HERE FOR YOU

Our team is committed to helping you achieve your goal. 

We look forward to getting to know you.

OUR TEAM

Cynthia Franklin

Executive Director

Paul Hardart

Academic Director

Shay Gaskins

Associate Director

Stephanie Shyu

Associate Director

Paul Foster

Assistant Director

Tyana Bryan

Administrative Aide

FACULTY ADVISORS

Gino Cattani

Assistant Professor, Management & Organizations

Sabrina Howell

Assistant Professor,
Finance

Ilan Lobel

Associate Professor, Technology, Operations & Statistics

JOIN OUR TEAM. STUDENT POSITIONS AVAILABLE.

Berkley Center student assistants smiling
Student Assistant
The Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship is looking for two Student Assistant to provide operational support for the NYU Entrepreneurs Challenge and assist in one-of projects as needed.
More Info & Apply
SVF - Accelerator Program Coordinator
The Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship is seeking a Graduate Fellow to assist with day-to-day management of the 2022 Stern Venture Fellows Accelerator Program.
More info & Apply
Previous slide
Next slide

Cynthia Franklin

Cynthia oversees the development, execution, and growth of all Berkley Center initiatives. She also teaches Getting to Launch: The Startup Lab (MULT-UB 0301), a popular undergraduate course, and is capstone director for the Executive MBA DC program. In addition, Cynthia is the instructor for the nationally acclaimed Strategic Steps for Growth, a capacity-building program targeting growth-focused women and minority business owners. She has 16 years of experience starting, growing, and advising new ventures. Cynthia holds an MBA from Stern and BBA in quantitative management, magna cum laude, from Baruch College. She chairs the NYU Federal Credit Union’s board of directors and serves on the board of Interise, a social impact organization that revitalizes economies in underserved communities by providing small business owners with entrepreneurial education and access to new networks and markets.

ONE THING YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Audible audiobooks, I have 240 titles in my library

GUILTY PLEASURE
Watching the TV show Dallas for the first time, all 14 seasons are on Amazon Prime

SECRET SKILL
I’m a much better cook than I let on.

Deepak Hegde, PhD

Professor Hegde oversees the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship’s strategic direction. He is also associate professor of management and founding director of the Endless Frontier Labs. Professor Hedge is an academic expert on entrepreneurship and strategy. He started his career as an engineer and earned his Ph.D. is business economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Shay Gaskins

Shay develops and manages the marketing and communications efforts for the Berkley Center’s initiatives. She also assists with operational support for various programming and events. Shay is an alumna of Ithaca College where she earned a BS in sports media, and NYU where she earned an MS in public relations and corporate communications from the School of Professional Studies.

ONE THING YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Hot sauce (I even keep some at my desk just in case!)

GUILTY PLEASURE
Any kind of dessert or sweet treat, but especially Sour Patch Watermelons

SECRET SKILL
I’m an incredibly fast reader, I can usually finish a 500 page book in about a day or so if I’m really into it

Danny Lafuente

Danny focuses on the delivery of 1:1 startup advising for founders seeking assistance with launching and growing their ventures. He also oversees our summer startup accelerator, the Stern Venture Fellows program. Prior to joining Stern, Danny co-founded The Lab Miami, an incubator space in Miami, Fl. He is also co-founder and board member of Mano Americas (a STEM-focused education and events company). He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania.

ONE THING YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
My Apple TV and various streaming services (so I can binge watch sitcoms)

GUILTY PLEASURE
The Cheesy Gordita Crunch from Taco Bell

SECRET SKILL
I have been clocked at upwards of 75 words per minute

Paul Foster

Paul….


ONE THING YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Movies

GUILTY PLEASURE
TBD

SECRET SKILL
TBD

Patricia Miller

Patricia provides the team with administrative, program coordination, and event logistics support. She is a graduate of LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York.

ONE THING YOU CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT
Sweets!

GUILTY PLEASURE
Watching Hallmark movies

SECRET SKILL
I’m a certified nurse technician

Gino Cattani

Gino Cattani joined New York University’s Stern School of Business as an Assistant Professor of Management and Organization in September 2004. Professor Cattani’s research is primarily focused on technological innovation and competition, interfirm mobility, creativity, and social networks. 

Professor Cattani completed his undergraduate studies at the Faculty of Economics in Pisa where he received a BA in Accountancy & Business in 1991. After qualifying as an accountant in 1992, and spending the 1995-1996 academic year as a Visiting Fellow Student at the MIT-Sloan School of Management in Boston, he received a Dottorato di Ricerca in Business Administration from the Faculty of Economics in Pisa in 1997. 

Professor Cattani received an M.A. in Management Science and Applied Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Management from Wharton in August 2004. 

Research areas: 

Technological Innovation and Competition, Creativity, Inter-firm Mobility, Social Networks 

Courses taught: 

Strategy, Strategy II 

Sabrina Howell

Sabrina Howell is an Assistant Professor of Finance at the New York University Stern School of Business. She is also a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. 

Professor Howell’s research focuses on entrepreneurial finance, innovation, fintech, energy, and China. She is the recipient of the 2015 AQR Top Finance Graduate Award at Copenhagen Business School and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. 

Professor Howell received her B.A. in Economics and East Asian Studies from Yale University and her Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government, Economics track from Harvard University. She previously worked as an energy consultant for Charles River Associates in Houston, and on energy security policy for Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE) in Washington D.C.

Research areas:

Accelerators, Fintech, Entrepreneurship, Innovation

Courses taught: 

Applications in Entrepreneurial Finance: Fintech, Topics in Entrepreneurial Finance

Ilan Lobel

Ilan Lobel is an Associate Professor of Technology, Operations and Statistics and the Robert L. & Dale Atkins Rosen Faculty Fellow at New York University’s Stern School of Business. 

His research focuses on issues related to operations and new technologies, including issues such as pricing, learning and contract design in dynamic and networked markets. His work has been recognized by the 2018MSOM Young Scholar Prize and the 2014 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section Prize. He currently serves as an associate editor for Management Science and Operations Research and as a senior editor for Production and Operations Management. 

Professor Lobel has taught classes on decision modeling and analytics in a variety of different programs at Stern, including the undergraduate, full-time and part-time MBA, MSBA and EMBA programs. His teaching has been recognized by the 2018 Stern Distinguished Teaching Award, and by the 2017 Poets & Quants Top 40 MBA Professors Under 40 list. 

He received his Ph.D. in Operations Research from MIT in 2009. Before joining NYU Stern, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Microsoft Research New England Lab. 

Research areas: 

Pricing and Revenue Management, Entrepreneurship, Online Markets, Social Networks

Courses taught: 

Decision Models & Analytics