The Distinguished Entrepreneurship Scholar Lecture Series is a biannual program that features the best in scholarly thought from eminent scholars in the field of entrepreneurship on an array of topics that cross disciplines and levels including entrepreneurial cognition and action, new venture launch and growth, behavioral economics, the growth of makerspaces, social entrepreneurship and the engines of innovation and sustainability, entrepreneurial strategy and public policy, poverty alleviation, and technology commercialization, among others. Past speakers include:

• Dr. Howard E. Aldrich, Kenan Professor of Sociology and Adjunct Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at the Kenan Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School; Winner of the George Terry Award from the Academy of Management and co-winner of the Max Weber Award from the American Sociological Association's Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work; and Faculty Fellow of the Center for Study of Economy and Society at Cornell University.
• Dr. Jay B. Barney, Presidential Professor and Chair of the Entrepreneurship and Strategy Department at the University of Utah; Associate editor of the Journal of Management; Senior editor of Organization Science; Co-editor of the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal; Fellow of the Academy of Management; and Past President of the Strategic Management Society.
• Dr. Robert A. Baron, Regents Professor, Mike & Robbie Holder Chair in Entrepreneurship and William S. Spears Chair at Oklahoma State University; Associate Editor of Management Science; Past editor of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Human Resource Management Review, the Journal of Business Venturing, the International Journal of Conflict Management, and Motivation and Emotion; and is a Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Psychological Association.
• Dr. R. Duane Ireland, the University Distinguished Professor and Conn Chair in New Ventures Leadership at the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University; Past Editor of the Academy of Management Journal; Past Co-editor of Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Executive, Journal of Business Venturing, Organizational Research Methods, and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal; Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Strategic Management Society, and the Global Entrepreneurship Consortium, and a Falcone Fellow in Entrepreneurship; and Past President of the Academy of Management and Strategic Management Society.
• Michael Lenox, the Tayloe Murphy Professor in Business, Senior Associate Dean and Chief Strategy Officer at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
• Dr. Tom Lumpkin, the C.S. Trosper Chair, Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Director of the Tom Love Division of Entrepreneurship and Economic Development in the Michael F. Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma and Co-Editor of Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal.
• Dr. Anita McGahan, Professor and Rotman Chair in Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto; Cross-appointed to the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy and the Physiology Department of the Medical School; Senior Associate at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard University; Chief Economist in the Division of Health and Human Rights at the Massachusetts General Hospital; Fellow of the Strategic Management Society and the Academy of Management; and Past President of the Academy of Management.
• Dr. Jeffrey S. McMullen, Dale M. Coleman Chair and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University; former Editor-in-Chief of Business Horizons; and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Venturing.
• Dr. Saras D. Sarasvathy, Paul M. Hammaker Professor in Business Administration in the Darden Graduate School of Business at the University of Virginia; holds Jamuna Raghavan Chair at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, the University Chair from Nankai University in Tianjin, China, and the Jubilee professorship from Chalmers University in Gothenburg, Sweden; and Winner of the George Terry Award from the Academy of Management.