Academic Spotlight: Dr. Saran Nurse
September 19, 2022
With so many exciting things consistently taking place at Kean University, it can be easy to miss some of the brilliant minds doing impactful work and research in our community. We are thrilled to begin to spotlight some of our faculty and academic partners and let them share a bit about their work and the generous philanthropic support they have garnered to assist in their efforts.
Dr. Saran Nurse is an Equity in Action Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Management and Marketing at Kean University. She teaches Business Ethics and Entrepreneurship and has been involved in other initiatives that support entrepreneurship education at Kean, including the annual Business Plan Competition and the recent inaugural Changemakers Entrepreneurship Summer Program for high school students. Through her research, teaching and advising, she seeks to improve entrepreneurial outcomes for others who face challenges due to their gender, race and ethnicity. Dr. Nurse’s research lies at the intersection of race and entrepreneurship. She received her doctorate from the Milano School of Policy, Management and the Environment at The New School, Master of Business Administration from Georgetown University and Bachelor’s degree in Marketing and International Business from Florida International University. She has nearly two decades of experience as an entrepreneur, having grown a Brooklyn, New York-based business from the nascent stage into a successful multi-location enterprise.
Dr. Nurse and her team were recently awarded a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation to conduct research to understand the resilience of Black entrepreneurs to exogenous shocks and identify and implement a pilot program to support resilience. Their research uses critical race theory and critical race methodology to foreground race, racism and intersectionality, as these methodological approaches advocate for the centering of the voices and lived experiences of people of color throughout the research process. This project will help to drive transformative change by identifying, testing and validating the structural changes needed to help current and aspiring Black entrepreneurs be better prepared to respond to adverse events – such as natural disasters, gentrification and the COVID-19 Pandemic – thereby supporting the sustainability of Black entrepreneurship.
On behalf of the Kean University Foundation, we would like to extend our deepest appreciation to the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation for their generous grant. We wish Dr. Nurse the best of luck while conducting her research!