Erica Estrada-Liou

Director of the Academy for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, University of Maryland

Erica Estrada-Liou is the Director of the University of Maryland's Academy for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. She engages students, staff, faculty and administrators in applying design to their work, both at the course level and university-wide. She is a member of the teaching team for the Teaching & Learning Studio at the d.school, helping to activate educators from both UMD and all over the world in design. Erica is also a co-founder of d.light design, a social enterprise that provides affordable light and power products to people living off of the electrical grid. After seeing d.light’s first product to market, she joined the d.school as a Design Fellow, and later became the co-founder and director of the Social Entrepreneurship Lab. While at the d.school, she taught various classes and workshops on human-centered design applied to poverty and various social issues, both in the U.S. and abroad. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in mechanical engineering and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.