Associate Professor
Strategy & Entrepreneurship
Gies College of Business
University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign
mwroach@illinois.edu


CV | Google Scholar | SSRN

Michael’s research investigates questions at the intersection of technology entrepreneurship and scientific labor markets, with implications for both academic scholarship and policy.  The primary focus of his research examines the early career choices of science and engineering STEM doctorates, especially careers as employees in technology startups and the impact of U.S. immigration policies on foreign-born high-skilled workers. He also investigates the commercialization of university research discoveries through startups, with a focus on the composition of academic founding teams and the impact of university startups on regional economic development.

Michael’s research has been published in leading management and science journals including Management ScienceResearch Policy, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Science. His research has also been featured in leading media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Forbes. He was awarded the Kauffman Foundation Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research and his research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation.

Michael is an Associate Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has been on the faculty of Cornell University’s SC Johnson College of Business, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He teaches MBA and undergraduate courses on Entrepreneurial Strategy, Technology Strategy and core Strategy to business and engineering students.

Michael received his Ph.D. in Strategy from Duke University and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Decision Sciences from Georgia State University. He co-founded an educational software company while in high school and pursued an early career as an entrepreneur for eight years before beginning his undergraduate and doctoral studies. He also founded a mobile medical diagnostic software business related to his undergraduate research to aid community healthcare workers in developing countries to diagnose communicable diseases.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Associate Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship
Gies College of Business
2022-Present

Duke University
Visiting Assistant Professor of Strategy
Fuqua School of Business                  
2021-2022, 2012-2014

Cornell University
Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship
Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management
SC Johnson College of Business
2014-2021

University of Pennsylvania
Visiting Assistant Professor of Management
Wharton School                                         
2019-2020

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Assistant Professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship
Kenan-Flagler Business School      
2007-2012

EDUCATION

Ph.D. in Business Administration (Strategy)
Duke University, Fuqua School of Business 2007

Bachelor of Business Administration in Decision Sciences
Summa Cum Laude with Research Honors 
Georgia State University, J. Mack Robinson College of Business 2000

hit counter