, which featured her thesis on government-NGO partnerships related to Latin American community and humanitarian development. Throughout her career, Amanda’s focus has been sustainable and community development, and the various channels through which it is accomplished. Her current research interests include entrepreneurial teams and identity, with a specific focus on diversity.
Click the links to see her contributions to Faith Driven Entrepreneur and Faith Driven Investor.
Michael Conger
Associate
Professor of Entrepreneurship
Michael Conger is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Farmer School of Business at Miami University. His research and teaching focus on how entrepreneurial action can contribute to solving social and environmental problems and the ways in which social enterprises are changing the role of business and organizations in society.
Michael received his Ph.D. in Management and Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado, Boulder. His dissertation work at CU focused on the emergence of social/sustainable enterprise and the Benefit Corporation in the United States. Michael's expertise lies in the areas of hybrid organizations, social and environmental entrepreneurship, social movements and collective action, public/private partnerships, social and institutional change, identity, values, ethics, and the role of business in society.
Michael recently received the 2020 James Robeson Junior Faculty Research Excellence Award and the 2011 Founders' Award from the Society for Business Ethics. He has presented his research at the Darden Entrepreneurship and Innovation Research Conference; BCERC; NYU/Stern Social Entrepreneurship Conference; SEE Conference on Sustainability, Ethics and Entrepreneurship; Society for Business Ethics, and the Academy of Management. Michael's recent publications include articles in Patterns of Social Entrepreneurship (Edward Elgar), Constructing Green (MIT Press), and Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research, 2012 (Babson).
Prior to entering academia, Michael worked for 12 years as a software engineer, business analyst, project manger, and director in the consulting, insurance, investment banking, medical supply, and software industries. He also co-founded two technology startups and has served on the board of several non-profit organizations.
Michael grew up in the woods and on the lakes of Northern Wisconsin and now lives in Oxford, OH with his wife, Kim and their two children, Katie and Andy.
To see his CV, click here.
Dr. Kylie Heales
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
Dr. Kylie Heales is an incoming (Fall, 2023) Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Farmer School of Business at Miami University (Ohio). Her research interests are at the intersection of entrepreneurship and organizational theory where she studies how institutions shape and affect entrepreneurial activities, outcomes, and behaviors. Kylie is currently exploring the role of social norms related to innovation, religion, and entrepreneurship in Haiti and Tunisia. Specifically, her vision for contributing to a better global future is to explain why entrepreneurs in contexts of poverty struggle to scale, and how these entrepreneurs can overcome growth challenges to move themselves and their communities out of poverty. Kylie completed her MBA at The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University where she interned at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and co-founded a fintech firm. In addition to academics, Kylie has seven years of business experience helping non-profits, start-ups and Fortune 500 companies enhance operational performance. She has also worked directly with entrepreneurs in Kenya and Zambia to grow their ventures.