Alisa comes to academia after more than a decade of finance and entrepreneurship experience. Her goal is to help students, entrepreneurs and their ventures understand who they are and how it impacts their decisions and outcomes so that they can develop into and effectively communicate who they want to be. As such, her research centers on venture identity development, traditional and social media impact, communication and discourse analysis, and legitimacy and financing acquisition. Her professional career spans private equity investment, hedge fund trading, real estate financing, and business intelligence systems design and product management. Alisa's entrepreneurial experience ranges from building ventures in the peer-to-peer to business software spaces. As an entrepreneur, Alisa was featured on CNN, TechCrunch, Forbes, etc. Alisa holds a Ph.D. from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University as well as an M.B.A. and B.S.B.A from Babson College.