Dr. Rajiv R. Shah is a Clinical Professor with the Naveen Jindal School of Management at UT Dallas since 2008, and is also the Founder and Program Director for the Systems Engineering and Management (SEM) Program. At UT Dallas he teaches Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Corporate Entrepreneurship and Venturing, Technology and New Product Development, as well as Quantitative and Numerical Methods in Finance and Macroeconomics.
He specialized in solid state and laser physics, and quantum electronics and non-linear optics, and prior to joining UT Dallas, he spent close to 30 years in industry working in areas that spanned - lasers, semiconductors, computers, and wireless, optical and internet communications. He co-founded and is a Managing Partner at Timmaron Capital Advisors, a firm that provides advisory services to CEOs, BoDs, and PE firms. He also founded The indusLotus Group and provided high-level consulting to private equity firms and others on Wall Street. He worked on a $50 B telecom deal in 2007. He has been an advisor to Cerberus Capital LP, Pioneer Natural Resources, Ericsson Inc., Commscope Inc., Goldman Sachs Vantage Marketplace LLC, Nomura Securities’ Private Equity Arm, a Council Member on the Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), a number of other Private Equity and Hedge Funds, as well as three separate engagements with McKinsey & Co. He has also worked as an evaluator and mentor with the Texas Emerging Technology Fund and STARTech, reviewing business plans and mentoring founders and CEOs.
Dr. Shah has served as CTO of Alcatel North America, and was VP of Research & Innovation and Network Strategy at Alcatel for four years. Prior to that he held senior management positions at MCI Worldcom over a five year period, and was involved in half-a-dozen corporate-level M&A due diligence activities. Before that he worked for Texas Instruments for seventeen years in various capacities, including R&D, manufacturing, business start-up, and business strategy and business development.
He served for two years on the faculty of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as Dr. Chaim Weizmann Post-Doctoral Research Fellow. He has an M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University, specializing in Applied Physics, an Executive MBA from Southern Methodist University, and a B.Sc. in Physics, Mathematics and Statistics from Ferguson College, University of Pune, India, where he was the recipient of the National Science Talent Search Fellowship from the Government of India. Early in his career he published over fifty papers in peer reviewed journals, such as those of the American Physical Society (APS) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and others, and had over twenty-five US and international patents issued to him.
Dr. Zhijie Gao is an Associate Professor with the College of Economics and Management, Northeast Agricultural University, Harbin, P. R. China, and was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Texas at Dallas from 2012 to 2013.
Her research areas mainly focus on analysis of entrepreneurial environment, cultivation of innovation ability, and development of agriculture-related industries. She participated in more than ten research projects, such as, “Research on Technological Innovation Capability of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Heilongjiang Province”, “Research on Technological Innovation Strategy of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Heilongjiang Province”, “On Biomass Energy Industrialization in Heilongjiang Province”, etc., and published over twenty articles and one monograph - On Potential and Countermeasures about Development of Biomass Energy Industry in Heilongjiang Province Based on Low-carbon Economy.
She received her Ph. D. in General Management, from the College of Economy Management, Northeast Agriculture University, Harbin, P. R. China, an MS in Macroeconomics, from the College of Economy, Jilin University, Changchun, P. R. China and her BS degree in Business Administration, from the Business School of Beihua University, Jilin, P.R. China.
Dr. Harini Mittal has been actively involved in various activities, initiatives, teaching and research in the field of innovation and entrepreneurship specifically in the Indian context. She also has a proven track record in strategic planning, execution, formation of alliances and partnerships. She has published a number of peer-reviewed papers in Indian journals, made conference presentations at international conferences, written case studies and technical notes, and supervised Ph. D. and MBA theses at CEPT University, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, where she was an Associate Professor, and Head of the Department, Faculty of Technology Management for five years, prior to coming to UT Dallas.
She received her Ph.D. in Management, from the Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, for which she worked on the Impact of Mergers and Acquisitions on the Performance of a Firm. She received an MBA in Finance from the B.K. School of Business Management, Gujarat University and a BA in Corporate Secretaryship from the University of Madras, India
