The Mack Innovation Doctoral Association (MIDAS) is a student-run cross-departmental organization of Wharton PhD students interested in research topics related to innovation, including technology strategy, financing and organizing of innovation, entrepreneurship, and digitization. Its main activities include a seminar series for in-progress student research and the Wharton Innovation Doctoral Symposium (WINDS), a multi-disciplinary doctoral conference that takes place annually.
The MIDAS seminar series offers an informal and stimulating environment for students to propose new research ideas, discuss preliminary work, highlight new data sources, receive suggestions from peers, and circulate helpful information. Industry-academic seminars and workshops connect theory to practice and allow members to watch current innovation challenges play out.
Participation in MIDAS is primarily for Wharton doctoral and postdoctoral students. If you do not meet these criteria but would like to join, please contact the organizers below.
MIDAS is a collaboration between Wharton PhD students, the Mack Institute, and Wharton Doctoral Programs. The seminar was started by two PhD students, Andrea Contigiani (Management) and Kyle Myers (Healthcare), in the spring of 2015.
Seminar Topics
- Innovation and technology strategy
- Financing of innovation
- Organization of innovation
- Innovation and science policy
- Entrepreneurship
- Economics of digitization
How to Join
To sign up, please email the organizers at board-innovation-group@wharton.upenn.edu.
Board 2025–2026
- Fernando Stein (President, FINANCE)
- Devanshi Agarwal (MGMT)
- Enzo Bergamo (OID)
- Vanessa Jia (HEALTHCARE)
- Na Hyun Kim (OIDD)
- Larry Lin (MGMT)
- Sachin Srivastava (MGMT)
Board Members

Devanshi Agarwal
Devanshi is a first-year PhD student in Management at the Wharton School.Read more
Devanshi is a first-year PhD student in the Management Department at Wharton. Her research interests focus on how migration patterns affect entrepreneurship. She previously worked in private equity consulting and has a bachelor’s degree in economics and an MBA.

Enzo Bergamo
Enzo is a second-year PhD student in Operations Management at the Wharton SchoolRead more
Enzo is a second-year PhD student in Operations Management at the Wharton School. His research applies novel data-driven methods to examine customer decision-making in operational contexts, with applications to understanding the impact of queueing dynamics on consumer purchasing behavior in retail environments. Before beginning his doctoral studies, Enzo worked as an economic consultant and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Systems Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Vanessa Jia
Vanessa is a first-year PhD student in Healthcare Management at the Wharton School.Read more
Vanessa (Luyuan) Jia is a Ph.D. student in Healthcare Management and Economics at the Wharton School. Her research lies at the intersection of industrial organization and health economics, focusing on how market structure and contracting influence innovation and the diffusion of new technologies in the context of pharmaceutical and medical device markets. Before starting her doctoral studies, she earned a bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in Statistics from Tsinghua University and worked as a predoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

Na Hyun Kim
Na Hyun is a second-year PhD student in Operations Management at the Wharton School.Read more
Na Hyun is a second-year PhD student in Operations, Information, and Decisions Department at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. She was born in Seoul, South Korea. Prior to her doctoral studies, she received my B.B.A in Business Administration and B.A. in Economics with a minor in Mathematics from Seoul National University.

Larry Lin
Larry is a first-year PhD student in Management at the Wharton School.Read more
Larry Lin is a first-year PhD student in the Management Department studying innovation, acquisitions, and human capital. He holds a BA in Economics from UC Berkeley and a BS in Business Administration from UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business.

Sachin Srivastava
Sachin is a first-year PhD student in Management at the Wharton School.Read more
Sachin is a first-year PhD student in Management at the Wharton School. His research lies at the intersection of strategy, entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial finance. Before starting his doctoral studies, Sachin worked as a Predoctoral Fellow in the Entrepreneurial Management and Finance unit at Harvard Business School. Sachin earned dual M.S. degrees in Public Policy and Innovation Management from Carnegie Mellon University and completed his undergraduate studies in Electrical and Electronics Engineering in India.

Fernando Stein
Fernando is a third-year Ph.D. student in Finance.Read more
Fernando is a third-year Ph.D. student in Finance. Specializing in asset pricing and innovation. His research examines how financial markets respond to innovation, particularly around the announcement and release of new products. Before starting his doctoral studies, Fernando worked at Bank of America, focusing on FX and fixed income strategy in emerging markets. He earned both a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Applied Mathematics and a master’s degree in Economic Theory from the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México (ITAM).
Alumni
- Aparajita Agarwal
- Sarath Balachandran
- Jiayi Bao
- Aymeric Bellon
- Andrew Boysen
- Logan Bryan
- Qingqing Chen
- Zorina Chen
- Jaeho Choi
- Andrea Contigiani
- John Eklund
- Charu Gupta
- Jessica Jeffers
- Fujie Jin
- Jaeho Kim
- Karren Knowlton
- Hideto Koizumi
- Jessica Kim-Gina
- Henrique Laurino Dos Santos
- Jason Lee
- Tong Liu
- Bowen Lou
- Xinyu Ma
- Mauricio Medeiros Junior
- Brittany Mallory
- Alex Miller
- Kyle R. Myers
- Tanya Paul
- Michael Pergler
- Ryan Peters
- Vishut Rana
- Lindsay Relihan
- Ruben Ramirez Salas
- Vinay Subramanian
- Lisa Tang
- Ndubuisi (Richard) Ugwuanyi
- Sathya Vijayakumar
- Berry Wang
- Sirui Wang
- Daniel Wilde
- Andy Wu
- Hongyu Xiao
- Yangxinyu Xie

