Spring 2023 Department Digest and Awards

Our faculty and staff are always doing amazing things. View the latest Department Digest to see what they have been up to and catch what they’re saying in the media.

Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Tara St. Clair, program director for the Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, was selected for Leadership WV Class of 2023.

Listen to Tara St. Clair, program director for the Encova Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, discuss fostering collaboration and connection while ecosystem building on the Buzzsprout Podcast, Entrepreneurship on the Rise. (To listen, hear Listen Now.)

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Dr. Hyeonsuh Lee, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship, received the Best Empirical Paper Award and the Best Overall Paper Award at the U.S. Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship (USASBE) Annual Conference. The title of her paper was: “Many Hands Make Light Work: Why New Ventures in Nascent Industries Engage in Collaborative Experimentation.”

The Knee Center for the Study of Occupational Licensing

The latest op-ed from Knee Center's Senior Research Fellow Dr. Matthew Mitchell was published in the Magnolia Tribune discussing how the state of Mississippi requires a certificate of need (CON) for more services and technologies than most CON states. Studies show that CON laws are linked to reducing access to care for individuals living in states that have those laws set in place.

Written by Knee Center director Dr. Edward Timmons and assistant director Conor Norris, '2023 can become the new year of licensing reform' published by The Washington Examiner, explores licensing reform that occurred in 2022, looks at the new year of 2023, and examines the potential for further reform throughout the country.

The paper titled: "Licensing should not be bigger in Texas: A roadmap for licensing reform" is written by Texas Public Policy Foundation's Rod Bordelon, and Dr. Vance Ginn, Ph.D., and Knee Center's director Dr. Edward Timmons and assistant director Conor Norris.

In a response to the physician shortage in Mississippi, Connor Norris explores the ability of nurse practitioners in the state to be granted full practice authority, and what effects this would have on the quality of care for Mississippians in a piece that was published through Empower Mississippi, titled: 'Nurse Practitioners and the Quality of Care'.

One of the Knee Center's research affiliates Dr. Darwyyn Deyo, wrote a policy brief on 'Licensing Barriers for Women in the Workforce'. This piece explores the data on licensing between women and men in the workforce, and potentially barriers this leads to.

Vantage Ventures

Skypunch Technology, through its residency in Vantage Ventures (the startup accelerator born out of the John Chambers School of Business and Economics at West Virginia University) has partnered with a team of cybersecurity experts at West Virginia University (WVU) to begin conducting security reviews of its voting software. This red team, made up of undergrad and graduate level students under the direction of expert professors, will use the Skypunch platform to perform such exercises as penetration testing and audits against level 3 of the Open Web Application Security Project’s (OWASP) Application Security Verification Standards. Level 3 is reserved for critical infrastructure and other applications requiring the highest level of trust.

Vantage Ventures Founder and WVU NewStart Fellow Crystal Good was recently honored by the West Virginia Office of Broadband and West Virginia Engagement Council with a Champions of Connectivity Award - Digital Equity Certificate of Recognition for Black by God - for outstanding efforts in advancing digital equity and improving broadband infrastructure in West Virginia.

Huntington Bank, the 26th largest bank in the United States with over $179 billion in assets, has joined with Vantage Ventures to support present and future startups in West Virginia and across the region. Both organizations are striving to build a more inclusive and sustainable financial services industry that will diversify the economy by meeting the needs of underserved entrepreneurs. Vantage Venture’s social media and marketing teammate, Trevor Swiger, interviewed Chad Prather, President of Huntington National Bank’s West Virginia division, to gain further insight into these groundbreaking efforts for entrepreneurs building in new start-up ecosystems.