Interests:

Crowdfunding; Open source; Maker space; Institutional theory; Field Experiment; Entrepreneurial Financing;

Awards:

• Stanford Postdoc JEDI Champion Award (2021)

• AMSE IDETC Best Paper Award (2020)

• ICED Best Paper Award (2019)

• MIT Medical Grand Hack 2nd Place (2017)

• MIT Mechanical Engineering Distinguished Fellow (2015)

• MIT Cummins Women Fellowship (2013)

Bio:

Dr. Zhuoxuan (Fanny) Li is an Assistant Professor at the School of Innovation, The University of Hong Kong. Previously, she served as a Lecturer at the Yale School of Management and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University. She earned her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where her dissertation explored open strategy in hardware entrepreneurship.

Her current research examines how emerging technologies (such as large language models) and institutional factors shape innovation processes and entrepreneurial growth, with a particular emphasis on entrepreneurial equality and the accessibility of resources. Dr. Li has extensive teaching experience in entrepreneurship and innovation across MIT, Stanford, and Yale, and is actively involved in advising student ventures and supporting academic entrepreneurs.

Selected Publications:

1. Li, Z., Seering, W., Yang, M., and Eesley, C. (2021). “Understanding the Motivations for Open-Source Hardware Entrepreneurship.” Design Science, 7, E19.

2. “Learning-by-advising? Startup Learning as an Advice-Giver in Accelerators” working paper, under review.

3. Li, Z., Eberhart, R., and Eesley, C. “Maker Spaces, Regional Entrepreneurship, and Institutions.” working paper.

4. Li, Z., Eesley, C., Eberhart, R., and Gorbatai, A. “Don’t Forget Who You Are: How Institutional Logics Influence the Crowdfunding Success of Open-Source Projects.” working paper, under review.

5. Li, Z., Seering W., “Understanding Value Propositions and Revenue Models in Open Source Hardware Companies”, conference proceeding at 6th International Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (ICIE), 2018.

6. Li, Z., Seering, W., Tao, T., Cao, S., “Understanding Community Behaviors in For-Profit Open- Source Hardware Projects”, Best Paper Award at International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED), 2019.