Elaine Chen

Elaine is the Cummings Family Professor of the Practice in Entrepreneurship and Director of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center.

Prior to joining Tufts, Elaine served as Senior Lecturer and Entrepreneur-in-Residence for nearly a decade at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, teaching entrepreneurship in startup, corporate, non-profit and government settings to students at all stages of their educational and professional journeys. Elaine founded and led the implementation of multiple academic and co-curricular offerings at MIT. She designed a new course on corporate entrepreneurship, reimagined entry level and advanced entrepreneurship courses, coached hundreds of student entrepreneurs every year, and spearheaded the development of platforms and infrastructure that use technology to scale up access to entrepreneurship education - on and off campus.

Elaine plays an active role in entrepreneurship enablement in the community. She received the MIT Monosson Prize for Entrepreneurship Mentoring in recognition of her impact on entrepreneurship education. She was selected by the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and Lemelson Foundation to serve as an Invention Ambassador. She also served on the board of the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, a non-profit organization that helps early stage entrepreneurs succeed.

Elaine brings a wealth of experience to Tufts, having served as an engineering and product management VP at six companies, including Rethink Robotics, Zeo, Zeemote and SensAble Technologies. She has brought numerous hardware and software products to market and holds 22 patents. As Founder and Managing Director of ConceptSpring, a corporate innovation and entrepreneurship consulting company, Elaine helps corporate leaders build entrepreneurial organizations via innovation consulting and custom training programs to clients in industries ranging from healthcare IT, industrial automation and robotics, consumer electronics to retail innovation, FinTech, non-profits, government agencies and more.

As a thought leader, keynote speaker and author, Elaine has been featured in Xconomy, TechCrunch, Huffington Post, Forbes and Fortune. She is author of Bringing a Hardware Product to Market: Navigating the Wild Ride from Concept to Mass Production. She has extensive international experience with particular expertise in the Asia-Pacific area.

Elaine received her BS and MS degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

TUFTS UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENTS

• Professor of the Practice
• Tufts University, School of Engineering, Gordon Institute, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, USA1 Aug 2020 - present
• Director of the Derby Entrepreneurship Center
• Tufts University, School of Engineering, Gordon Institute, 177 College Avenue, Medford, MA, 02155, USA1 Aug 2020 - present

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

• Senior Lecturer and Entrepreneur-in-Residence
• Massaschusetts Institute of Technology, Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, Cambridge, United States1 Feb 2011 - 20 Aug 2020

NON-ACADEMIC POSITIONS

• Founder and Managing Director ConceptSpring1 Apr 2005 - present
• Advisor Cybernetix Ventures3 May 2022 - present
• Board Member Center for Open Science29 Jan 2021 - present
• Board Member MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge, Cambridge, United States1 Jun 2015 - 30 Jul 2020
• VP Product Development Rethink Robotics1 May 2011 - 23 Dec 2013
• VP Engineering and Product Development Zeo1 Sep 2009 - 28 Feb 2011
• VP Product Management Zeemote1 Apr 2005 - 31 Aug 2009
• VP Engineering and other roles SensAble Technologies1 Feb 2021 - 31 Aug 2021
• Senior Engineer Continuum Innovation1 Jun 1996 - 31 Aug 1998
• Mechanical and Systems Engineer Exos Inc.1 Jun 1993 - 30 Jun 1996

DEGREES

• Master of Science
• Mass Institute of Technology, Mass Institute of Technology, MA, USA1993
• Bachelor of Science
• Mass Institute of Technology, Mass Institute of Technology, MA, USA1991

RESEARCH INTERESTS

Startup Entrepreneurship, Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Mission-Driven Ventures, Entrepreneurship Education

TEACHING INTERESTS

Elaine is the Faculty Director of the Entrepreneurship Minor, which includes 20+ courses with the "ENT" prefix. The minor also accepts a number of related courses from other departments as electives.

Elaine currently co-teaches "ENT101 Entrepreneurship and Business Planning", which satisfies the foundational course requirement for the Entrepreneurship Minor, as well as an exploratory elective, "ENT193.01 Introduction to Making". Previously, Elaine also taught another exploratory elective, "ENT100 Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurial Thinking".

She also supervises students in experiential learning courses including Entrepreneurial Internship, Inside the Classroom, and Entrepreneurial Field Study.