Executive Director and Professional Faculty
Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Entrepreneur, Educator, STEM commercialization expert


About

Rhonda Shrader is the Executive Director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program and the Bay Area Node for NSF I-Corps. She teaches two graduate-level Innovation & Entrepreneurship courses: Lean Transfer and Startup Disco.

As an entrepreneur, Shrader was an early team member of MIT-spinout Organogenesis, one of the first publicly traded regenerative medicine companies. She has founded—or was an early stage team member at—startups in biotech, behavioral health, nonprofit, retail, and AI. She was a long-time mentor for UCSF’s Idea-to-IPO course, and is an active advisor for NASA spinoff BrainAid. Shrader serves as a faculty member for UC LAUNCH’s Accelerator, the NSF’s National I-Corps program, and the U.S. State Department’s GIST program. She earned an undergraduate degree in neuropsychology and pre-medical studies from Harvard and an MBA from Berkeley-Haas.

Expertise and Research Interests

STEM Commercialization
Incubators & Accelerators
Lean Startup/Lean Launchpad Methodology
International Innovation & Entrepreneurship Education