Tech Entrepreneur, educator, researcher, and creative practitioner building intelligent systems with businesses and students through innovation.
My work bridges professional practice and the classroom: translating emerging technology into practical systems, industry partnerships, student projects, and scholarly questions. I bring more than 25 years of experience across media and entertainment, technology, healthcare, and enterprise operations.
I have spent my career working where technology, operations, data, and business decisions meet. Much of my professional experience has been based in Los Angeles, where I continue to maintain and rebuild relationships across the technology and entertainment ecosystem.
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Business Administration at the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver with a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship, expecting to graduate in Summer 2027. I am also completing an M.S. in Applied Data Science and AI through the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Denver, expected Summer 2027. I previously earned an MBA, an M.S. in Database Technologies, and a B.S. in Information Systems.
“I value continuous upskilling — especially when emerging technology changes what students and organizations need to know.”
Technology, teaching, and practice are strongest when they continue to inform one another.My teaching blends technical foundations with hands-on application. I have taught undergraduate, graduate, MBA, Ph.D., and executive education learners, with a strong emphasis on projects, prototypes, client-facing work, and making technical concepts accessible to students with different backgrounds.
Representative courses and teaching areas are shown here; the curriculum vitae provides the full appointment history and additional academic activity.
Applied learning matters most when students can connect course concepts to decisions they are already making in their businesses, careers, and communities.
In my Business Problem Solving Tools course at the University of Colorado Denver, marketing student and entrepreneur Melissa Rodriguez applied data analysis to her existing beauty business, using course work to think more intentionally about products, pricing, clients, and growth. The University of Colorado Denver later featured her experience, including how the course strengthened her business decision-making, presentation skills, and practical problem solving as she continued developing her business and professional experience.
Read the CU Denver student profile →My projects often sit between university learning, industry collaboration, and applied technology. I am particularly interested in work that gives students real stakeholders, real constraints, and something tangible to build or present.
A multidisciplinary class project involving my University of Colorado Denver students, music studio production, video production, university relationships, the Denver Broncos ecosystem, and collaboration with an LA-based Grammy-winning mastering engineer. The project reflects the kind of work I value: bringing technical, creative, business, and industry communities together around a visible outcome.
Watch the CBS Colorado student interview →Projects have included AI-enabled advising concepts, locally running assistants, voice interfaces, touchscreens, and prototypes developed around real university and organizational needs.
Since returning to Los Angeles, I have been re-engaging my network and exploring collaboration ideas with Grammy-winning music producers, including concepts for edge-intelligent systems that can assist recording and production workflows.
An upcoming chapter in a practice-oriented academic volume on transformative mentorship, developed in collaboration with faculty from Dartmouth College, the University of Pittsburgh, and Bentley University. My contribution explores artificial wisdom, entrepreneurship, and human-AI collaboration as tools for mentorship and decision support.
My scholarly work focuses on AI adoption, entrepreneurship, intelligent systems, and human-AI collaboration. I value conferences as opportunities to share research, learn from emerging work, build relationships with other scholars, and bring new ideas back into my teaching and applied projects. I also encourage and support students in developing work for conference submission so they can experience academic exchange, present their ideas, and build their own professional networks.
The Influence of Innovativeness, Proactiveness, and Risk-Taking, co-authored with John Sebesta and presented at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
Read the paper →My doctoral and applied work examines how people and organizations evaluate, adopt, and use AI, with particular interest in entrepreneurial settings and the design of systems that support real decision-making.
Follow my scholarship on Google Scholar →Innovation and Entrepreneurship concentration, Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. Expected Summer 2027.
Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Denver. Expected Summer 2027.
Practice-oriented academic book chapter on transformative mentorship and human-AI collaboration.
A few examples of university and media coverage related to my research, teaching, AI work, and student collaborations.
A Daniels College of Business profile on applied AI, entrepreneurship, research, and integrating emerging technology into teaching.
Featured perspective on AI, business collaboration, and how organizations may use intelligent systems as practical partners in work.
CBS Colorado interviewed my University of Colorado Denver students about their experience developing and producing a class project that involved music studio production and video production. The project also included collaboration with an LA-based Grammy-winning mastering engineer.
Music is another part of how I think about technology, collaboration, and creative practice. It also informs my interest in emerging tools for recording, production, and human-AI interaction.
Artist / Vocals: Leonard R. Dixon
Artist / Vocals: Leonard R. Dixon
Open to industry-academic partnerships and collaborative projects in AI, entrepreneurship, and innovation.